On December 27, 1899, the colossus of Albanian letters, the poet, writer, and translator Llazar Gusho, known as Lasgush Poradeci, was born.
The man who sang like no other to the lakes of human emotions continues to be the pride of his city, Pogradec, and all Albanians, even today, on the 124th anniversary of his birth.
He was born into a family with patriotic traditions. At the age of 10, he went to study in Monastir and later in Athens, where he completed high school.
In 1921, he went to Romania for higher studies. In Bucharest, he became involved with the Patriotic Movement of the Albanian Colony, befriended Asdreni and other Albanian patriots, and was elected as the general secretary of the Colony. In the summer of 1924, the government of Fan Noli awarded him a scholarship, allowing him to complete his higher studies in Graz (Austria) at the Faculty of Romance-Germanic Philology.
He is one of our greatest lyricists, distinguished for the sensitivity and poetic sweetness with which he sang to Albania and love.
Poradeci never compromised with his art, dedicating himself despite economic hardships and indifference from the official press of the time.
After the poet’s death on November 12, 1987, and the change of the system, the “Lasgushian” verse remains and continues to be nourishment for generations.
Poradeci is the author of two volumes of poetry, “Dance of the Stars” in 1933 and “Star of the Heart” in 1937, published in the capital of Romania. He is the author of more than 100 poems, some of which are love poems. He liked archaic words, folk expressions, as well as new words and lexical experiments. Mitrush Kuteli, who edited “Star of the Heart”, called him the “only Albanian poet who thought, spoke, and wrote only in the Albanian language”.
Much has been written about and numerous publications have been dedicated to Poradeci. Literary historians, critics, essayists, linguists, educators, writers, and journalists have written about him.
A year ago, to honor the figure of the poet of the lakes, thanks to a special fund, the Ministry of Culture agreed with the descendants of Lasgush Poradeci to purchase his personal library, making it part of the National Library.
A total of 650 book titles in foreign languages, as well as Albanian, used by the poet, bearing his notes or the autographs of donors.
An invaluable library that now serves researchers and students.
