Mit’hat Araniti or Aranitasi ( Thessaloniki , March 15, 1912 – Tirana , November 29 , 1992 ) was a lawyer, writer and publicist who was prominent in the 1940s with humorous feuilletons and sketches in the Tiran dialect , which were collected in the work Qyfyret e Rrem Voglit, a villager from Rrashbulle, considered the initiator of dialect literature. [ 1 ] A representative of the National Front , for forty years of imprisonment and exile he was a tireless translator of over 200-250 [ 2 ] translation units still completely identified, such as: scientific books, separate ones and studies on archaeology, history and Albanology. [ 3 ] [ 4 ]

Biography

He was born in Thessaloniki on 15 March 1912, the son of Mustafa and Naxhije, where his father was on military duty and his family’s lineage was from Aranitas of Mallakastra . In the governments following the proceedings of the Congress of Lushnja, his father was elected Minister of War and after 1927 he was President of the Permanent Military Court. [ 5 ]

Mit’hati completed his primary schooling in Freistadt, Austria and then at the Italian school of Corfu , secondary school in Pisa and Monte Mario near Rome , and higher education in jurisprudence in Zagreb , Kingdom of Yugoslavia , after a two-year break with his family. [ 1 ]

He practiced the profession of Justice of the Peace in Gjirokastra in 1940, after a year in Prizren . He participated in the organization of the Balli Kombëtar, then returned to the Ministry of Justice, which renamed it in Prizren, then in Elbasan [ 1 ] and in Durrës [ 5 ] until 1943, when he went to the mountains in the ranks of the nationalist chetas of the Mallakastra area. He participated in the representation of the Balli in the meeting where the Mukje Agreement was reached . At the end of 1943 he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Interior. [ 1 ]

Together with Musine Kokalari and other intellectuals, he founded the Social Democratic Party in Tirana . Its leaders were targeted before the National Liberation Front took power, and were arrested on 21 November 1944 [ 3 ] and convicted as a figure of the National Front who defended the thesis of ethnic Albania as reached in the Mukje agreement . [ 1 ]

He spent about a year in prison in Burrel and then spent his imprisonment in the Artizanat prison in Tirana for over nine years, where together with Mihal Sherkon , Mirash Ivanaj and Lazër Radin he translated all the legislation and theoretical bases of the functioning of the state. He was released in April 1954, but immediately after his release he was interned in several camps during the period May 1954-1960: in Kuç in Kurvelesh, Shtyllas and Radostimë in Fier, as well as Çermë, Dushk and Gradishtë in Lushnje.

Like many other convicts, during his sentence he was engaged in agriculture and the family home was a hut. In addition to his agricultural activities, he was also involved in translations, since he translated from 6-7 foreign languages. [ 1 ]

He died on November 29, 1992, next to his only daughter, without being able to transfer his civil status from the places of punishment. [ 1 ]

Acts

For a decade (1934-’44) he was written for the press of the time (“Illyria”, “Bota e Re”, “Revista Letrare”, “Bashkimi i Kombit”, etc.) with his satirical pieces, known under the pseudonyms Rrem Vogli , Jago Blini , Ja Qe Hë and Sufi Asmon Sufës . [ 1 ] In 1996, his collection Qyfyre të Rrem Voglit, katunar pri Rrashbulle: Skica humoristike dhe publicistikë was published , which includes poems as well as some interviews and articles from the last years of his life [ 5 ] under the care of his daughter, Odeta Zhegu. [3]

Translation

Araniti mastered a number of foreign languages, such as Italian , German , French , English and Serbo-Croatian . In prison, he learned Russian , while Turkish was his mother tongue, at the age of 61 he began to learn Romanian . He translated for a living for the Archaeological Museum of Durrës and Tirana , in the fields of Albanology, archeology, numismatics, etymology, etc.

Among the authors translated by him are Meyer , Russu, Krahe , Stipčevič , De Simone , Jokli , Praschniker , Garaschanin, Benac, Walde, Von Hahn , Šufflay , Rendič-Miočevič, Katičič, Teodorova, Papazoglu, Schuchardt, Thalloczy , Kilian, Roman, etc. [ 5 ] The translations, usually typewritten in four copies, became part of the holdings of the Scientific Libraries, first of the University of Tirana and then of the Academy of Sciences, which commissioned translations until before his death. [ 6 ]

His translation of the three-volume Etymological Dictionary of Indo-European Languages , compiled by Alois Walde and Julius Pokorny from the German, remained unpublished in manuscript for decades in the Library of Durrës. [ 2 ]

Family

In 1958 he married Agime Pipa (born 9 September 1924 in Shkodra ), was arrested on 12 September 1946, three days after the Postriba uprising, but the arrest warrant was issued three months later in December 1946. [ 7 ] He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, released in 1951; [ 1 ] he left a handwritten diary. [ 7 ] They had only one daughter together, Odetta. [5]

Laurels

For his patriotic and cultural work and activity, posthumously, which came on November 29, 1992, he was decorated with the highest titles and orders by the President of the Republic, such as “Torch of Democracy”, “Naim Frashëri” and “Honor of the Nation”.

References

Çelo Hoxha and Azem Qazimi, eds. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Victims of Communist Terror A-Ç. Vol. I. Tirana: Institute for the Study of Crimes and Consequences of Communism, 2012. https://archive.org/ (or original PDF link if available). Archived from the original (PDF) on January 8, 2020.

Topalli, Kolec. “Etymological Dictionary of Indo-European Languages in Mithat Aranit’s Translation.” Almanak v. II, no. 2 (2012): 12–16.

Ndoja, Leka. The Alienation of Intellectual Work During Communism in Albania. Tirana: Institute for the Study of the Crimes and Consequences of Communism, 2013

Çelo Hoxha and Azem Qazimi, eds., Encyclopedic Dictionary of Victims of Communist Terror A-Ç, vol. I (Tirana: Institute for the Study of Crimes and Consequences of Communism, 2012), 121–122.

Kolec Topalli, “Etymological Dictionary of Indo-European Languages in Mithat Aranit’s Translation,” Almanak v. II, no. 2 (2012): 12–16.

Leka Ndoja, The Alienation of Intellectual Work During Communism in Albania (Tirana: Institute for the Study of the Crimes and Consequences of Communism, 2013), 25–26.

Hoxha and Qazimi, Encyclopedic Dictionary, 121.

Topalli, “Etymological Dictionary,” 14.Ndoja, Alienation of Intellectual Work, 25.