Foreword in English

The genealogical data has been collected by Svilen Protitch from the Alexi clan from the village of Luma, district of Kukes, Albania. Over 70 interesting illustrations of glorious and ordinary personalities, buildings, views of nature, and facsimiles have been added. He has provided the list of the used old and new books, albums and archives.

The author, who collected and recorded the genealogical material, wants to apologise to the readers  as owing to his work he has not presented the context in a scholarly way.

The first part of the material of the Clan was printed in the capital city of Sofia in the year 2003 from the birth of Our Lord. A potential second part will note genealogical data that are expected, most curious facts about the place of origin, and the names of descendants of daughters of the same clan. In this first part, the data will follow only the direct male line called "the golden line".

If one does not take into account the many names of relatives, the author has mentioned chiefly names of distinguished personalities. That was done not because of vanity, but because of two other reasons. First, for the majority of them something was found concerning their genealogy, which is in keeping with the main theme.  The data about the rest are comparatively meagre or difficult to obtain - a part of them are in foreign archives. But chess players have as their motto the words: "we are all members of one clan". Second, historic personalities have influenced, for good or for bad, public life in its various fields.

In spite of everything let us not forget the maxim that what matters is the idea and also every genealogical table cannot be exhausted in one book. Preparing such a table takes more than one generation and it is fraught with obstacles and contradictions.

Svilen Protitch