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Rexhai Surroi (Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: Реџаји Суроји, romanized: Redžaji Suroji; 8 June 1929 – 22 December 1988) was a Yugoslav Albanian journalist, diplomat and writer.

Biography

He was a member of the first cohort of students to have finished high school in Albanian in the former Yugoslavia in 1947–48. He graduated from the University of Belgrade's Law School. He was also one of the few Kosovo Albanians to become ambassadors of Yugoslavia. He was the father of Veton and Flaka Surroi.

He was an active football player before becoming journalist and editor of weekly "Zani i Rinisë". He was an editor in Radio Pristina, where he became director in the mid-sixties. In 1969–70, he served as vice-president of the provincial government of SAP Kosovo, he was one of the most fervent advocates for the establishment of the University of Pristina, the only in Yugoslavia where the medium of instruction was Albanian. In 1971, he was appointed ambassador of Yugoslavia to Bolivia and from 1974 to 1977 he held the post of assistant secretary in the Federal Secretariat of Foreign Affairs. From 1977 to 1981, he lived in Mexico City where he was the Yugoslav ambassador to Mexico, Honduras and Costa Rica, and from 1981 to 1983 again he held the post of the assistant secretary in the Federal Secretariat of Foreign Affairs. From 1983 to 1985 he was the general manager of the largest Albanian media company in Kosovo Rilindja.

He died in a car accident in December 1988 while serving as Yugoslavia’s ambassador to Spain. An award for excellence in journalism is named after him in Kosovo.

He is the author of a number of Albanian-language works such as Besniku, Dashunija dhe urrejtja, Pranvera e tretë, and Orteku I & II.

See also

• Albanians in Kosovo

References

1. "Oral History Kosovo: Interview with Skender Boshnjaku" (PDF). oralhistorykosovo.org. 2019. p. 6.
2. "Yugoslav Envoy Dies in Car Crash in Spain". Los Angeles Times. 25 December 1988.
3. "BIRN Journalist Wins Journalism Award in Kosovo". Balkan Insight. 24 December 2019.
4. Duraku, Nebil (1984). Shkrimtarët e Kosovës '43-'83. Shoqata e Shkrimtarëve të Kosovës. p. 272.
5. "Vepra Letrare E Rexhai Surroit Me Bibliografi". Jeta e re. Vol. 40, no. 1–4. 1989. pp. 183–184.
6. Herdt, Gilbert, ed. (2020). Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History. Princeton University Press. p. Index. ISBN 9781942130529.

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• 1929 births
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