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Revision as of 17:06, 15 September 2005
Millosh Gjergj Nikolla (or Miloš Đoka Nikolić; October 13, 1911 - August 26, 1938) was born in Shkodër, Albania to a Serbian family originally from Bitolj. He would become one of the leading figures in Albanian literature.
Migjeni attended elementary school in Shkodër at the Serbian language school there and later at St. John's Orthodox Seminary in Bitola (Bitolj/Manastir), then Kingdom of Serbia (now Republic of Macedonia). There he studied Russian, French Greek and Latin and read literature written in those languages. On his return to Albania, he gave up his intended career as a priest to become a school teacher in Vraka, a Serbian village a few miles from Shkodër. He began writing verse and prose sketches in Albanian, under pen name Migjeni, an acronym of Millosh Gjergj Nikolla.
Having contracted tuberculosis, which was then endemic in Albania, he went for treatment to Turin in northern Italy where his sister Olga was studying mathematics. After some time in a sanatorium there, he was transferred to the Waldensian Hospital in Torre Pellice where he died at the age of twenty-six.
During the 1930s, the position of the Serb minority deteriorated as Serbian schools were closed down by King Zog. Thus, the author had to Albanize his name and chose the nom-de-plume Mi-Gje-Ni in order to preserve his heritage. The acrostic was formed by the first two letters each of his first name, patronymic and last name. The Serbian equivalent 'đ' (Cyr.ђ') of Albanian 'gj' is one letter.
His slender volume of verse (thirty-five poems) entitled Vargjet e Lira (Free Verse) was printed by Gutenberg Press in Tiranë in 1936, but was banned by the authorities. The second edition, published in 1944, was missing two old poems Parathanja e parathanjeve (Preface of prefaces) and Blasfemi (Blasphemy) that were deemed offensive, but it did include eight new ones. The main theme of Migjeni was misery and suffering, a reflection of the life he saw and lived.