Sevasti Qiriazi-Dako (Sevasti D.
Kyrias) (ca. 1871–1949) was an Albanian patriot, educator, Protestant missionary, author, pioneer of Albanian female education, and activist of the Albanian National Awakening.
Sevasti Qiriazi-Dako (Sevastia D. Kyrias) | |
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Born | ca. 1870 |
Died | August 30, 1949 | (aged 77–78)
Resting place | Tirana, Varrezat e Sharrës |
Nationality | Albanian |
Other names | Sevasti D. Kyrias, Sevasti Kyrias-Dako, Sevasti Qirias |
Education | Bachelor of Arts |
Alma mater | American College for Girls at Constantinople (B.A.) |
Occupation(s) | Educator, Missionary |
Spouse | Kristo Dako |
Children | Aleksandër Dako, Gjergj Dako |
Parent(s) | Dhimitër Qiriazi, Maria Qiriazi (Vodica) |
Relatives | Gjerasim Qiriazi, Gjergj Qiriazi, Kristo Qiriazi, Parashqevi Qiriazi |
Awards | Order of Skanderbeg Order of Freedom Order for Patriotic Activity Honor of the Nation Symbol of the City (Tirana) |
Signature | |
Sevasti was born ca. 1870 to the patriotic Qiriazi family of Tërnovë, Monastir, in today's North Macedonia, then Ottoman Empire. She was the sixth of ten children.: 41 Her family's religious background was Orthodox, and she began attending a Greek-language primary school at age four.: 43 In her youth she learned several languages (Albanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Wallachian, Turkish, English).: 44 She and her family came into close contact with Albanian patriots and American Protestant missionaries who operated a school and conducted religious services near their home in Monastir.: 43–45 Sevasti was enrolled in the Americans' school and graduated with the equivalent of a high school diploma in July 1888.
Sevasti attended the American College for Girls at Constantinople from 1888–1891. Her brother Rev. Gjerasim Qiriazi arranged her enrollment.: 63–64 She was admitted as a sophomore and graduated in 1891 with a class of eight women and received a Bachelor of Arts degree, becoming the first Albanian female to complete a college education.: 63–64 Her purpose for attending college was to prepare herself to help her brother Gjerasim open a girls' school in Albania.: 66 Sevasti identified her key influencers in college as: Clara Hamlin (the college's principal and the daughter of Cyrus Hamlin), Florence A. Fensham, Mary Mills Patrick, Ida Prime, Caroline Borden, and the Bulgarian Grandinaroff family.: 68–70 Gjerasim Qiriazi invited the influential Albanian Frashëri brothers (Abdyl Frashëri, Sami Frashëri and Naim Frashëri) to attend Sevasti's graduation. Naim Frashëri used his role in the Ottoman government to register her diploma officially and obtain an irade (official decree) for the opening of the first Albanian school for girls in Korçë: 79 (pronounced [ˈkɔɾtʃə]; Albanian definite form: Korça).
Though Orthodox Christian by birth, Sevasti joined the Protestant community founded by her brother Gjerasim. In Korçë she led Bible studies and prayer meetings for women. She was a "Bible Woman" and was financed by the ABCFM's Woman's Board of Missions and the Bible Lands Missions' Aid Society. She referred to herself as a missionary when traveling to the USA to visit Ellen Stone and John Henry House in 1904.
After her graduation from college, Sevasti returned to Monastir and then to Korçë, where she joined her brother Gjerasim in opening an Albanian-language school for girls. Sevasti was its director. The school operated under difficult conditions including poverty, prejudice against female education, difficulty in obtaining books, political opposition from local Ottoman authorities, and political and ecclesiastical opposition from the Greek Orthodox Church.: 4–6 Despite these unfavorable circumstances, the school maintained an average yearly enrollment of 47 students during 1891–1913. The school received significant visitors such as Edith Durham in 1901 and Henry Brailsford in 1904.: 102, 106–107
At the time of its existence, the school was known as a Protestant Christian school. Its founders were Evangelicals, it was supported by Protestant organizations, its educational curriculum included religious subjects with biblical texts, and its premises were used for Evangelical Sunday School and worship services. However, the school welcomed students of all religions and its teachers did not require conversion to Protestantism. It was praised by Albanians of all religions and classes as being a "national nest" (fole kombëtare).
When Gjerasim Qiriazi died in 1894, Sevasti Qiriazi (at approximately 23 years old) assumed full responsibility for the Girls School.: 93–95 She shared leadership over the following years with Luka Tira, Fanka Efthim, Thanas Sina, Grigor Cilka, Gjergj Qiriazi, and Gjon Ciko,: 92 and she eventually solicited the help of the American Protestant missionaries Phineas and Violet Bond Kennedy, who arrived in Korça in 1908 (Violet was the daughter of an American Protestant missionary in Monastir, Lewis Bond, and was Sevasti's close friend throughout childhood and college).: 6 : 64
The school continued to function through 1914, when war conditions and Greek hostilities in Korça forced its closure.: 155–165
In summer 1904, after serving 13 years as director of the Albanian school for girls in Korça, Sevasti Qiriazi traveled to the United States.: 109 Parashqevi Qiriazi became director of the school in her absence. Sevasti arrived in New York in August 1904, and visited friends in New York, Boston, and Chicago, speaking about Albania at various women's societies. She resided for one month with Ellen Stone and visited Jane Addams and Hull House. She called her visit to the USA "a glimpse of liberty.": 109–112 During her return to Albania in May 1905, she visited London, Paris, and Vienna before stopping in Bucharest, where she met Pandeli Evangjeli and her future husband Christo Dako (1880-1941), a recent graduate of the University of Bucharest and general secretary of the Albanian "Dituria" society. Sevasti recruited Dako to prepare the first Albanian textbooks in mathematics.: 113–114
In 1908, Sevasti was invited to represent her Girls School at the Congress of Monastir, which aimed to settle the Albanian alphabet question. Sevasti could not attend, but her sister Parashqevi attended in her place. A delegation from the Congress visited the Girls School in Korçë after the conclusion of the Congress, including Luigj Gurakuqi, Fehim Zavalani and Nyzhet Vrioni. In 1909 Sevasti was invited in her role as director of the school to take part in the Congress of Elbasan which aimed to address national education in Albania. She attended with her brother Gjergj Qiriazi.: 121–128
Sevasti was married to Kristo Dako on August 4, 1910. The ceremony was performed by Protestant missionary Rev. Charles Telford Erickson. They had two children, Aleksandër "Skënder" Dako (1910–1995) and Gjergj Dako (1913–1949). The full English rendering of their names was Alexander Gerasim Dako and George Charles Dako (namesakes for her two deceased brothers Gjerasim and Gjergj). Both boys studied for eight years at Robert College.
In 1911, Sevasti and her husband Kristo Dako were visited in Monastir by American businessman Charles Richard Crane, who was on the board of the American College for Girls at Constantinople and sought to learn more about Albania and the Near East. Crane had learned about Sevasti and Kristo through Edward I. Bosworth, dean of Oberlin Seminary and formerly K. Dako's professor at Oberlin.: 139–140 They maintained friendly and working relations for many years, later spending several summer holidays at Mr. and Mrs. Crane's summer home at Woods Hole, Massachusetts.: 171, 184–185
In 1914, due to hostilities with Greek forces in Korça, Sevasti, her husband, and their two children were forced to flee Albania, and the Girls School was closed. They spent nearly 12 months living in Bucharest and Sofia before emigrating to the United States in 1915 and settling in Natick and Southbridge, Massachusetts, where she would assist her husband in opening the first Albanian school in America at the local YMCA: 173–174 They resettled in Boston (Jamaica Plain) where Sevasti assisted her sister in publishing the semi-monthly periodical Yll'i Mëngjezit / Morning Star (1917–1920), and where she and her husband became more involved in Vatra and the Albanian national cause.: 175–180
At the end of 1921 Sevasti Qiriazi-Dako and her children returned to Albania, where her husband had previously returned to work with the Albanian government. In her memoirs, Sevasti described the conditions in Albania as being "primitive" and claimed she was inspired to devote the rest of her life to helping to rebuild her nation.: 186–193
Together with her husband Kristo Dako and her sister Parashqevi Qiriazi, Sevasti founded a new institution of female education in Tirana. Though privately funded, it was considered a national school, representing all districts, classes and religious beliefs. In 1926 they began construction of a new facility in Kamëz. The facility was operational by 1927 and completed in 1929. King Zog I, whose sisters Princess Myzejen Zogu and Princess Maxhide Zogu had attended the school in Tirana, visited the new campus. The school was notable for its library, athletics program, fine arts events, system of student government, and the success of its graduates.: 201–216 In 1931 the school celebrated the 40th anniversary of its founding, viewing itself as a continuation of the Girls School founded in Korçë in 1891. Many dignitaries, Albanian and foreign, attended the ceremony.
In 1933, with the nationalization of private education, the Kyrias Institute was forced to close and did not reopen despite repeated requests by the Qiriazi sisters to the government.: 184–191 Sevasti refused to allow the premises of the school to be rented by the Red Cross for humanitarian work or to be used for anything other than its original purpose for the education of women.: 186–187
After the closure of the school Sevasti began writing her memoirs in English.: 188
The Italian invasion of Albania of 1939 led to the creation of the Italian protectorate of Albania (1939–1943). During this time period Sevasti's husband Kristo Dako passed away and the school property was repurposed by the Italian military as a weapons depot.: 188
The German invasion and occupation of Albania placed Sevasti-Qiriazi Dako and her sister Parashqevi in further danger, their home and former school facilities being used, as they were, as a weapons depot at a time of intense conflict between Italian forces, Albanian anti-fascist and liberation forces, and German invaders. In 1943 the Germans fired on the school, killing Sevasti's friend and her son. Sevasti and her family were imprisoned and deported to the Banjica concentration camp near Belgrade: 217–220 by pro-Nazi units led by Xhaferr Deva.
In late 1944, after a bombardment of the concentration camp by the Allied forces, Sevasti and her family were released and returned to Albania. They found their home had been ransacked, so began rebuilding. A variety of factors—such as Kristo Dako's affiliation with King Zog and his serving as minister in one of his cabinets, and the Qiriazis' and Dakos' affiliation with American schools, political figures and Protestant missionaries viewed by the government as spies—left them out of favor with the emerging communist regime in Albania. In 1946 they were evicted them from their home, and the school facilities were transformed into a communist party school. Kristo Dako's bones were exhumed, desecrated, and lost.
In 1946 Sevasti's sons Aleksandër and Gjergj were arrested and imprisoned, being accused of sedition, spying, and anti-state activities.: 220–221 In February 1949 Gjergj died in prison, during several days of intense interrogation and torture. In August 1949, after unsuccessful attempts to locate Gjergj's body and with Aleksandër still in prison, Sevasti died in poverty and with a broken heart.: 217–223
From 1959 and beyond, largely due to the efforts of Skënder Luarasi, Sevasti Qiriazi and her family began to regain recognition in Albania for their contributions to Albanian education and the emancipation of women, being decorated posthumously with the Order of Freedom (1960), the Medal for Patriotic Activity (1962) and the "Teacher of the People" (1987): 192–194
The following works or articles are known to have been written by Sevasti Qiriazi-Dako:
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