Anton Çetta

Who was Anton Çetta?

Anton Çetta was a folklorist, academic and university professor.

He completed elementary school in his hometown in Kosovo, and secondary school in Tirana and Korça, Albania. He graduated in Roman languages and culture at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy. For a period of time he worked as assistant professor at the department of Albanian Studies in Belgrade. From 1960 to 1968 he lectured on Old Albanian Literature, The History of Literature, and Latin language at the University of Pristina.

From 1968 he was chief of the Department of Folklore at The Institute of Albanian Studies in Prishtina. Since 1959, Çetta was collecting folklore material from all regions of Kosovo. From 1953 to 1987 he published 16 books of collected folklore from all regions of Kosovo.

In 1990 he was the founder of the Reconciliation Committee for erasing blood feuds in Kosovo which erased almost all blood-related hatred among Albanians in Kosovo in the 1990s. He also was president of the Mother Teresa Association, which provided medical care to people in Kosovo, a position taken over after his death by Don Lush Gjergji, his long-time collaborator in the anti blood feud campaign.