Alexander Slavik

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Alexander Slawik (born December 27, 1900 in Budweis , † April 19, 1997 in Vienna ) was a sociological Japanologist and professor in Vienna who also worked on cultural-historical topics.

Youth and education

Alexander Slawik was born as the son of an Austro-Hungarian officer who later became city ​​commander in Kraków . As a high school student in Krems an der Donau , he taught himself Japanese after his father had aroused his interest in this country with his remarks on the Russo-Japanese war .

At the age of 18 he found himself penniless in Vienna after the end of the war in 1918. After an apprenticeship as a locksmith, he studied law up to the state examination, which he did not pass. He then switched to East Asian Studies . At that time he earned his living as a commercial clerk at Siemens-Schuckert (1924–31).

The honorary professor Arthur von Rosthorn , a former envoy in Beijing , interested him in the subject of contacts between China, Korea and Japan in the Han period. A doctorate he wished for was not possible because at that time the subjects Sinology or Japanese Studies had not yet been passed in Vienna.

Through his contacts with the small Japanese community in Vienna, he kept in touch with the field. The ethnologist , then a scholarship holder, Oka Masao (岡 正雄) led him to this science. Slawik then resumed his studies in 1931 - his main interest was now Japanese ethnogenesis - which he was able to complete in 1936 with his doctorate on "Cultural Strata in Old Korea".

Act

A planned appointment to the Fujên University of the SVD Order in Beijing was prevented by the outbreak of war in East Asia. He then taught as a lecturer for Japanese at the Consular Academy in Vienna, and later also at the University of Vienna . At that time he was already involved in the underground for the NSDAP , which in 1945 led to his dismissal from civil service.

Together with Professor Oka, he set up research at the Japan Institute . This institute was founded by Baron Mitsui Takaharu ( 三井 高原 ) in 1937/38. During the war he was drafted into the Wehrmacht .

From 1948 he was initially employed as an assistant, then as an assistant, particularly building the library at the university. Later he became head of a Japan department, since 1964 as associate professor, within the Institute for Ethnology, which in 1965 was transferred to an independent Institute for Japanese Studies. He was its director until his retirement in 1971.

He visited Japan for the first time, with the support of UNESCO (Paris), in 1957/58. During this stay he conducted field studies with the Ainu and in the farming villages of Kyushu . The Ainu cult objects collected are an important part of the collection of the Museum für Völkerkunde Wien .

At the invitation of the Japanese Foreign Ministry in 1966, he conducted research in the Fukuoka area . Further work on Hokkaidō and Kyushu laid the foundation for the interdisciplinary Aso project (1968/69) that he developed and directed , the aim of which was to comprehensively capture the culture of a historically tangible area. The result of this long-term project, a documentation on the topography, social and economic history, the rural equipment and the situation of the burakumin in the Aso basin, is available in three volumes.

Josef Kreiner , Peter Pantzer and Sepp Linhart are among the students of Slawik, who subsequently made a name for themselves as Japanologists at the “Vienna School” .

Slawik spent his old age in a Viennese old people's home. He was buried at the Vienna Central Cemetery .

Second World War

Before and during the Second World War, the encryption department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW / Chi) a. a. with the deciphering of the opposing message traffic. The OKW / Chi also had a languages ​​department whose Section 13 was responsible for Japan. Unit 13 consisted of three groups. Slawik, with the rank of corporal, was one of the two translators in Group B.

Awards

Works and literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Report by Uffz. Heinz W. Beyreuther on the Organization of OKW / Chi TICOM, October 23, 1945. Pages 2, 4, 7. Accessed August 24, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Slawik, Alexander
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Japanologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 27, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Ceske Budejovice
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 1997
Place of death Vienna