Robert Elsie

On October 2, 2017 Robert Elsie died of motor neuron disease in Bonn, Germany. His last words before passing away were "death is so boring. So slow. One only waits for it". At the time of Elsie's death, it was initially reported in the media that he had requested in his will to be buried in Albania, although it emerged two weeks after those events that Elsie did not specify in his will where to be buried. Instead it was the decision of his life partner, Stephan Trierweiler, that he should be buried in Albania due to the deep love Elsie had for the country.

From 1978 on, Elsie visited Albania several times with a group of students and professors from the University of Bonn. For several years, he also attended the International Seminar on Albanian Language, Literature and Culture, held in Pristina, Kosovo. From 1982 to 1987, he worked for the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bonn, and from 2002 to 2013 for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, in particular as an interpreter for several noted cases including the trial of Slobodan Milošević.

Robert Elsie (June 29, 1950 – October 2, 2017) was a Canadian-born German scholar who specialized in Albanian literature and folklore.

Born on June 29, 1950 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Elsie studied at the University of British Columbia, graduating in 1972 with a diploma in Classical Studies and Linguistics. In the following years, he continued his post-graduate studies at the Free University of Berlin, at the École Pratique des Hautes Études and at the University of Paris IV: Paris-Sorbonne, at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and at the University of Bonn, where he finished his doctorate on Linguistics and Celtic Studies in 1978 at the Linguistics Institute.