Draft:Alexander Lozza

Father Alexander Lozza (Marmorera, 28 June 1880 – Tiefencastel, 13 February 1953) was a Swiss poet and priest.

He composed poems in Italian and Romansh.

Biography

The twelfth child of Dorigo and Lucrezia Lozza-Florinetti, he was born with the name of Constatin in the Romansh-speaking Grisons, he attended primary school in Surses and at fifteen he was sent to a school run by the Conventual Friars Minor in Genoa where he began to write his first poems in Italian.

In 1900 he took the vows and name of Father Alexander in the convent of the Capuchin friars at the Church of the Holy Conception, then celebrated his first mass in his hometown in Grisons. He becomes auxiliary father in Obervaz in 1906 and then in Salouf.

He later held the position of parish priest in Tomils from 1908 to the spring of 1919, the same year he returned to Salouf where he held this position until 1949. From 1919 to 1936 he was also custodian of the Ziteil Sanctuary in the municipality of Salouf.

From 1929, at the insistence of his parishioners, he began to compose poems in the Romansh language, initially in local almanacs and periodicals, then in 1935 with the poem "Crusch alva sin fons cotschen" he gained popularity throughout Switzerland.

He was against the construction of the Marmorera dam that would result in the creation of the Lai da Marmorera, destroying the old village, which was then rebuilt above the lake. In 1949 he moved to the hospice of the Capuchin friars of Tiefencastel where he died four years later at the age of 72.

In 1951 his poetry collection Ziteil was released and in 1954 Poesias.

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Categories:

• Swiss Christian clergy
• Swiss poets
• 1880 births
• 1953 deaths