By Xhelal Zejneli
Robert Elsie was born in Vancouver, Canada, on June 29, 1950, and died in Berlin on October 2, 2017. He studied classical philology and linguistics at the University of British Columbia, graduating in 1972. That same year, he moved to Europe on a study grant. He continued his postgraduate studies at the Free University of Berlin, the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and the University of Bonn, where in 1978 he defended his doctorate in comparative linguistics and Celtic studies.
At the time, the Institute of Linguistics at the University of Bonn maintained rare academic contacts with researchers from communist Albania. Through these links, Elsie, together with other students and scholars, was able to visit Albania several times as part of scientific exchanges between the German institute and the Academy of Sciences of Albania.
For several consecutive years, he also took part in the International Seminar on Albanian Language, Literature and Culture in Pristina. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, these journeys awakened in him a lasting interest in Albania, Kosovo and Albanian culture, which were still little known to the wider world. After learning Albanian, he devoted himself to Albanology and eventually became one of its most distinguished foreign scholars.
Elsie was the author of more than sixty books and countless articles, most of them in the field of Albanian studies. In the mid-1980s, he worked as a translator for the German Federal Foreign Office in Bonn. From the 1990s into the early twenty-first century, he served as an Albanian translator and interpreter in high-level negotiations for the German government, the European Union, the United Nations, NATO, the Council of Europe and other institutions. From 2002 onward, he worked for the Hague Tribunal, serving as a simultaneous interpreter during the trial of Slobodan Milošević.
He was a member of the Southeast Europe Association, an external member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, and an honorary member of the Writers’ Association of Kosovo.
Elsie’s early publications included Dictionary of Albanian Literature (Westport, Connecticut, 1986) and History of Albanian Literature (Boulder, Colorado, 1995, in two volumes). The latter appeared in Albanian as Histori e letërsisë shqiptare (Peja, 1997) and in Polish as Zarys historii literatury albańskiej (Toruń, 2004).
He also translated Albanian literature into English and German, including the UNESCO volume An Elusive Eagle Soars: Anthology of Modern Albanian Poetry (London, 1993) and Albanian Folktales and Legends (Tirana, 1994).
Among his important literary translations were the works of Migjeni (1911–1938), published in German as Freie Verse (Idstein, 1987) and later in English as Free Verse (Tirana, 1991).
He also prepared the German-language anthology Einem Adler gleich: Anthologie albanischer Lyrik vom 16. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (Like an Eagle: Anthology of Albanian Poetry from the 16th Century to the Present, Hildesheim, 1988).
His translations of Kosovo poets included Ali Podrimja in Who Will Slay the Wolf: Selected Poetry (New York, 2000), Flora Brovina in Call Me by My Name: Poetry from Kosova (New York, 2001), and Eqrem Basha in Neither a Wound nor a Song: Poetry from Kosova (New York, 2003).
Many of these translations were prepared in collaboration with the Canadian poet, translator and literary critic Janice Mathie-Heck.
Elsie’s critical studies on Albanian literature were collected in Studies in Modern Albanian Literature and Culture (Boulder, Colorado, 1996), published in Albanian as Një fund dhe një fillim (Tirana & Pristina, 1995).
At a time when the grave situation in Kosovo remained largely unknown abroad, Elsie compiled one of the first major anthologies of writings on Kosovo, the 600-page volume Kosovo: In the Heart of the Powder Keg (Boulder, Colorado, 1997). He later published Gathering Clouds: The Roots of Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo and Macedonia, Early Twentieth-Century Documents (Peja, 2002).
Elsie then turned increasingly to other fields of Albanology, especially folk culture, religion, mythology and history. A major contribution in this direction was Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology and Folk Culture (London, 2001), published in German as Handbuch zur albanischen Volkskultur (Wiesbaden, 2002) and in Albanian as Leksiku i kulturës popullore shqiptare (Tirana, 2005).
He also published the Kanun in German under the title Der Kanun: das albanische Gewohnheitsrecht nach dem sogenannten Kanun des Lekë Dukagjini (Peja, 2001).
Together with anthropologist Antonia Young of the University of Bradford and Norwegian photographer Ann Christine Eek, Elsie published Behind Stone Walls: Changing Household Organization among the Albanians of Kosova (Peja, 2003), an anthropological study based on the work of Norwegian anthropologist Berit Backer.
He also brought to light the early German manuscript of the Albanian Bajazid Elmaz Doda, Albanisches Bauernleben im oberen Rekatal bei Dibra, Makedonien (Vienna, 2007).
Note: Bajazid Elmaz Doda (Shtirovica, 1888 – Vienna, April 25, 1933) was an Albanian writer and ethnographic photographer, author of Albanisches Bauernleben im oberen Rekatal bei Dibra.
History occupied much of Elsie’s work during the first decade of the twenty-first century. In collaboration with Robert Dankoff, he translated from Ottoman Turkish parts of the Seyahatname, the Book of Travels by the Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi, relating to Albanian lands. The result was Evliya Çelebi in Albania and Adjacent Regions (Leiden, 2000), later published in Albanian as Evlija Çelebiu në Shqipëri dhe në viset fqinje (Tirana, 2008).
Note: Robert Dankoff is Professor Emeritus of Ottoman and Turkish Studies at the University of Chicago.
Elsie also discovered and published the manuscript of the first history of Albania, written by the French Lazarist priest Jean-Claude Faveyrial, Histoire de l’Albanie (Peja, 2001). It appeared in Albanian as Historia më e vjetër e Shqipërisë (Tirana, 2004).
He similarly brought to light and edited the German manuscript of the Hungarian Albanologist Baron Franz Nopcsa, published as Reisen in den Balkan (Peja, 2001), later translated into Albanian as Udhëtime nëpër Ballkan (Tirana, 2007).
In collaboration with the London-based Albanian-British scholar Bejtullah D. Destani, Elsie published the diary of the English poet and painter Edward Lear in Edward Lear in Albania: Journals of a Landscape Painter in the Balkans (London, 2008), which appeared in Albanian as Eduard Lir në Shqipëri: ditar udhëtimesh, 1848–1849 (Tirana, 2008).
Elsie also published Early Albania: A Reader of Historical Texts, 11th–17th Centuries (Wiesbaden, 2003), a collection of early historical texts on Albania translated from various languages.
Because Albania and Kosovo were still relatively unfamiliar to many Western readers, he prepared two major reference works: Historical Dictionary of Albania (Lanham, Maryland, 2004) and Historical Dictionary of Kosova (Lanham, Maryland, 2004). Despite the word “historical” in their titles, these books are broad encyclopedic handbooks.
Returning to literature, Elsie published Albanian Literature: A Short History (London, 2005), a more concise history of Albanian letters, which appeared in Albanian as Letërsia shqipe: një histori e shkurtër (Tirana, 2006).
With Janice Mathie-Heck, he also produced a wide range of literary translations, including:
— Songs of the Frontier Warriors: Albanian Epic Verse (Wauconda, Illinois, 2004);
— Tales from Old Shkodra: Early Albanian Short Stories (Peja, 2004), with works by Ernest Koliqi and Migjeni;
— Visar Zhiti‘s The Condemned Apple (Los Angeles, 2005);
— Balkan Beauty, Balkan Blood: Modern Albanian Short Stories (Evanston, Illinois, 2006);
— Fatos Kongoli‘s novel The Loser (Bridgend, Wales, 2007);
— Azem Shkreli‘s Blood of the Quill: Selected Poetry from Kosovo (Los Angeles, 2008);
— Lightning from the Depths: An Anthology of Albanian Poetry (Evanston, Illinois, 2008);
— Ornela Vorpsi‘s The Country Where No One Ever Dies (Champaign, Illinois, 2009);
— and further translations of oral poetry in The Battle of Kosovo, 1389: An Albanian Epic (London, 2009), by Anna Di Lellio.
Note: Anna Di Lellio has written on the United Nations presence in Kosovo and Iraq and is the editor of The Case for Kosova: Passage to Independence. Serbian historian and diplomat Dušan Bataković wrote that “Di Lellio in her writings takes a pro-Albanian stance.”
Elsie’s most ambitious literary achievement was the English translation, with Janice Mathie-Heck, of Gjergj Fishta‘s great epic Lahuta e Malcis, published as The Highland Lute: The Albanian National Epic (London, 2005). Written in Gheg Albanian, the epic consists of 30 songs and 15,613 verses. Its return to public circulation after decades of suppression under the communist regime in Albania was received with particular emotion, especially in the north of the country.
Elsie also made an important contribution to the history of early Albanian photography. He published Dritëshkronja: Fotografia e hershme nga Shqipëria dhe Ballkani (Pristina, 2007), which includes some of the earliest photographs taken in Albania, among them 50 images by the Viennese photographer Dr. Josef Székely from 1863. The volume also includes collections connected with Baron Franz Nopcsa, Bajazid Elmaz Doda, Maximilian Lambertz and officers of the Dutch military mission of 1913–1914.
He later published, in English, French and Albanian, the first colour photographs of Albania and Kosovo taken by the French banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn, under the title Albania and Kosovo in Colour 1913 (Tirana, 2010).
In 2010, second, updated and significantly expanded editions appeared of Historical Dictionary of Albania, with 660 pages, and Historical Dictionary of Kosovo, with 451 pages. Both works were later translated into Albanian.
Although Elsie’s scholarly life was centred mainly on Albanology, he also published outside the field. His other works include Dialect Relationships in Goidelic: A Study in Celtic Dialectology (Hamburg, 1986), the poetry anthologies The Pied Poets: Contemporary Verse of the Transylvanian and Danube Germans of Romania (London, 1990) and An Anthology of Sorbian Poetry from the 16th–20th Centuries (London, 1990), as well as a German translation of the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy, Konstantinos Kavafis: Das Gesamtwerk, griechisch und deutsch (Zurich, 1997).
After the 1990s, through his websites and publications, Elsie became one of the main international gateways to Albanian language, literature, history and culture. Some of the works he left unpublished during his lifetime appeared posthumously, further expanding the legacy of a scholar who devoted his life to making the Albanian world visible beyond its borders.
Elsie belongs to the long line of foreign scholars who devoted their work to Albanian language, history and culture, among them Johann Georg von Hahn, Norbert Jokl, Maximilian Lambertz, Agnia Vasilievna Desnitskaya, Gustav Meyer, Milan Šufflay and Holger Pedersen. But in the modern era, few did as much as Robert Elsie to collect, translate, explain and present Albanian culture to the world.
