Parashqevi Qiriazi

Parashqevi Qiriazi
Parashqevi Qiriazi
Born	2 June 1880 Monastir, Manastir Vilayet, Ottoman Empire
Died	1970 (aged 90) Tirana, Albania
Home town	Monastir, Ottoman Empire (now Republic of Macedonia
Relatives	sister of Gjerasim Qiriazi (1858-1894), Gjergj Qiriazi (1868-1912), and Sevasti Qiriazi (1871-1949)

Parashqevi Qiriazi (2 June 1880 – 1970) was an Albanian teacher who dedicated her life to the Albanian alphabet and to the instruction of written Albanian language. She was a woman participant at the Congress of Monastir, which decided the form of the Albanian alphabet, and the founder of the Yll' i Mengjesit, a women's association. Parashqevi was also a participant in the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 as a member of the Albanian-American community. She was the sister of Sevasti Qiriazi, who was the director of the Mësonjëtorja, the first Albanian School for girls to open in 1891.

Parashqevi was born in Bitola (back then Monastir), in the Manastir Vilayet, Ottoman Empire (present-day Republic of Macedonia). When she was only 11 she started to help her brother Gjerasim Qiriazi and sister Sevasti Qiriazi to teach written Albanian to girls in the first school for girls in Albania, the Girls' School (Albanian: Shkolla e Vashave), which opened on October 15, 1891.

She later studied at Robert College in Istanbul. Upon graduation she went to Korçë to work as an elementary teacher along with her sister, Sevasti at the Mësonjëtorja, the first Albanian school which had opened in 1887.

In 1908 she was a participant in the Congress of Monastir and the only woman to be there.

In 1909 she published an abecedarium for elementary schools. Although the Congress of Monastir had decided about the new alphabet, two versions of the alphabet were still present in her abecedary, which shows how fragile the consensus of the Congress still was. However, along with the abecedarium, she published some very well known verses on the defense of the new Albanian alphabet: