FISHTA, GIORGIO. - Albanian Franciscan and poet, born in Zadrima on 13 Oct. 1871, died in Scutari on 30 Dec. 1940. In Bosnia he attended courses in philosophy and theology and, ordained priest in Scutari, taught literary subjects there in the schools of the College of the Order, of which he subsequently became provincial for Albania. He was also a deputy and, in 1921, vice-president of Parliament. He took part as secretary of legation in the Paris Conference and, in 1930, in the Inter-Balkan Conference of Athens. Member of the Accademia d’Italia from 1939.
To the labours of the sacred ministry and to political activity he joined the cultivation of poetry, rapidly becoming popular among his people, whose genius he succeeded in interpreting effectively. He cultivated epic poetry (Lahuta e Malcì [The liuco of the mountain]), a poem in thirty cantos celebrating the struggles waged by the Albanians against the Montenegrins), lyric poetry (Mrisi i Zănavet [The dwelling of the Muses], of patriotic content), satire (Anzat e Parnasit, against the European chanceries), and drama (L'Albanese civilizzato; L'Albanese civilizzato, melodramas in three acts). Valija e Parricit contains lyric poems and dramas of
religious subject matter. He translated Manzoni’s Iusi sacri. His art combines primitivism and Romanticism with singularly vivid effects.