Johan Georg von Hahn, German linguist, albanologist, jurist and diplomat, was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He studied law in Giessen and Heidelberg. In the years 1834-1843 he worked for the Ministry of Justice of the new Greek Kingdom, in the years 1843-1847 he was the Prussian consul in Athens and then the Austrian deputy consul in Ioannina, where he came into contact with the Albanians and began to learn Albanian. In 1851 he was appointed Austrian consul on the island of Syra. While staying in Ioannina, Hani made three trips to Albania and collected data on Albanian history, philology and folklore. This material was published in his work “Albanian Studies” ( Albanesische Studien ) in three volumes, in Jena, in 1854. In August-November 1863, he traveled from Durrës and Shkodra across the Drin River to Prizren, in Western Macedonia, and from there, crossing the valley of Vardar, in Thessaloniki. Han’s interests in Albania and the Southwest Balkans were diverse. The 1863 expedition resulted in a collection of fifty photographs. Han’s main fields of scientific study are: history, philology and folklore, in particular the Albanian ones, for which he undertook scientific research expeditions in Albania, to study these fields in more detail and to present them to the world scientific opinion. His work provides geographical-ethnographic insights into the Albanians and their country, includes notes from his travels in Albania (1848); sketches an ethnographic tableau of Albanian regions, presents the history of the Albanian people, provides explanations of Albanian mythology, and discusses the Albanian alphabet. (In the photo: Johan Georg von Hahn)
Text: Encyclopedic Dictionary of Kosovo – Vol. I , Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo, Prishtina, 2018, page 592–593.
Photo: © http://www.albanianhistory.net/1854_Hahn/index.html
Graphic processing: AHCF
