The prominent Canadian albanologist of German origin, Robert Elsie, who lived in Berlin for years, has passed away.
Robert Elsie is considered as the most versatile specialist in Albanian fields, from language to history and from literature to ethnography.
Born in Vancouver, Canada in 1950, Elsie would become familiar with Albanian culture in the 70s, when he visited Tirana as a student, while he would become a regular visitor to the Albanian Language Seminar, where he would also learn to speak Albanian in Georgian.
Robert Elsie was the author of dozens of books and articles on Albanian literature, history, ethnography, language and Albanian art and culture.
Also, he has translated into English poems by Migjeni and Lasgush Poradeci, as well as what is considered to be his masterpiece of translation, the poem "Lahuta e Malësi" by Gjergj Fishta.
During the judicial process of the Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, knowing the Albanian dialect, Robert Elsie had been a simultaneous interpreter of the Albanian witnesses in The Hague.
In recent years, Elsie ran a website with a lot of texts, data, poems, paintings and photos about Albanian history and culture.