De Rada, Ieronim
De Rada, Ieronim
Born Nov. 29, 1814, in the village of Macchia-Albanese, Cosenza, Italy; died there Feb. 28, 1903. Albanian poet, publicist, and political figure.
The son of a priest, De Rada graduated from an Italian-Albanian college in 1833 and in 1834 began to study law in Naples. He was one of the ideologists of the national liberation movement in Albania. A spearhead of Albanian romanticism, he was among the first collectors of Albanian folklore. De Rada’s narrative poems Songs of Milosao (1836), Songs of Serafina Topisa (1848), and Unfortunate Skanderberg (1886) were dedicated to the Albanian people’s struggle for unity and independence.