Vangjel Meksi

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Vangjel Meksi
Born1770
Tripolitsa, Ottoman Empire, now modern Greece
OccupationPhysician, philologist, and translator
Notable worksTranslation of the New Testament into Albanian, Albanian language grammar

Vangjel Meksi (1770–1823)

Filiki Etaireia, a secret society whose purpose was to establish an independent Greek state, Meksi joined the Greeks in the Siege of Tripolitsa during their war of independence against the Ottoman Empire
and died shortly afterwards.

As well as its value to Albanian Christians, who could for the first time read the Gospels in their own language, Meksi's work advanced the study of written Albanian, and in particular informed the work of 19th-century linguists and philologists such as Joseph Ritter von Xylander, August Schleicher, and Johann Georg von Hahn. Their studies of the Albanian language were significantly influenced by Meksi's Bible translation.

Early life

Meksi was born in 1770 in

University of Naples in Italy, where he studied medicine under Dr. Nicola Acuto and practiced in a hospital administered by the parish of San Giovanni a Carbonara.[3] After completing his studies in 1808, Meksi returned to Yanina and once again served in Ali Pasha's court, this time as one of his four physicians.[3] His colleagues were Dr. Metaxa, (degree in medicine from the University of Paris), Dr. Saqeralliu (degree in medicine from the University of Vienna), and Dr. Loukas Vagias, (brother of Thanasis Vagias, with a degree in medicine from Leipzig University).[3][4]

Philological activity

After falling out of favor with Ali Pasha, for reasons unknown, Meksi left the court in 1810 to travel around Europe.[2] During a brief stay in Venice he began to develop an interest in the Albanian alphabet and grammar.[2] He published two translations into Albanian during 1814, both now lost, one of which was a religious work by Abbé Claude Fleury (1640–1723).[5]

Meksi also wrote a grammar of the

Jani Evstrat Vithkuqari; it is not known which was published first.[5]

In this period Meksi also created a new Albanian alphabet, rationalizing and consolidating the many different pre-existing alphabets,[7] employing a mix of Greek and Latin characters.[7] Using his new alphabet, he wrote a book called Orthography of the Albanian language, (Albanian: Drejtshkrimi i gjuhës shqipe).[7]

Translation of the New Testament

Pinkerton, who in 1816 was the BFBS's representative in Moscow, had met that year with a community of Albanians in Vienna, then capital of the

Ionian islands under the supervision of an Albanian bishop.[8]

In 1819, apparently with the blessing of his superiors at the BFBS, Pinkerton met with Meksi (referring him as Evangelos Mexicos)

Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople.[6] Gregory, according to Pinkerton, also offered to find two suitable clergymen to assist Meksi in his endeavor.[6] Lastly, Pinkerton recommended that the Greek alphabet be used as the most suitable for the Albanian language.[6] On October 19, 1819, Pinkerton and Meksi concluded a contract to translate the New Testament into Albanian on behalf of the society. It was agreed that the Bible would have to be translated into the Albanian dialect of Yanina.[10] Meksi completed the work in two years,[11] ten months earlier than the contract's deadline.[12]

Early in 1821 Mr. Leeves of the BFBS visited

Koine.[14]

On March 16, 1824, Mr. Lowndes, the BFBS's secretary in Corfu, sent a letter to the society in which he mentioned that the sum paid to Meksi for his work was 6,000

piastras and that Archimandrite Grigor was paid 60 crowns.[14] On September 5, 1824, the Saint Matthew's Gospel was published in Albanian. According to Lowndes' letters, the Albanian community of Missolonghi was extremely excited when mass was said with a piece from Saint Matthew, as since its translation they had been impatient to hear it in Albanian.[15] In July 1827 the form in which the first 500 copies of the New Testament were to be bound was decided in London.[16] The entire edition amounted to 2,000 copies.[17]

Although Gjirokastriti's edition of the New Testament was written in Albanian, it used the Greek alphabet.[18] It is not known which alphabet Meksi used in his own manuscript.[18]

The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople was not against the work of Meksi or the Bible Society at that time. On the contrary, for the translation the British missionaries successfully appealed to Gregory V and enlisted the help of an Orthodox bishop, Gjirokastriti, for the final edition of the New Testament in Albanian.[10]

Greek War of Independence

Meksi was a member of the

Filiki Etaireia,[10] a secret society whose purpose was to overthrow Ottoman rule over the Balkans and to establish an independent Greek state. When the Greek War of Independence broke out in 1821, after his translation had been completed, Meksi joined the Greeks in the Siege of Tripolitsa.[10] Despite suffering from a serious bout of pneumonia, he continued to work as a physician during the war. He is also said to have taken part in the negotiations leading to an agreement proposed by Theodoros Kolokotronis that permitted the Albanians who were defending Tripolitsa to leave unharmed,[19] an arrangement that helped the Greeks to capture the town from the Turks.[19]

Legacy

Meksi did not live to see the 1827 publication of his translation of the New Testament; he had died a bachelor six years earlier, at the age of about 51.[10] The first publication of a Bible translation from Greek to a modern Balkanic language,[20] it ran to 2,000 copies, a huge number for the time.[17] It preceded the modern Bulgarian version by two years and the Romanian translation by twenty.[21] A second edition was published in 1858 in Athens,[20] but as it had not been revised by any native speakers of Albanian it was full of errors.[17]

Meksi's work was important for the development of written Albanian, and his endeavors strengthened the conviction that a stable Albanian alphabet had to be created.[17] His translation served as the basis for Joseph Ritter von Xylander's studies of the Albanian language, which definitively refuted the thesis that the language had a Tatar origin.[17] Von Xylander concluded that Albanian had an Indo-European root.[17]

Two other international scholars also studied the Albanian language mainly based on Meksi's translation of the New Testament: August Schleicher, who stated that his knowledge of the conjugation of Albanian verbs was based on Meksi's work,[22] and Johann Georg von Hahn an Austrian diplomat, philologist, and specialist in Albanian history, language, and culture, who translated the Bible into Gheg Albanian with the help of Kostandin Kristoforidhi.[23]

References

  1. ^ David Hosaflook (2017). Lëvizja Protestante ndër shqiptarët, 1816-1908, University of Tirana, p. 65 (Doctoral thesis)
  2. ^ a b c Lloshi, p. 112
  3. ^ a b c Monti, Gennaro (1941). Rivista d'Albania. II: 48–50. {{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. ^ Lloshi p. 113
  5. ^ a b Kastrati, p. 516
  6. ^ a b c d e Lloshi, p. 117
  7. ^ a b c Meksi (2000), p. 46
  8. ^ a b c Clayers, p. 181
  9. ^ Rev. Dr. Pinkerton's Letters, in the "Annual Report of the American Bible Society", pp. 181, 184.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Clayers, p. 182
  11. S2CID 161805678. Archived from the original
    on 2012-11-03. Retrieved 2010-06-20.
  12. ^ Lloshi pp. 112–113
  13. ^ a b c Lloshi p. 118
  14. ^ a b Lloshi p. 119
  15. ^ Lloshi, p. 128
  16. ^ Lloshi, p. 132
  17. ^ a b c d e f Lloshi, p. 142
  18. ^ a b Lloshi, p. 23
  19. ^ a b Meksi (2000), p. 56
  20. ^ a b Clayers 183
  21. ^ Kastrati p. 519
  22. ^ Lloshi, pp. 143-144
  23. ^ Lloshi, p. 144

Sources

Further reading

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