On October 2, 1754, the inscription on the gate of the Monastery of Saint Marena in the village of Llengë in Moker in Pogradec was completed. This masterpiece of our medieval art was realized with the help of all Christians and priests of the city.

On October 2, 1894, the writer Bernardin Palaj was born in Dukagjin. He completed his higher studies in Austria. For a period he served as a priest in Northern Albania. He is known as a poet and folklorist, but also as the author of several studies on our culture and literature. After the liberation, he was imprisoned by the monist regime and died in Shkodra prison in December 1947.

The heroine of the highlands, Tringe Smajla, passed away on October 2, 1917, at the age of 47. She was born in 1870 in Podgorica. She was an organizer and fighter in the Malësi uprising in 1911. She made available her property to help the opening of Albanian schools in the Great Highlands. She enjoyed authority and respect throughout the Northern Highlands. She passed away at the age of 47.

The Albanian Committee of Istanbul in October 1900 addressed to the Sultan and the governments of the great powers the request that the Albanians wherever they are be accepted in the bosom of the civilized countries of Europe both for their antiquity and for their geographical and historical position.

On October 2, 1906, the first American Consul in our country opened his headquarters in Shkodër, where there were several other consulates.

On October 2, 1914, Esat Pashë Toptani was declared the head of the temporary government in Durres and commander-in-chief of the army.

Foqion Postoli, writer and patriot, died on October 2, 1927. He was born in Korça where he received his first lessons and then immigrated to the USA. In 1921 he returned to his homeland. He remained in the reader’s memory with the novel “The Flower of Memory” which was later dramatized, but also staged as an opera by Kristo Kono.

The patriotic families Dako and Qirjazi founded in Tirana on October 2, 1922 the Qiriazi Institute, a secondary school for girls of the American College type.

On October 2, 1999, the scholar of prophetic history Sheh Albani passed away in the capital of Jordan, Amman. He was born in Shkodër in 1914. Thanks to his fame and scientific knowledge, Sheh Albani in Saudi Arabia became a lecturer at the Islamic University of Medina for three years. Sheh Albani lived in Jordan, Lebanon, and United Arab Emirates.

The Albanianologist Robert Elsie passed away on October 2, 2017.

The German researcher of Canadian origin rummaged through the Albanian folklore, highlighting, before the world, the distinctive features of the nation over the centuries.

In fulfillment of his last bequest, Robert Elsie was buried in the middle of the Albanian Alps, in the tourist village of Theth, to which he dedicated one of his many books, proving for the last time his connection with Albania and Albanians.

The considerable work he left behind constitutes an interdisciplinary wealth, which includes the spiritual, cultural, historical and linguistic heritage of the Albanian people.

Elsie’s most important publications among his extensive research and scholarly activity are studies on ethnography, ethnology, anthropology, text philology, history of writing, linguistics, ethnoculture, oral and written literature, beliefs, cult and the scriptures.

/k.s/