Alexander Willem Byvanck

Alexander Willem Byvanck (born July 4, 1884 in Leiden , † August 16, 1970 ibid) was a Dutch classical and Roman provincial archaeologist .

life and work

Alexander Willem Byvanck, the son of the librarian and historian Willem Byvanck (1848–1925) and his wife Clara geb. Cramerus, attended high school in The Hague and studied from 1902 to 1907 Classical Studies ( Classical Philology , History and Classical Archeology) at the University of Leiden . After graduating in 1909, he went on an educational and research trip through Italy and Greece. From 1909 he worked at the Museum Meermanno-Westreenianum . In 1912 he was at the University of Leiden under Antonie Ewoud Jan Holwerda (1845-1922) with a study of the Greek colonies in southern Italy to the Dr. phil. PhD . In 1917 he was appointed private lecturer in Leiden and in 1922, as Holwerda's successor, professor of archeology. In the 1930s Byvanck was the first Dutch archaeologist to organize student excursions to the Mediterranean countries with 20 to 100 participants. His future wife Hortense Louise van Ufford , whom he married in 1948 , also belonged to his students .

During the occupation of the Netherlands by the German Wehrmacht (1940-1945) Byvanck acted from September 1940 as rector of the University of Leiden . In this position he initially protested against political influence on the university, which he emphasized in a speech on September 19, 1940 as a place of freedom and tolerance. When the pressure on the Dutch universities increased, he sought a mediating position. He dismissed the Jewish professors on November 26, 1940, after which a student strike broke out the following day, which professors also joined. Byvanck's efforts to end the strike were unsuccessful, so the university closed in November. It reopened for a short time in May 1941 to allow students to take the exams, and then remained closed until the end of the occupation. On September 15, 1941, Byvanck officially resigned as rector.

After the end of the occupation in 1945, Byvanck continued his teaching activities. On May 17, 1946 he was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences . On the occasion of his retirement in 1954, his colleagues and students dedicated a commemorative publication to him under the title Varia Historica .

At the center of Byvanck's research was ancient art history, which he sought to capture in broad epochs. In doing so, he traced the artistic developments and currents back to the artistic will of the respective epoch and reconstructed a kind of “folk spirit” by assigning cultural peculiarities to certain peoples. His main work in this area is De Kunst der Oudheid ("The Art of Antiquity", three volumes, 1946–1965). In addition, Byvanck dealt with the early history of the Netherlands, from prehistory and early history to the Roman period . In this area he published several monographs, including De Voorgeschiedenis van Nederland ("The Prehistory of the Netherlands"), which experienced four editions from 1941 to 1946.

Byvanck's estate has been in the Leiden University Library since 1975 . It mainly contains correspondence, manuscripts, material collections and a photo collection of illuminated manuscripts.

Fonts (selection)

• De Magnae Graeciae historia antiquissima . Leiden 1912 (dissertation)
• with Godefridus Johannes Hoogewerff : Noord-Nederlandsche miniatures in manuscripts of the 14e, 15e and 16e eeuwen . Three volumes, The Hague 1922–1935
• Les principaux Manuscrits a peintures de la Bibliothèque Royale des Pays-Bas et du Musée Meermanno-Westreenianum a La Haye. Pour les membres de la Société Française de Reproductions de Manuscrits a Peintures . Paris 1924
• Korinthos (location, topography, sources). In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Supplement volume IV, Stuttgart 1924, Sp. 991-1007.
• History of the Netherlands atlas. De Romeinsche tijd en de Frankische tijd . The Hague 1929
• The principaux manuscrits à peintures conservés dans le collections publiques du royaume des Pays-Bas. Paris 1931
• De Voorgeschiedenis van Nederland . Leiden 1941. 2nd edition 1942. 3rd edition 1944. Edition 1946
• Nederland in the Romeinschen tijd . Two volumes, Leiden 1943. 2nd edition 1945. 3rd edition 1946
• L'art de Constantinople . Leiden 1977

literature

• Hortense Anne Louise Elisabeth Byvanck-Quarles van Ufford: Bibliography of Prof. Dr. AW Byvanck . In: Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek . Volume 5 (1954), pp. 309-331 (list of publications).
• Hortense Anne Louise Elisabeth Byvanck-Quarles van Ufford: Bibliography of Prof. Dr. AW Byvanck (2nd deel) . In: Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek . Volume 22 (1971), supplement (15 pages).
• Willem den Boer : Levensbericht van Alexander Willem Byvanck . In: Jaarboek Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen 1971, pp. 246–255 (with picture, full text ).
• H. van der Hoeven: Byvanck, Alexander Willem. In: Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland Vol. 4, 1994 ( full text )
• Martijn Eickhoff: Alexander Willem Byvanck (1884-1970) . In: Gunnar Brands , Martin Maischberger (Hrsg.): Lebensbilder. Classical archaeologists and National Socialism . (= People - Cultures - Traditions. Studies from the research clusters of the German Archaeological Institute 2, 1) Verlag Marie Leihdorf, Rahden 2012, pp. 107–117.

Web links

• Literature by Alexander Willem Byvanck in the catalog of the German National Library
• Dictionary of Art Historians