Albanian literature

The Albanian literature is the literature written in the Albanian language. It may also refer to literature written by Albanians or in Albania.

Theodor of Shkodra or Theodor Shkodrani was an Albanian scholar of late 12th - early 13th century, of whom little is yet known. In 1998, a 208-page parchment written by Theodor of Shkodra discovered in the archives of Vatican dated to the year 1210. The work is a manuscript decorated with golden miniatures and colored initials, divided in three parts. Pages 1–97 deal with theology, 98–146 with philosophy, and pages 147–208 with a history of the known world from AD 153 to 1209. On the final page of the manuscript we find a note by the author "With the assistance and great love of the blessed Lord, I finished this in the year 1210 on the 9th day of March.".

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 almost into all European languages, or Marino Becichemi (1408–1526), 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 the Albanian language 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 brought into the Albanian language the Catholic liturgy, trying to do for the Albanian language what Luther did for German.

...
Wikipedia