Anastas Byku

Anastas Byku was a 19th-century Albanian publisher and journalist. His publication of the Pelasgos newspaper in 1861 in both Albanian and Greek languages is considered to be one of the first publications of a periodical in Albanian. His endeavor was short-lived as the Greek authorities closed it down and persecuted him. He tried again in 1878 with another newspaper, Promytheus o Pelasgos, this time exclusively in the Greek language. His two newspapers are regarded as the first affirmation of the existence of an Albanian nation in the international public scene. Byku expressed contradictory ideas, as he called for both Christian Orthodox unity and Albanian unity regardless of religion. Byku held that the Greeks and the Albanians were descendants of the Pelasgians and the Illyrians, and were one single people, although they were of different religious faiths; still according to him both nations should be inseparable: this idea would eventually estrange him from the activists of the Albanian National Awakening.