Parashqevi Qiriazi, born June 2nd, 1880 in Monastir, Ottoman Empire, was only 11 when she started to help her brother and sister teach written Albanian to girls in the first school for girls in Albania. As she grew older, she went on to study at the American College for Girls at Constantinople, and eventually started working as an elementary school teacher alongside her sister, Sevasti Qiriazi. Qiriazi dedicated her life to teaching the Albanian alphabet and writing in the Albanian language. In 1908, she was the only female that participated in the Congress of Monastir, which was an academic conference held in Monastir with the goal of standardizing the Albanian alphabet. A year later in 1909, she published an abecedarium, which was an inscription consisting of the letters of an alphabet, for elementary schools. Qiriazi is well known for having an organized from of teaching and for helping to organize local libraries. She contributed to the foundation of the Yll' i Mëngjesit association in 1909 and later, when she had migrated to the US, she continued to publish articles on Albanian politics, society, history, philology, literature, and folklore. After Qiriazi went to the United States and became a member of the Albanian-American community, she participated in the Conference of Peace of Paris in 1919 to represent the rights of the Albanians. Parashqevi stood as a firm anti-fascist throughout World War II, starting from the Italian invasion of 1939. Due to her anti-fascist views, her and her sister were sent to the Anhalt lager Dedinje camp near Belgrade by pro-Nazi units led by Xhaferr Deva. Although she survived and returned to Tirana, Albania after the war, her and her family faced further persecution. Parashqevi Qiriazi legacy as a teacher is well known all around the world due to her significant contributions to Albanians education. Her and sister Sevasti Qiriazi are known colloquially in Albania as "the Qiriazi Sisters" and they are considered the "mothers of Albanian education." Thier contributions were valued greatly a several educational institutions and organizations in Albania and Kosovo bear their name.

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