Dhimitër Beratti (1896-1970).

 AL Voices  |  Robert Elsie

1921  |  Dhimitër BERATTI
      

The Albanian folktale "The Hen Who Lays Gold"

Dhimitër Beratti (1896-1970) also known as Demetri Beratti or Dhimitër Berati, was a political figure from Korça. Having taken part in the declaration of Albanian independence in Vlora in November 1912, he was made state secretary at the new foreign ministry. From 24 August 1913 to 1914, he edited the biweekly Vlora newspaper Përlindj' e Shqipëniës (Rebirth of Albania), which, as the voice of the provisional government, was devoted to "the defence of national rights." Beratti spent World War I in Bucharest and then served as secretary of the Albanian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference from 1919 to 1921. While in France, he published a 69-page book in English on Albania and the Albanians, Paris 1920, and a similar one in French entitled La question albanaise (The Albanian Question), Paris 1920, to make the Albanian cause better known. In 1923, Beratti was again at the foreign ministry and served as a member of the International Boundary Commission. After another period of stay in Romania, from 1925, he returned to the foreign ministry once more. In 1934, he was appointed as minister of economics. During the Italian occupation, Dhimitër Beratti served as minister of education from December 1941 to January 1943. He fled to Italy after the war, where he died in a traffic accident in 1970.

It was on 8 June 1921, during his time in Paris that Beratti made an audio recording (1:53 minutes) of his native Albanian language at the library of the Sorbonne in Paris. There he read out the Albanian folktale "The Hen Who Lays Gold", taken from the folktale collection of Auguste Dozon (1822-1890), published in French as Contes albanais (Albanian Tales), Paris 1881. We are grateful to Rudi Metaj for the discovery and to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris for making it available to the public.

 

[taken from: Gallica, Bibliothèque numérique, Bibliothèque Nationale de France]

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