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Concept
Albanian literature
Summary
Albanian literature stretches back to the Middle Ages and comprises those literary texts and works written in Albanian. It may also refer to literature written by Albanians in Albania, Kosovo and the Albanian diaspora particularly in Italy. Albanian occupies an independent branch within the Indo-European family and does not have any other closely related language. The origin of Albanian is not entirely known, but it may be a successor of the ancient Illyrian language.
The Archbishop of Antivari Guillaume Adam wrote a report in 1332 in which he said that Albanians used Latin letters in their books although their language was quite different from the Latin language.
The oldest surviving documents written in Albanian are the "Formula e pagëzimit" (Baptismal formula) recorded by Pal Engjëlli, Bishop of Durrës in 1462 in the Gheg dialect, and some New Testament verses from that period.
The expansion of the Ottoman Empire pushed many Albanians from their homeland during the period of the Western European Renaissance humanism. Among the Albanian émigrés that became known in the humanist world are historian Marin Barleti (1460–1513) who in 1510 published in Rome a history of Skanderbeg, which was translated into many other European languages, or Marino Becichemi (1468–1526), Gjon Gazulli (1400–1455), Leonicus Thomeus (1456–1531), Michele Maruli (15th century), Michele Artioti (1480–1556) and many others who were distinguished in various fields of science, art and philosophy.
The cultural resistance was first of all expressed through the elaboration of Albanian in the area of church sacrifices and publications, mainly of the Catholic confessional region in the North, but also of the Orthodox in the South. The Protestant reforms invigorated hopes for the development of the local language and literary tradition when cleric Gjon Buzuku translated the Catholic liturgy into Albanian, trying to do for Albanian what Luther did for German.
Meshari (The Missal) by Gjon Buzuku, published by him in 1555, is the first literary work published in Albanian.
Official source
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