August Johann Gottfried Bielenstein

August Bielenstein

Pastorate Oši (Eschen)

August Bielenstein ( Latvian : Augusts Bīlenšteins ) (* 20 February ^July / 4 March  1826 ^greg. In Mitau (Latvian: Jelgava ); † 23 June ^July / 6 July  1907 ^greg. Ibid) was a Baltic German theologian, Linguist, folklorist and ethnographer.

Life

August Bielenstein grew up in his father's pastorate Eschen (Oši) near Neu-Autz ( Saldus district ). Like many pastors in the Baltic States , he studied Protestant theology at the Friedrichs University in Halle . In 1846 he moved to the University of Dorpat , which made him Doctor theologiae in 1850 . In 1852 he succeeded his father as pastor of the Neu-Autz congregation in Courland . From 1867 Bielenstein worked as a Protestant pastor of the Doblen community , (Lat .: Dobele ) in Kurzeme (German: Kurland ).

He was president of the Latvian Literary Society from 1864 to 1895 . In this function, Bielenstein arranged for a Latvian dictionary to be edited (by Ulmann, Riga 1872, vol. 1) and took over the linguistic and exegetical revision of the Latvian Bible (Mitau 1877). The magazine of the Latvian Literary Society contains many valuable articles by Bielenstein.

Bielenstein was the editor of Latviešu Avīzes , the largest newspaper in Latvian. He was the author of numerous works in the fields of linguistics and ethnography. He promoted the Dainas collection, edited collections and researched traditional timber construction. He also examined castle mounds in order to be able to assign them to the descriptions in old chronicles. Although Bielenstein made many initiating contributions to the study of the Latvian language and culture, he was at the same time a bitter opponent of the young Latvians and a vehement defender of the German Baltic tradition.

Bielenstein's valuable library fell victim to the Russian Revolution in 1905 .

family

August Bielenstein was a son of pastor Gottfried Bielenstein in Neu-Autz (Kurland) and his wife Emilie geb. v. Klebeck .

August Bielenstein married Ernestine Louise Hermine Erna von Bordelius (1833–1919) in 1854 . The marriage resulted in three daughters and six sons. Not all of them reached adulthood. Three of the sons became pastors. They are continuing their father's work. The daughter Martha supported her father as a draftsman with his publications and emerged as an author herself.

	born		died
child's name	year	place	year	place	job
Max	1855	New Autz	1869	Sackenhausen	lived 14 years
Louis Johann Emil	1858	New Autz	1943	Bethel	pastor
Martha	1860	New Autz	1938	Riga	Author
Johannes ( Hans ) Georg Wilhelm	1863	New Autz	1919	Bauske	pastor
Johanna	1864	New Autz	1864	New Autz	lived 2 months
Emma	1865	New Autz	1887	Doblen	lived 21 years
Siegfried "Six" Alexander	1869	Doblen	1949	Senftenberg	Artist
Walter Adolf Axel	1872	Doblen	1961	Reutlingen	pastor
Bernhard Max August	1877	Doblen	1959	Heilbronn	architect

Afterlife

Bielenstein's study on the limits of the Latvian tribe and the Latvian language in the present and in the 13th century. A contribution to the ethnological geography and history of Russia was used when, after the Latvian War of Independence, the borders of Latvia with Estonia and - in the 1920 Peace Treaty of Riga - with the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic had to be determined.

Honors

Memorial plaque in the Brömsehaus, Lüneburg

Commemorative plaque at the former Doblen Pastorate (2012)

• Dr. phil. hc of the Albertus University of Königsberg (1883)
• Member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences , 1890 corresponding member
• Honorary President of the Latvian Literary Society (1895)
• Honorary memberships
  • Society for the History and Archeology of the Baltic Provinces of Russia (1869)
  • Courland Society for Literature and Art (1877)
  • Lithuanian Literary Society , Tilsit (1879)
  • Estonian learned society , Dorpat (1888)
  • Estonian Literary Society , Reval (1892)
  • Prussia Ancient Society (1894)
• Honorary philistine of the German-Baltic student union Curonia Dorpat (1902)
• Half Demidov Prize of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg (1861)
• Home Citizen Award of the University of Dorpat (1892)
• Dr. theol. hc of the University of Dorpat (1902)

On the 100th anniversary of his death in 2007, there were several events in Dobele and Riga , including the unveiling of a plaque. In 2008 an exhibition was held at the Estonian National Library in Tallinn .

Fonts

• The Latvian language, according to its sounds and forms , 2 volumes. Dümmler, Berlin 1863 and 1864 (reprint: Zentralantiquariat der DDR, Leipzig 1972).
• The Limits of the Latvian Tribe and Language in the Present and the 13th Century. A contribution to the ethnological geography and history of Russia . Eggers / Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg 1892 (reprint: v. Hirschheydt, Hannover-Döhren 1973, ISBN 3-7777-0983-2 ).
• with Emil Bielenstein and Hans Bielenstein : Studies in the field of Latvian archeology, ethnography and mythology . Hoerschelmann, Riga 1896 ( digitized version ).
• The wooden structures and tools of the Latvians. A contribution to the ethnography, cultural history and archeology of the peoples of Russia in the western region , 2 volumes. Imperial Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg 1907 and Akademija Nauk, Petrograd 1918 (reprint: v. Hirschheydt, Hannover-Döhren 1969).
• A happy life. Autobiography . Jonck and Poliewsky, Riga 1904 (reprint: Neuthorverlag, Michelstadt 2002, ISBN 3-88758-080-X ).

literature

• Heinz Mattiesen:  Bielenstein, August. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 226 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz :  BIELENSTEIN, August. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 1, Bautz, Hamm 1975. 2nd, unchanged edition Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-013-1 , Sp. 585-586.
• Walter Bielenstein: Battle experiences of a Baltic in the struggle for faith and home. Berlin 1939 (Chapter 2)
• Heinrich von Baer: My experience of brotherhood. Records from 1979 . Editor of the Brüderlicher Kreis 2012 ISBN 978-3-8482-5703-4 (With a chapter on Walter Bielenstein; also as an e-book)
• Anthology of the Riga conference, July 6, 2007: Dr. August Bielenstein - researcher of the basics of Latvian culture and its mediator in Europe . (Bilingual German and Latvian; Latvijas Akadēmiskā Bibliotēka, 2007)
• Sarma Kļaviņa: The works of August Bielenstein - an important source of 19th century Indo-European studies . On-line
• Wilhelm Neander: Lexicon of Baltic German Theologians since 1920 . Verlag und Druckerei Fritz Eberlein, Hanover, 2nd edition 1988
• Andrejs Bankavs, Ilga Jansone: Valodniecība Latvijā: Fakti un biogrāfijas . LU Akadēmiskais apgāds 2010. ISBN 978-9984-45-183-1 (Linguistics in Latvia: facts and biographies; with Bielenstein's catalog raisonné)
• Carola L. Gottzmann , Petra Hörner: Lexicon of the German-language literature of the Baltic States and St. Petersburg . De Gruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019338-1 , p. 233-235 .

Web links

Commons : August Johann Gottfried Bielenstein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Baltic Historical Commission (ed.): Entry on Bielenstein, August. In: BBLD - Baltic Biographical Lexicon digital
• Literature by and about August Johann Gottfried Bielenstein in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about August Johann Gottfried Bielenstein  in the German Digital Library
• WorldCat
• Bielenstein, August . In: East German Biography (Kulturportal West-Ost)
• Album academicum of the Imperial University of Dorpat , Dorpat 1889

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Bielenstein in the portrait collection of the Latvian National Library ( Memento of the original dated June 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ Sigurds Rusmanis, Ivars Vīks: Kurzeme . Izdevniecība Latvijas Enciklopēdija, Riga 1993, ISBN 5-89960-030-6 , p. 173 (Latvian).
3. ↑ The Oši rectory in Jaunauces Pagasts ( Memento of the original from June 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ August Bielenstein's pastorate ( memento of the original from June 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Dobele , restored in 2007.  
5. ↑ Jānis Asaris: Kurzemes Pilskalni . In: Sigurds Rusmanis, Ivars Vīks (eds.): Kurzeme un kurznieki . Izdevniecība Latvijas Enciklopēdija, Rīga 1995, ISBN 5-89960-077-2 , pp. 12-17, here p. 12.
6. ↑ Neander (1988)
7. ^ Directory of the writings of Martha Bielenstein at the Herder Institute.
8. ↑ by Baer (2012)
9. ↑ Ilze Krokša, Aina Balaško (ed.): Vācu kultūra Latvijā. Ieskats vācu-latviešu novadu kultūras un vācu biedrību vēsturē = German culture in Latvia. Insight into the history of the German-Latvian regional cultures and the German club history . Latvijas Vācu Savienība, Riga 2009, ISBN 978-9984-39-832-7 , p. 73.
10. ↑ Lily Limane : Pārdomas pēc A. Bīlenšteinam veltītās izstādes (On the exhibition in the Riga Academic Library in 2007)
11. ↑ Memorial plaque for August Bielenstein in Dobele  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ^ The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia on the 100th anniversary of death in 2007
13. ^ Bielenstein exhibition in the Estonian National Library , Tallinn in 2008.