1923 to 1925, he attended a secondary school in Bar, Montenegro (in former Yugoslavia), where his sister Lenka had moved. At 14 years of age, in autumn 1925, he received a scholarship to attend secondary school in Monastir (Bitola) (also in former Yugoslavia), from where he graduated in 1927, then entered the Orthodox seminary of St. John the Theologian. He studied Old Church Slavonic, Russian, Greek, Latin and French. He continued his training and studies until June 1932. His name was written Milosh Nikoliç in the passport dated 17 June 1932, then changed into Millosh Nikolla in the decree of appointment as teacher signed by Minister of Education Mirash Ivanaj dated 18 May 1933. In the revised birth certificate dated to 26 January 1937, his name is spelt Millosh Nikolla. Career Teaching, publishing and deteriorating health On 23 April 1933, he was appointed teacher at a school in the village of Vrakë or Vraka, seven kilometers from Shkokër, until 1934 when the school closed. It was during this period that he also began writing prose sketches and verses. In May 1934, his first short prose piece, Sokrat i vuejtun apo derr i kënaqun (Suffering Socrates or a satisfied pig), was published in the periodical Illyria, under his new pen name Migjeni, an acronym of Millosh Gjergj Nikolla. In the summer of 1935, Migjeni fell seriously ill with tuberculosis, which he had contracted earlier. He journeyed to Athens, Greece in July of that year in hope of obtaining treatment for the disease which was endemic on the marshy coastal plains of Albania at the time but returned to Shkodra a month later with no improvement in his condition. In the autumn of 1935, he transferred for a year to a school in Shkodra itself and, again in the periodical Illyria, began publishing his first epoch-making poems. In a letter of 12 January 1936 written to translator Skënder Luarasi (1900–1982) in Tirana, Migjeni announced, "I am about to send my songs to press. Since, while you were here, you promised that you would take charge of speaking to some publisher, 'Gutemberg' for instance, I would now like to remind you of this promise, informing you that I am ready." Migjeni later received the transfer he had earlier requested to the mountain village of Puka and in April 1936 began his activities as the headmaster of the run-down school there. The clear mountain