Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer

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Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer (born December 5, 1864 in Basel ; † November 28, 1936 there ) was a Swiss folklorist and Germanic Medievalist . He is considered the "father of Swiss folklore".

life and work

Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer (1864–1936), philologist, linguist, Germanist, folklorist, author, grave in the Wolfgottesacker cemetery, Basel
Grave in the Wolfgottesacker cemetery , Basel

Eduard Hoffmann, the son of a textile manufacturer, studied philology , contrary to family tradition, in Basel, where Otto Behaghel became his mentor, in Freiburg im Breisgau , Leipzig and Berlin . In 1890 he received his doctorate from the University of Basel in the subjects German, French and comparative linguistics; The subject of his dissertation was Basel German . In 1891 he completed his habilitation at the University of Zurich .

From 1896 to 1899 he was an editor at the Schweizerischer Idiotikon in Zurich, where Friedrich Staub and Ludwig Tobler had closely linked linguistics and folklore, which helped determine his future research direction.

In 1900 Hoffmann became an associate professor for phonetics , Swiss dialects and folklore at the University of Basel. 1909–1936 he held the full professorship for German philology here. In 1896 Hoffmann initiated the Swiss Society for Folklore and edited the two journals “Swiss Archives for Folklore” (from 1897) and “Swiss Folklore” (from 1911) until his death. From 1919 to 1935 he was President of the Basel Lever Foundation .

Hoffmann-Krayer wrote important works on historical folklore; with the essay "Folklore as Science" (1902) he also gained international recognition. Its folklore library formed the basis of the Swiss Folklore Archive in Basel, and its collections were used to expand the Swiss Folklore Museum in the Basler Völkerkundemuseum, today's Museum of Cultures Basel .

Think

Hoffmann-Krayer was against the general concept of the anonymous " people's soul " and, with this anti-romantic stance, took a provocative position at the time. His best-known theory is that of the vulgus in populo . According to Hoffmann-Krayer, “people” consists of two parts: “populus” (political-national) and “vulgus” (social-civilizational). He emphasized that folklore should not concentrate on the whole of national life, but only on what belongs to the vulgus in populo.

In doing so, he contradicted Hans Naumann's theory of “sunken cultural assets” and “primitive community culture”, a two-tier theory which assumes that essential manifestations of cultural life are always created by the upper class and merely adopted by the lower class. In contrast, Hoffmann-Krayer saw societies organized in a more differentiated manner than a mere movement in the social structure from top to bottom and emphasized the importance of the influence of individuals in the spread of culture.

Fonts (selection)

  • The basics of the dialect vocalism of Basel-Stadt are presented. Adolf Geering's, Basel 1890. [Dissertation.]
  • Festivals and customs of the Swiss people . Schultheß, Zurich 1913.
  • History of the German style in single images . Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1926.
  • Small writings on folklore . With a life picture ed. v. Paul Geiger. Krebs, Basel 1946.

Hoffmann-Krayer also worked on the concise dictionary of German superstition (1927–1941), which his student Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli published.

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Richard Weiss : Folklore of Switzerland. Layout. Rentsch, Erlenbach-Zurich 1946; 3rd, unchanged edition Rentsch, Zurich 1984, here p. 63.
  2. ^ Richard Weiss: The Swiss German Dictionary and Folklore. In: Swiss German Dictionary. Swiss Idioticon. Report on the year 1953. [Zurich 1954], pp. 10–23, here p. 10 f. ( Digitized version ). Hoffmann-Krayer wrote the articles Fasnacht and Wīh (en) Nacht ; see Richard Weiss: Folklore of Switzerland. Layout. Rentsch, Erlenbach-Zurich 1946; 3rd, unchanged edition Rentsch, Zurich 1984, here p. 63.
personal data
SURNAME Hoffmann-Krayer, Eduard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss folklorist and medievalist
DATE OF BIRTH December 5, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH November 28, 1936
Place of death Basel