“There are very few books with accurate data, i.e with impartial basic information. Lack of accurate information is a huge handicap preventing the Albanian-speaking world to move forward,” said the Canadian albanologist
TIRANA, Feb. 6 – Initially published in English, two historical dictionaries on Albania and Kosovo by renowned Canadian albanologist Robert Elsie have also been promoted in their Albanian version as part of events commemorating Albania’s 100th anniversary of independence.
“There are very few books with accurate data, i.e with impartial basic information. Lack of accurate information is a huge handicap preventing the Albanian-speaking world to move forward,” said Elsie in his fluent Albanian during the promotion ceremony at the Foreign Ministry in Tirana.
“Take, for example historical figures. In books, it is often written that such an Albanian man was an ardent patriot, who fought with a sword in hand, to protect the national question, but despite his ardent patriotism, who exactly was this figure? It is not known and often does not matter to readers. The fact that they were patriotic is enough. My intention in these books on Albania and Kosovo, now both in English and Albanian, is to offer foreign readers accurate data and information, and among others, to correct many mistakes and misinterpretations on Albanians often repeated in the foreign press. If the Albanian reader can learn about his country something more, that’s it’s even better,” added Elsie, critical, the same as other independent international researchers and historians, of the myths that have been created in the Albanian history.
Elsie, also a translator of many Albanian literary works, unveiled a personal conversation with his US publisher.
“When I undertook the suggested volume of Albania, I was suggested 150 pages with a limit of up to 250 pages. When I finished, I had done 500 pages. The publishing house editor complained of the volume of Albania being bigger than Russia’s, but again at my insistence the book was published with little restriction. The American publisher also proved very sympathetic about the vocabulary of Kosovo, whose first English edition appeared in 2004, before Kosovo’s independence was internationally recognized, and we just missed the flag on the front cover.”
Elsie’s books are aimed at being used as standard handbooks in public libraries and university in the English-speaking world, disseminating accurate information on Albania and Kosovo, countries which are still relatively unknown and not understood.
The Historical Dictionary of Albania
This revised new edition of the Historical Dictionary of Albania updates the reader with information on Albania and the Albanians up to the middle of 2009. Compiling a historical dictionary for a whole country, even for a small one like Albania, is a major undertaking. Compiling a historical dictionary for a country as traditionally reclusive as Albania presents even more of a daunting task, in particular since there is still no objective and reliable historiography in Albania upon which such a work can be based. Decades of politically motivated censorship and self-censorship, combined with generations of nationalist thinking, have given rise to many myths and misconceptions. It has been difficult for Albanian historians and scholars to set aside the standard fare of hero glorification and to turn their backs on pompous assertions of national grandeur. Albanian history abounds with myths, which have served to disguise the inferiority complexes of a small and underdeveloped people, but, on the other hand, they have also helped to hold the nation together in times of crisis. Poet Drit쳯 Agolli described Albania as a country which has produced more heroism than grain.
The few foreign historians who have dealt in depth with Albanian history and have published in this field have proven to be more trustworthy, working as they do from an objective distance. Nonetheless, some erroneous claims and naive views still pass from hand to hand. A full-length, comprehensive and reliable history of Albania has yet to be written. The present work does not endeavor to fill the void, but only to offer the reader basic, factual information on the country, its historical development, its current situation and the culture of its people.
The majority of the ca. 750 entries in this Historical Dictionary of Albania are person entries. They comprise not only figures of Albanian history, but also contemporary public figures and political leaders in Albania, as well as individuals, Albanian and foreign, who have made notable contributions to Albanian studies and Albanian culture.
The Historical Dictionary of Albania thus endeavors to provide a comprehensive overview, not only of Albanian history, but also of contemporary Albania as it enters the 21st century, focusing as it does both on the past and on a modern European nation struggling to put its formidable Stalinist past and underdevelopment behind it. It must not be forgotten that, for half a century, Albania was a planet of its own, isolated from the rest of Mother Earth. Since the fall of the communist regime, the Albanians have been striving, not without difficulty, to find their place among the nations of Europe.
The Historical Dictionary of Kosovo
This second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Kosovo, substantially revised and expanded, updates the reader with information on Kosovo and its people until early 2010, that is, through the period of international administration to independence in February 2008, and beyond.
Kosovo is an ancient land, but it was only really “discovered” by the media and the Western world during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, initially simply as another problem looming on the horizon, somewhere behind Bosnia. Since that time, a flurry of books has been written about Kosovo, the vast majority of which concentrated on the 1998-1999 Kosovo War, the appalling political oppression and human rights situation under Serb rule, the resulting humanitarian and security crisis, the thorny issue of status and independence, and the international politics thereof. Despite all of this attention and the institutionalized presence of the international community since 1999, Kosovo is still not well known as a country.
The Historical Dictionary of Kosovo endeavors to rectify this problem and to present Kosovo in a broader framework. It focuses not only on many of the above-mentioned issues, which are still worthy of attention, but also hopes to inform the interested reader about Kosovo as a country with a rich culture and a long history, indeed with several cultures and, one might say ironically, several histories. Kosovo is more than just a bothersome security crisis for the West. It is a new European country of some two million people, a land of poets and writers, painters and sculptors, scholars and artists. It is a land of cultural monuments, including finely ornamented Ottoman mosques and old Orthodox churches and monasteries, of oriental bazaars, of battlefields and of breathtaking landscapes. Kosovo is also a country with substantial natural resources and a young and optimistic population teeming to make its homeland an integral part of Europe. It is a young democracy with much potential, yet one that has unquestionably inherited many grave problems from the somber past.
The majority of the 475 entries in the second edition of this Historical Dictionary of Kosovo are person entries. They comprise not only figures of history, but also contemporary public figures and political leaders, as well as individuals who have made notable contributions to the arts and scholarship.
While not neglecting the ethnic minorities of Serbs, Bosnians, Roma and Turks, the present volume mirrors the realities of modern, postwar Kosovo, as a primarily Albanian-speaking country. Accordingly, where not otherwise stated, the person entries refer to individuals from the ca. 92-percent Albanian majority group.
It is often said that the peoples of the Balkans bite off more history than they can chew. It is to be hoped that this volume will assist readers in digesting some of it and in getting to know Kosovo as a new member of the European family.
