Vangjel Meksi

Who was Vangjel Meksi?

Vangjel Meksi was an Albanian physician, writer, and translator. One-time personal physician to Ali Pasha, the 19th-century Albanian ruler of the Pashalik of Yanina, Meksi produced the first translation of the New Testament into Albanian with the help and sponsorship of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Meksi did not live to see his work's publication however, which was supervised by Gregory IV of Athens. As a member of 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.