Alfred Doren

Alfred Doren (originally Alfred Jakob Doctor ; * May 15, 1869 in Frankfurt am Main , † July 28, 1934 in Leipzig ) was a German historian and professor whose main research area was Italian economic and cultural history.

Life

On May 15, 1869, Doren was born under the name Alfred Jakob Doctor . He was the son of the Jewish businessman Adolph Doctor and his wife Helene, b. Weiller. The family name suggests that the ancestors were Adolph Doctors doctors. The family promoted training and education, an attitude common in the more assimilated Jewish families of the 19th century.

Doren studied under a change of name from autumn 1887 with the approval of the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Leipzig in order to avoid possible confusion with the academic degree. In Bonn and Berlin (from 1889) he studied with Karl Lamprecht , Alfred Dove , Henry Thode , Hermann Usener , who also gave decisive impulses to Doren's friend Aby Warburg , Heinrich von Treitschke . His subjects were history, geography and economics. He also attended events with the sociologist Hans Freyer . He was particularly influenced by the important economist of the historical school Gustav Schmoller , from whom he received his doctorate in 1892 in Berlin with an economic- historical work entitled Investigations into the history of the merchants' guilds in the Middle Ages .

Schmoller recommended Doren for a research stay in Italy of several years . There he began to work on the two-volume studies from Florentine economic history , which became his main work. His temporal focus is on the Italian Middle Ages and the Renaissance . In addition to Robert Davidsohn's four-volume story of Florence , Doren's economic history is a work of fundamental importance despite all the hostility of his numerous opponents (such as Walter Lenel or Georg von Below ). Similar to Davidsohn, Doren maintained friendly contacts and exchanges with Aby Warburg.

After his return to Germany , Doren completed his habilitation in 1903 with German craftsmen and craftsmen's brotherhoods in medieval Italy in Leipzig. In 1908 he was appointed associate professor, with which he was not civil servant. Doren never achieved a full professorship.

When Anna married Ludwig Pietsch's daughter in 1897, personal reasons may also have played a role which, after decades, ultimately led to the publication of Pietsch's correspondence with Iwan Turgeniew by Doren.

At the beginning of World War I, Doren volunteered for military service at the age of 45. This was by no means an exception among the Leipzig professors. After Lamprecht's death in 1915, Doren was appointed acting head of the Institute for Cultural and Universal History , which Goetz then took over. In addition to lectures on economic and social history, he gave exercises on the utopias of the 17th and 18th centuries.

At the end of 1915 Doren was appointed to the Political Department of the General Government of Belgium , where he took part in the evaluation of files stolen from Belgian archives. This resulted in a five-volume publication On European Politics 1897-1914 . For this he was given leave of absence from the Saxon Ministry for the winter semester 1916/17 to the winter semester 1917/18. There he was at the edition of Belgian files, also wrote memoranda, etc. a. like The Economic Expansion of Belgium in East Asia . The edition was available in 1918, but was kept under lock and key for diplomatic reasons. He only came back to the subject in a sketch for Leopold II (Belgium) in a commemorative publication for Erich Brandenburg published in 1928 . But this was about Belgium's colonial policy in Africa, which led to the establishment of the Congo state .

After the end of the war, Doren worked temporarily in Berlin until 1923 when he was appointed professor of economic history at the University of Leipzig. This was just newly established. In 1926, in a congratulatory letter on the sixtieth birthday of his friend Warburg, he described him as "one of the greatest assets on the certainly not poor credit side" of his life.

After a decade of teaching and research, he was one of the first Leipzig university professors to be dismissed by the National Socialists in autumn 1933 because of their Jewish descent . His dismissal and that of Walter Goetz marked the end of a decade-long research tradition of the Italian Renaissance in Leipzig. This tradition, which began with Georg Voigt , was never repeated.

Of Doren's Italian Economic History, published in Jena in 1934, the author only saw the first proofs, but not the finished work. After all, this work appeared in 1936 in an edition translated into Italian by G. Luzzatto. In addition, Doren was involved in the Propylaea World History published by Goetz .

Doren was not only important as a historian, he was apparently also a supporter of the Ex-Libris movement.

View of history and reception

In addition to the unmistakable influences of his teacher Lamprecht and those of Davidsohn, his history also shows those of Aby Warburg. It also happened that he dealt with art-historical topics such as the building history of the Florentine cathedral . In his history, too, there are links between historical and contemporary ideals. Orients the historical ideal of the age of the Renaissance and Renaissance man at Goetz at St. Francis of Assisi and Dante , at Alfred Martin at Coluccio Salutati in Hans Baron of Leonardo Bruni makes here Doren something new. He does not have a specific historical person whom he puts at the center of his considerations, but a very specific type of “Renaissance man”, the merchant. In a sense, his economic history of the Italian Renaissance, which is very much shaped by the influence of Jacob Burckhardt and his ideas about Italian Renaissance society, is more of a cultural history of the economy. Doren also took the view that the Renaissance was a genuine achievement by the Italians, even if he recognized the influence of other cultures. Italy was, as it were, made by him into the country of origin of capitalism . This and its concept of capitalism, which differed significantly from that of Karl Marx , met with much criticism. The critics included a. Georg von Below and Walter Lenel . Doren also counteracted contemporary tendencies that sought to reinterpret the Renaissance as a Germanic creation, tendencies into which so-called "völkisch" viewpoints flowed.

Against this background, his work was particularly recognized in America, where many Jewish Medievalists went into exile anyway. Probably the only well-known scientist who viewed his work positively at this time and thus put himself in a certain outsider role was Walter Goetz. He also defended Italy's pioneering role in the Renaissance. What should be emphasized for Goetz: contrary to the general trend, he also cited Jewish authors such as B. Doren's friend Davidsohn in an article about the formation of Italian communes in the Middle Ages on October 5, 1940. Doren's Italian economic history is also cited. He also found stronger recognition in Italy, as already with the Italian necrologists a. a. by Gino Luzzatto and Armando Sapori can be seen.

In Germany, on the other hand, there was little space or interest for a memory of Doren, which is in stark contrast to the meaning of his work. In Germany, before the section in the book by Perdita Ladwig and the life picture of Gerald Diesener and Jaroslav Kudrna, which leads in many respects, there is little substantial about his person. This is not only due to its origins, but also because interest in the Italian Renaissance in Germany had decreased significantly overall. Even Georg Voigt , who for the Italian humanism research as it were beside Jacob Burckhardt fundamental importance, had fared better overall. However, he was not of Jewish origin.

Nothing further is known about the whereabouts of the estate, which initially went to his widow.

Works

• Studies on the history of the merchant guilds of the Middle Ages. A contribution to the economic, social and constitutional history of medieval cities . Leipzig 1893 ( MDZ Munich ).
• For the construction of the Florentine cathedral dome , Berlin, Stuttgart 1898
• Development and organization of the Florentine guilds in the 13th and 14th centuries . (Schmoller's research, Vol. XV) Leipzig 1897 ( Internet Archive ).
• The Florentine woolen cloth industry from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries . (Studies from the Florentine Economic History. Vol. I), Stuttgart 1901 ( Internet Archive ).
• German craftsmen and craftsmen's brotherhoods in medieval Italy , Berlin 1903 ( Internet Archive ).
• The file book for Ghiberti's statue of Matthew to Or S. Michele in Florence , published by the German Art History Institute in Florence, Vol. I, Berlin 1906.
• Studies from the Florentine economic history , vol. 2: The Florentine guild system from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, Stuttgart, Berlin: Cotta 1908 ( Internet Archive ).
• The Chronicle of the Salimbene of Parma , edited from the edition of the MGH by Alfred Doren, 2 vols. (Historian of the German prehistory 93). Leipzig 1914
• Karl Lamprecht's theory of history and the history of art. In: Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und Allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft 11 (1916) 353–389
• Ivan Turgenev to Ludwig Pietsch . Letters from the years 1864 - 1883 , edited by Alfred Doren, Berlin: Propylypen-Verlag 1923
• "Fortuna in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance", Lectures of the Warburg Library, II, 1922–1923, Part 1, pp. 72–144, + 20 fig.
• Desired rooms and times. In: Fritz Saxl (Ed.): Lectures of the Warburg Library 1924–1925, Leipzig, Berlin 1927, 158–205
• Alessandra Macinghi negli Strozzi, Lettere di una Gentildonna fiorentina del secolo XV ai figliuoli esuli , ed. by Cesare Guasti , Florence 1877 (German: Alessandra Macinghi negli Strozzi, letters. Ed. and introduced by Alfred Doren. Jena 1927).
• State and personality . Erich Brandenburg on his 60th birthday. Offered by Alfred Doren, Paul Kirn, Johannes Kühn and others, Leipzig 1928.
• Storia economica dell'Italia nel Medio-evo: Traduzione [dal inglese] di Gino Luzzatto. Padua 1936.

literature

• Gerald Diesener / Jaroslav Kudrna: Alfred Doren (1869-1934) - a historian at the Institute for Cultural and Universal History . In: Gerald Diesener (Ed.), Karl Lamprecht thinking further. Universal and cultural history today (contributions to universal history and comparative social research, 3) (Leipzig 1993), 60–85. (Karl Lamprecht Lecture 1992 also as a separate print)
• Perdita Ladwig: The renaissance picture of German historians 1898-1933 , Frankfurt / M., New York: Campus Verlag, 2004, ISBN 978-3-593-37467-3 , pp. 34–114, The economic foundation of the Renaissance. Alfred Doren 1869-1934
• Ronald Lambrecht: Political layoffs in the Nazi era: Forty-four biographical sketches by professors at the University of Leipzig , Leipzig 2006, pp. 52–55.
• Ulrike Gätke-Heckmann: The University of Leipzig in the First World War. In: Saxony's State University in Monarchy, Republic and Dictatorship: Contributions to the history of the University of Leipzig from the Empire to the dissolution of the State of Saxony. Edited by Ulrich von Hehl , Leipzig 2005, pp. 145–168. Here p. 149 note 33.
• Gino Luzzatto : Doren, Alfred. In: Enciclopedia italiana Treccani, XIII, 1932, 161.
• Armando Sapori: Alfredo Doren , Florence 1935.
• Alfred Doren: Storia economica dell'Italia nel Medio-evo: Traduzione [dal inglese] di Gino Luzzatto. Padua 1936. Con un cenno necrologico dell'autore a cura di Armando Sapori, Padua 1937.
• Doren, Alfred. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 6: Dore – Fein. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-598-22686-1 , p. 3f.

Institute history

• Matthias Middell: The Leipzig Institute for Cultural and Universal History 1890–1990, 3 vols., Leipzig 2004.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ladwig p. 35 note 6.
2. ↑ Middell, Weltgeschistorschreibung, Volume 1, p. 240.
3. ↑ Middell, Weltgeschistorschreibung, Volume 1, p. 238.
4. ↑ Gätke-Heckmann p. 149, note 33.
5. ↑ Diesener / Kudrna p. 68.
6. ↑ Quoted from Perdita Ladwig: Das Renaissancebild deutscher Historiker 1898-1933 , p. 34.
7. ↑ Ladwig p. 362.
8. ↑ Ladwig p. 35 ff.
9. ↑ Ladwig p. 69 ff.
10. ↑ Ladwig p. 60.
11. ↑ So z. B. Walter Goetz, The emergence of the Italian communes in the early Middle Ages (meeting reports of the Phil.-hist. Class of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich, Munich 1944 volume 1, p. 64 note 1. and more often).
12. ↑ Ibid. P. 45 note 2. and more often.
13. ↑ So z. B. Ernst Werner, Alfred Doren (1869-1934). In: Author collective, Important scholars in Leipzig, Vol. 1, Leipzig 209–219.

Web links

• Alfred Doren in the professorial catalog of the University of Leipzig
• Alfred Doren on the page Jews in Saxony ( Memento from April 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive )