"A strange man from Bavaria, in love with the languages and poetry of the Balkans from his youth with an obvious sensitivity...", Austrian writer Karl-Markus Gaus described the profile of the German Balkanologist Hans-Joachim Lanksch, who died on Monday of this week, Koha Ditore writes today.
Respect for the Albanians of Kosovo, continued the Austrian publisher, ordered Lankschi not to limit the translations only to political words. Born 76 years ago in the city of Braunschweig in Lower Saxony, Hans-Joachim Lanksch was not one of those people for whom newspapers or literary magazines reserve long biographies packed with dates, activities and commitments. His biography is about a modest life, haunted by his lifelong passion, which was the translation of poetry, which he jokingly described as discovering the graces of Sophia Loren. And is there a man who resists such a temptation, he asked with his charming humor.
After settling in Munich, Lanksch devoted himself to the study of Balkan studies, the main languages of the peninsula, as well as folklore, which has the taste of something exotic for German scholars. After finishing his studies at the classical high school of languages, he began to be interested in all the languages that make up the Balkan language link, or as it is conventionally called in scientific circles, the "Balkan Sprachbund".
The Albanian world would open up for him the moment he came into contact with Martin Camaj, who at that time was lecturing at the University of Munich "Ludwig Maximilian". The frequent exchanges with the professor from Shkodran, the reading of popular Albanian prose collected by Anton Çetta and then delving into the newspaper "Zëri i Populli", at first seemed to discourage Lankschi from learning Albanian, which seemed to him "an unteachable language". Salih Mehmeti
(You can read the full article today in "Koha Ditore")
