Sevasti Qiriazi

Sevasti Qiriazi (also known as Sevasti Qiriazi-Dako), 1871 - 30 August 1949, was an Albanian patriot and pioneer of Albanian female education.

Sevasti was a member of the patriotic Qiriazi (Kyrias) family of Monastir, today's Republic of Macedonia. The Albanian writer and publisher Naim Frashëri arranged for Sevasti to study in Robert College in Constantinople to get her ready to play an active role in the education of Albanian women. She was the first Albanian woman to study in the American institution, which she finished in June 1891. Upon returning to Ottoman Albania, she contributed in the first reopening of the Albanian school in Korçë in 1891 together with her brother Gjerasim Qiriazi.

The school was still known by the name of the Qiriazi (Kyrias) family, even after the First World War. Sevasti participated in the Congress of Manastir, assisting with the preparation of textbooks. She is said to have published a grammar for elementary schools (Bitola, 1912) and has edited a textbook on history. She moved to Romania and from there emigrated to the United States together with her husband, Christo Anastas Dako (1878-1941), a journalist, writer, and politician, and her sister Parashqevi, where she collaborated with the biweekly Morning Star (Albanian: Yll' i mëngjesit).Christo Anastas Dako would soon open the first Albanian school in America.

Sevasti returned to Albania in the early 1920s. She became one of the founders and directors of the female institution named "Kyrias" (as per family name) in Tiranë and Kamëz, in cooperation with her sister Parashqevi, and Dako. She and her sister were imprisoned and deported in the Anhalteleger Dedinje camp near Belgrade by the pro-Nazi units led by Xhaferr Deva for their anti-fascist views during World War II. They returned to Tirana after the war.

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