In May 2016 in the UNESCO hall of the National Museum, researcher Robert Elsie, among friends and guests, presented a part of the fund of 450 unknown photographs that Miss Edith Durham took during her travels mainly in Albania and Montenegro.

Robert Elsie was born on June 29, 1950 in Vancouver, Canada. He attended the University of British Columbia, where he studied classical philology and linguistics and graduated in 1972. That same year, he came to Europe on a scholarship.

Robert Elsie went on to pursue his higher studies at the Free University of West Berlin (Freie Universität Berlin), then at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris, at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies) in Ireland, and at the University of Bonn (Universität Bonn), where he earned a PhD in comparative linguistics and Celticology in 1978.

After learning Albanian and deepening his knowledge in this language, Robert Elsie decided to devote himself to Albanology, a field in which he would later become one of the most well-known experts.
From the 90s to the beginning of the 21st century, he worked as a freelance interpreter of Albanian and participated in high-level negotiations for the German government, the European Union, the United Nations, NATO, the Council of Europe. , etc. Robert Elsie is a member of the Association of Southeast Europe (Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft), an external member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, as well as an honorary member of the Writers’ Association of Kosovo.

In the field of albanology, Robert Elsie has first devoted himself to Albanian literature. Among his early publications are: Dictionary of Albanian Literature, Westport, Connecticut 1986, and History of Albanian Literature, Boulder, Colorado 1995, in two volumes.
He has also published literary translations in English and German, such as in the UNESCO volume An Elusive Eagle Soars: An Anthology of Modern Albanian Poetry, London 1993; Albanian Folktales and Legends, Tirana 1994; the poetic works of the poet Migjeni (1911-1938) translated into English in the volume Free Verse (Vargjet e lira), Tirana 1991.

Considering the extremely dire situation in Kosovo, a situation largely unknown to the outside world, he compiled the first major anthology of writings on the subject of Kosovo in the 600-page volume Kosovo: In the Heart of the Powder Keg Boulder, Colorado 1997.

He also published the Canon in German, Der Kanun: das albanische Gewohnheitsrecht nach dem sogennenten Kanun des Lekë Dukagjini (The Canon: Albanian customary law according to the so-called Canon of Lekë Dukagjini), Pejë 2001; author of many books and countless articles, mainly in the field of Albanianology.
Albanologist Robert Elsie passed away on October 2, 2017 after a rare motor neuron disease.
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