Pandeli Sotiri

Pandeli Sotiri
Pandeli Sotiri in a photo
Born	1843 Selckë, Pogon, Gjirokaster County, Albania (then Ottoman Empire)
Died	1892 (aged 49) Thessaloniki, Greece
Occupation	Teacher, Publisher,
Ethnicity	Albanian
Period	1872–1892
Literary movement	Albanian National Revival

Pandeli Sotiri (1842–1892) was an Albanian activist that acted as director of the first Albanian school of modern times in Korçë. Sotiri was one of the most important Rilindas figures that contributed in the propagation of the Albanian language. He also worked on one of the versions of the Albanian alphabet. The Congress of Monastir based Albanian's alphabet mostly on Sotiri's precedent work.

Sotiri was born in 1843 in the village of Selckë in the Lunxhëri region, Janina Vilayet of Ottoman Empire (now Pogon municipality, Gjirokastër District, Albania) . Along with Petro Nini Luarasi he was an alumnus at the Greek teacher seminary in Qestorati, Gjirokastër, where Koto Hoxhi secretly taught in Albanian and inculcated Albanian nationalistic ideals to his students.

Sotiri was part of the Central Committee for Defending Albanian Rights created in Istanbul in 1877, and its branch Society for the Publication of Albanian Writings (Albanian: Shoqëri e të shtypurit shkronjavet shqip), Istambul, 12 October 1879.

In 1884 he took over the publishing of the first magazine entirely written in Albanian, the magazine Drita, which had first been published by Petro Poga. However Sotiri had to issue a new permit and to change the name of the magazine into Dituria (meaning "knowledge" in English).