Robert Elsie, a writer, translator, interpreter, and specialist in Albanian studies, has published on his Early Photography in Albania website a few photos of Albania taken in 1939 by German scholar and social geographer Richard Busch-Zantner.
Author of various books and countless articles, Elsie’s scholar interests over the last thirty years have been focused on various aspects of Albanian culture, literature, and history. “Albania, and its culture and history, are to be discovered and appreciated not only through texts, but also through photography. For this reason we have chosen here to offer a few rare glimpses into the past of the Albanian people in collections of early photographs,” according to Elsie.
Born in 1911, Busch-Zantner first studied the social structures of southwestern Albania during the Ottoman rule from 1385 to 1912. In 1939 he published Albanien: Neues Land im Imperium (Albania: a New Country in the Empire), Leipzig. His work, which was based from several trips he had taken to Albania at the time, featured a few photos taken in various cities such as Tirana, Korca, Shkodra, Kavaja, etc., right after Albania was militarily occupied by Italy ( 1939- 1943) .
Busch-Zantner died as a soldier during the Second World War in 1942.
