Robert Elsie is the author of over 50 books and numerous articles. He has served as a translator and interpreter of Albanian, most recently before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and he presently works for the Hague Tribunal.
Helps to fill a large gap in English-language materials on this
region.
*American Reference Books Annual*
Highly recommended.
*CHOICE*
This is an extremely objective reference work, whose useful
information will be lasting.
*Central and Eastern European Review*
Updating the 2004 edition, released when Kosovo was still a Serbian
province, this indispensable subject guide aims to increase our
understanding of Europe's newest country while incorporating
developments occurring since its February 2008 declaration of
independence. Elsie (Historical Dictionary of Albania) opens with a
chronology, dating from 547 C.E. Four hundred alphabetically
organized and highly accessible entries follow, each running
several paragraphs and offering a summary explanation of the
people, places, organizations, events, and customs that have
defined the country's turbulent history. Perhaps of greatest value
to researchers is the spectacular, thematically divided 89-page
bibliography. An essential reference for a previously
underrecognized subject.
*Library Journal*
This dictionary covers Kosovo’s complicated past as a nation of
mostly ethnic Albanians who have been under the rule of the Roman,
Byzantine, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian Empires as well as a part
of Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and, most recently, Serbia. The entangled
intricacy of this past is exemplified in the introductory material.
The chronology that follows “Acronyms and Abbreviations” and “Maps”
is more than 25 pages long, with more than half of that covering
just 1990 to the present. Events range from Slavic settlement of
the area in the year 547 to the 2010 arrest of the head of the
Kosovo Central Bank for corruption. In addition to history, the
alphabetically arranged and heavily cross-referenced entries in the
body of the dictionary cover political, social, and biographical
topics. Additional material includes an appendix of major
place-names in the different languages of Kosovo, lists of
government officials as well as political parties and
organizations, and a comprehensive bibliography of nearly 100 pages
with its own table of contents. Overall, this would be a good
addition for both public and academic libraries.
*Booklist*
The first edition of this book (CH, Apr'05, 42-4390) was titled
Historical Dictionary of Kosova. Elsie (independent scholar) has
renamed this second edition to reflect the official name of the
country, which became independent in 2008. Nearly 100 entries have
been added, for a total of 475, the majority of which deal with
persons, historical and contemporary, who have had some impact on
the development of Kosovo; most relate to Albanian Kosovars.
Boldface type within articles indicates cross-references. The
section on acronyms not only lists the name equivalent but also
gives the English translation. The extensive bibliography now
includes works in languages other than English. A chronology that
begins in 547 becomes much more detailed through the 1980s up to
July 2010. The introduction gives a short history of Kosovo. Seven
maps are included. Summing Up: Highly recommended.
*CHOICE*
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