Gabriele Dara

Gabriele Dara (8 January 1826 – 15 November 1885) commonly known as Gavril Dara Junior (Albanian: Gavril Dara i Ri, Italian: Gabriele Dara il Giovane[1]) was an Arbëreshë politician and poet of the 19th century. He is regarded as one of the early writers of the Albanian National Awakening.

Gabriele Dara
Born(1826-01-08)8 January 1826
Palazzo Adriano, Province of Palermo, Sicily, southern Italy
Died15 November 1885(1885-11-15) (aged 59)
Agrigento, Sicily, Italy
Occupationlawyer, publisher, politician, and poet
NationalityItalian
Period1856–1880
GenrePoetry
Literary movementAlbanian National Awakening
Notable worksThe last lay of Bala (Albanian: Kënka e sprasme e Balës)

Life
Gabriele Dara on a 1989 Albanian stamp

Gabriele Dara was born on 8 January 1826 in Palazzo Adriano, a town in Sicily, southern Italy. His family was one of the first to migrate from Albania to Italy after Skanderbeg's death.[2] His grandfather Gabriele Dara the Elder was among the first collectors of Arbëreshë folklore, while his father Ndre or Andrea published a dictionary of folkloric terms.[3]

At an early age he learned Latin and Ancient Greek. In Palermo he received a degree in law and practiced in Agrigento. After the unification of Italy he held a variety of offices in Sicily.[4] At first he served as the first councilor of the prefecture of Palermo and from 1867 to 1869 as governor of Trapani, a town in western Sicily. From 1871 to 1874 he was the director of the liberal political magazine The Reform (Italian: La Riforma). He died in 15 November 1885 in Agrigento.[5]

Work

His early works include verse in the Italian language and a poem in Arberesh dedicated to Saint Lazarus. Dara's best-known work is Kënka e sprasme e Balës (The last song of Bala) originally written in Arbëresh language and later translated into Italian.[4] Kënka e sprasme e Balës is a four-part epic romantic ballad containing nine cantos and recounts the adventures of Nik Peta and Pal Golemi, two Albanian heroes that lived in the era of the League of Lezhë.[4] It was first published in 1887 after his death in installments in the periodical Arbri i ri (Young Albania), published by Giuseppe Schirò. In July 1900 it was fully published in Arbëresh and Italian in the journal La Nazione albanese (The Albanian Nation).[4]

References
  1. Lingua. Vaccarizzo Albanese website
  2. Pynsent, Robert (1993). Reader's encyclopedia of Eastern European literature. HarperCollins. p. 81. ISBN 0-06-270007-3.
  3. Minni, Dino (1990). Writers in transition: the proceedings of the First National Conference of Italian-Canadian Writers. Guernica Editions. p. 62. ISBN 0-920717-26-8.
  4. Elsie, Robert; Centre for Albanian Studies (2005). Albanian literature: a short history. I.B.Tauris. pp. 56–7. ISBN 1-84511-031-5.
  5. Qosja, Rexhep (1984). Historia e letërsisë shqipe: romantizmi. Historia e letërsisë shqipe: romantizmi (in Albanian). 2. Botimet Toena. p. 459.
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