SCHIRÒ, GIUSEPPE. - Sicilian-Albanian writer and poet, b. at Piana dei Greci on 10 Aug. 1865 and d. at Naples on 17 Feb. 1927. From his childhood he began to write poetry in Albanian, composing the short poems Shanderbeg and Kruja and translating from Greek the odes of Anacreon and other poems by ancient and modern authors.
His passion was Albanian. In 1887 he published the Rapsodie albanesi and the review Arbri i Rii, acquiring an excellent reputation among Italian and foreign Albanologists. To this first phase of activity, characterized by the exclusive use of the Italo-Albanian dialect, belong the Archivio, a collection of popular literature, the idyll Mili e Haidhia and Te Dheu i Huaj ("In a Foreign Land"), original short poems with a folkloric background. He later published some songs collected at Shkodër in Albania (1894), I Canti della battaglia (1897) and Canti popolari d'Albania (1901). When the chair of Albanian Language and Literature was established in 1900 at the Royal Oriental Institute of Naples, he was its teacher and later also its director until his death. Thus he was able to deepen and broaden his knowledge of the Albanian language in all its dialectal varieties while composing his many works in prose and verse. In 1904 he published the review La bandiera albanese in Albanian and, in Italian, the large volume Gli Albanesi e la questione balcanica, providing a rich body of documentation for the constitution of an Albanian State friendly to Italy. From 1912 to 1914 he was sent by the Italian government on a mission to Albania and, with his extensive knowledge and his competence, made possible the orientation of Albanian policy toward Italy. Among his principal works: Canti sacri delle colonie albanesi di Sicilia, Naples 1907; of these, which became popular, a large part is the work of S. himself. His collaboration in many Italian and Albanian periodicals was assiduous. Along with other works, the poem Kthimi ("The Return") has remained unpublished; it completes the cycle of Te Dheu i Huaj (his portrait is reproduced at v. ITALO-ALBANESI).
Bibliography
Gaetano Petrotta