Kyrias Family

Kyrias family (Albanian: Familja Qiriazi) were a prominent Albanian family from Manastir (today's Republic of Macedonia). They were educators, publishers, and public figures of the Albanian National Awakening period. The four members were part of the earliest Protestants in Albania and even today's Kosovo. They are remembered for their activities in support of the consolidation of Albanian national awareness.

Gjerasim Qiriazi (1858–1894) attended a Greek school in his native Monastir and, with the assistance of his English teacher, the American missionary Jenney, studied at an American Bible college in Samokov, Bulgaria. After four years of training there, he was offered a job by the British and Foreign Bible Society, for whom he began working in Korça in 1883. He also began writing an Albanian grammar and is known to have preached in Albanian. On 12 November 1884, while traveling in the mountains southwest of Lake Ohrid, he was attacked by bandits and held for ransom for half a year. The narrative of his six-month ordeal was translated into English by J. W. Baird of Monastir as Captured by Brigands (London, 1902). The opening of the first officially recognized Albanian school in Korça in 1887 inspired him and his sisters Sevasti Qiriazi-Dako (1871–1949) and Parashqevi Qiriazi (1880–1970) to open a girls’ school. With the assistance of Naim Frashëri and, in particular, of American and English missionaries, they received the appropriate authorizations in Istanbul and on 15 October 1891 opened the first Albanian girls’ school in Korça. The following summer, they moved the premises to a larger building to make room for more pupils. The Greek Orthodox hierarchy was fanatically opposed to the school from the start and went so far as to refuse to bury the son of one of its patrons. On 4 January 1894, Gjerasim Qiriazi died, aged 36, of the pleurisy he had contracted during his period of captivity. He was the author of poetry, songs, sketches, dialogues, and school textbooks. A selection of his writings was published by his younger brother Gjergj in the collection Hristomathi më katër pjesë (Chrestomathy in Four Parts ; Sofia, 1902).

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