TIRANA, Sept. 1 – Mark Krasniqi, a renowned Kosovo scholar, ethnographer and political figure, has passed away at the age of 95.
Albanian academics, politicians expressed condolences to Krasniqi’s family.
Born in Peja, Kosovo, Krasniqi studied literature at the University of Padua in northern Italy from 1941 to 1943 and also studied geography and ethnography at the University of Belgrade in the late 1940s.
After finishing his doctorate at the University of Ljubljana in 1960, he returned to Kosovo where he taught at the University of Prishtina from 1961 until his forced retirement in 1981. Over the years, Mark Krasniqi served as dean of the Faculty of Law and Economics, as head of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo and led the Kosovo Writers’ Union.
Krasniqi’s expulsion from the university in the wake of the uprising of 1981 caused him to become increasingly involved in politics in Kosovo where as head of the Albanian Christian Democratic Party of Kosovo founded in 1990, he became a leading figure of public and political life.
Mark Krasniqi is also the author of works of literature, studies in ethnography and lucid political essays on the Kosovo question.
