Sevasti Qiriazi-Dako (Sevasti D. Kyrias) (ca. 1871–1949) was an Albanian patriot, educator, Protestant missionary, author, pioneer of Albanian female education, and activist of the Albanian National Awakening.
Life and early career Early life Sevasti was born ca. 1870 to the patriotic Qiriazi family of Tërnovë, Monastir, in today's North Macedonia, then Ottoman Empire. She was the sixth of ten children. Her family's religious background was Orthodox, and she began attending a Greek-language primary school at age four. In her youth she learned several languages (Albanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Wallachian, Turkish, English). She and her family came into close contact with Albanian patriots and American Protestant missionaries who operated a school and conducted religious services near their home in Monastir. Sevasti was enrolled in the Americans' school and graduated with the equivalent of a high school diploma in July 1888.Diploma at: Arkivi Qendror i Shtetit, Tirana, AQSH F52 D18
Education Sevasti attended the American College for Girls at Constantinople from 1888–1891. Her brother Rev. Gjerasim Qiriazi arranged her enrollment. She was admitted as a sophomore and graduated in 1891 with a class of eight women and received a Bachelor of Arts degree,See diploma at: Arkivi Qendror i Shtetit, Tirana, AQSH F52 D18 becoming the first Albanian female to complete a college education. Her purpose for attending college was to prepare herself to help her brother Gjerasim open a girls' school in Albania. Sevasti identified her key influencers in college as: Clara Hamlin (the college's principal and the daughter of Cyrus Hamlin), Florence A. Fensham, Mary Mills Patrick, Ida Prime, Caroline Borden, and the Bulgarian Grandinaroff family. Gjerasim Qiriazi invited the influential Albanian Frashëri brothers (Abdyl Frashëri, Sami Frashëri and Naim Frashëri) to attend Sevasti's graduation. Naim Frashëri used his role in the Ottoman government to register her diploma officially and obtain an irade (official decree) for the opening of the first Albanian school for girls in Korçë(; ).
Protestant missionary activity Though Orthodox Christian by birth, Sevasti joined the Protestant community founded by her brother Gjerasim. In Korçë she led Bible studies and prayer meetings for women.ABCFM-B, 12 March 1893, nr. 43, 8Sevasti D. Kyrias to Mrs. H. D. Hume, 29 August 1896, ABCFM 9.5.1, Woman’s Board of Missions 1873–1947, Supplementary Papers and CorrespondenceTwenty-Third Annual Report of the New Haven Branch of the Woman’s Board of Missions (1894), 64–65 She was a "Bible Woman" and was financed by the ABCFM's Woman's Board of MissionsWoman’s Board of Missions Annual Report 1895, 7ABCFM Missionary Herald 1891, 351 and the Bible Lands Missions' Aid Society. She referred to herself as a missionary when traveling to the USA to visit Ellen Stone and John Henry House in 1904.“List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the U.S. Immigration Officer at Port of Arrival (Holland-American Line)”, 30 August 1904, ISSHP
The Korça Girls School (1891–1914) Founding and operations After her graduation from college, Sevasti returned to Monastir and then to Korçë, where she joined her brother Gjerasim in opening an Albanian-language school for girls. Sevasti was its director. The school operated under difficult conditions including poverty, prejudice against female education, difficulty in obtaining books, political opposition from local Ottoman authorities, and political and ecclesiastical opposition from the Greek Orthodox Church. Despite these unfavorable circumstances, the school maintained an average yearly enrollment of 47 students during 1891–1913. The school received significant visitors such as Edith Durham in 1901 and Henry Brailsford in 1904.
Religious instruction At the time of its existence, the school was known as a Protestant Christian school.Konica, Faik. "Kleri grek edhe Shkolla Protestante e Çupave në Korçë”. Albania, viti 9, nr. 9, 1905, 179: "Siç e di e gjithë bota, Korça ka një shkollë protestante shqip për çupat." Its founders were Evangelicals,Kalendari Kombiar, 8 nëntor 1904 – “Tani shpejt dëgjojmë se u mbyll edhe ndë Korçë shkolla e çunavet po punon vetëm, shkollë e vashavet e cila u hap më 1891 prej ungjillorëvet." it was supported by Protestant organizations, its educational curriculum included religious subjects with biblical texts,Qiriazi, Sevasti, “Fjalë”, in Hristomathi vëll. I (përg. Qiriazi, Gjergj). Sofia: Mbrothësia, 1902, 291–295.Myzyri, Hysni. Shkollat e para kombëtare shqipe. Tiranë: Instituti i Studimeve Pedagogjike, 1973, 217 (facsimile of the subject list). and its premises were used for Evangelical Sunday School and worship services.https://www.academia.edu/75751804/Were_the_Kyrias_siblings_Kristo_Dako_and_the_Kortcha_Girls_School_Protestant_A_response_to_the_re_emergence_of_a_communist_era_narrative, p. 44–49 However, the school welcomed students of all religions and its teachers did not require conversion to Protestantism.Konica, Faik. "Kleri grek edhe Shkolla Protestante e Çupave në Korçë”. Albania, viti 9, nr. 9, 1905, 179: "Qëllimi i kësaj shkolle nuk është të përhapë protestantizmin por dritën e dijes dhe të lirisë." It was praised by Albanians of all religions and classes as being a "national nest" (fole kombëtare).“Instuti Kyrias: Përmbledhje historike, 1891–1931”, Foleja kombëtare: Broshurë komemorative (Tiranë: Gutenberg, 1931), 83–85.
Leadership When Gjerasim Qiriazi died in 1894, Sevasti Qiriazi (at approximately 23 years old) assumed full responsibility for the Girls School. She shared leadership over the following years with Luka Tira, Fanka Efthim, Thanas Sina, Grigor Cilka, Gjergj Qiriazi, and Gjon Ciko, and she eventually solicited the help of the American Protestant missionaries Phineas and Violet Bond Kennedy, who arrived in Korça in 1908 (Violet was the daughter of an American Protestant missionary in Monastir, Lewis Bond, and was Sevasti's close friend throughout childhood and college).
Closure The school continued to function through 1914, when war conditions and Greek hostilities in Korça forced its closure.
First visit to the United States In summer 1904, after serving 13 years as director of the Albanian school for girls in Korça, Sevasti Qiriazi traveled to the United States. Parashqevi Qiriazi became director of the school in her absence. Sevasti arrived in New York in August 1904, and visited friends in New York, Boston, and Chicago, speaking about Albania at various women's societies. She resided for one month with Ellen Stone and visited Jane Addams and Hull House. She called her visit to the USA "a glimpse of liberty." During her return to Albania in May 1905, she visited London, Paris, and Vienna before stopping in Bucharest, where she met Pandeli Evangjeli and her future husband Christo Dako (1880-1941), a recent graduate of the University of Bucharest and general secretary of the Albanian "Dituria" society. Sevasti recruited Dako to prepare the first Albanian textbooks in mathematics.
Early national influence In 1908, Sevasti was invited to represent her Girls School at the Congress of Monastir, which aimed to settle the Albanian alphabet question. Sevasti could not attend, but her sister Parashqevi attended in her place. A delegation from the Congress visited the Girls School in Korçë after the conclusion of the Congress, including Luigj Gurakuqi, Fehim Zavalani and Nyzhet Vrioni. In 1909 Sevasti was invited in her role as director of the school to take part in the Congress of Elbasan which aimed to address national education in Albania. She attended with her brother Gjergj Qiriazi.
Marriage and children Sevasti was married to Kristo Dako on August 4, 1910.Oberlin College Archives, Box 234, Folder 2812 "Dako, Kristo Anastas 1913 DB." The ceremony was performed by Protestant missionary Rev. Charles Telford Erickson.Edwin Jacques, “To Albania With Love – the Evangel”, IAPS-EJ, 136, 142–143. They had two children, Aleksandër "Skënder" Dako (1910–1995) and Gjergj Dako (1913–1949). The full English rendering of their names was Alexander Gerasim Dako and George Charles Dako (namesakes for her two deceased brothers Gjerasim and Gjergj).Quinquennial Catalogue Questionnaire, Oct 15, 1925, Oberlin College Archives, Subgroup II, Theological Instruction, Special Programs, Kyrias Girls School, "Dako, Kristo Anastas". Both boys studied for eight years at Robert College.Uran Asllani, Studentët shqiptarë të Robert Kolegjit Amerikan të Stambollit dhe veprimtaria atdhetare e tyre. Tiranë: Ilar, 2005, 59, 104–107.
Friendship with Charles Crane In 1911, Sevasti and her husband Kristo Dako were visited in Monastir by American businessman Charles Richard Crane, who was on the board of the American College for Girls at Constantinople and sought to learn more about Albania and the Near East. Crane had learned about Sevasti and Kristo through Edward I. Bosworth, dean of Oberlin Seminary and formerly K. Dako's professor at Oberlin. They maintained friendly and working relations for many years, later spending several summer holidays at Mr. and Mrs. Crane's summer home at Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
Exile from Albania and second journey to the USA In 1914, due to hostilities with Greek forces in Korça, Sevasti, her husband, and their two children were forced to flee Albania, and the Girls School was closed. They spent nearly 12 months living in Bucharest and Sofia before emigrating to the United States in 1915 and settling in Natick and Southbridge, Massachusetts, where she would assist her husband in opening the first Albanian school in America at the local YMCA They resettled in Boston (Jamaica Plain) where Sevasti assisted her sister in publishing the semi-monthly periodical Yll'i Mëngjezit / Morning Star (1917–1920), and where she and her husband became more involved in Vatra and the Albanian national cause.
Return to Albania and later years At the end of 1921 Sevasti Qiriazi-Dako and her children returned to Albania, where her husband had previously returned to work with the Albanian government. In her memoirs, Sevasti described the conditions in Albania as being "primitive" and claimed she was inspired to devote the rest of her life to helping to rebuild her nation.
The Kyrias Institute (1922–1933) Together with her husband Kristo Dako and her sister Parashqevi Qiriazi, Sevasti founded a new institution of female education in Tirana. Though privately funded, it was considered a national school, representing all districts, classes and religious beliefs. In 1926 they began construction of a new facility in Kamëz. The facility was operational by 1927 and completed in 1929. King Zog I, whose sisters Princess Myzejen Zogu and Princess Maxhide Zogu had attended the school in Tirana, visited the new campus. The school was notable for its library, athletics program, fine arts events, system of student government, and the success of its graduates. In 1931 the school celebrated the 40th anniversary of its founding, viewing itself as a continuation of the Girls School founded in Korçë in 1891. Many dignitaries, Albanian and foreign, attended the ceremony.
In 1933, with the nationalization of private education, the Kyrias Institute was forced to close and did not reopen despite repeated requests by the Qiriazi sisters to the government. Sevasti refused to allow the premises of the school to be rented by the Red Cross for humanitarian work or to be used for anything other than its original purpose for the education of women.
After the closure of the school Sevasti began writing her memoirs in English.
Under Italian invasion and occupation The Italian invasion of Albania of 1939 led to the creation of the Italian protectorate of Albania (1939–1943). During this time period Sevasti's husband Kristo Dako passed away and the school property was repurposed by the Italian military as a weapons depot.
Internment after the German invasion