David Gunzburg

Baron David Günzburg

Baron David Gunzburg Horazijewitsch ( Russian Давид Горациевич Гинцбург * July 5 ^jul. / 17th July  1857 ^greg. In Kamenetz-Podolski , † 22. December 1910 in St. Petersburg ) was a Russian Orientalist and a member of the Jewish-Russian banker family Gunzburg .

Life

Günzburg was the son of the banker Naphtali Herz Günzburg , who was one of the richest people in the Russian Empire, in 1871 by Grand Duke Ludwig III. von Hessen and Rhein received the title of baron and was one of the founders of the Society for Craft and Agricultural Work (among Jews) . Günzburg received an excellent home education and studied oriental languages ​​with Adolf Neubauer , Senior Sachs and Hirsch Rabinowitsch. He attended lectures by Stanislas Guyard in Paris and Baron Rosen in St. Petersburg and became a candidate for the University of St. Petersburg at the age of 20 . He then studied Arabic poetry with Wilhelm Ahlwardt in Greifswald from 1879 to 1880 .

Günzburg edited Moses ibn Esras Tarschisch (published by the Mekize Nirdamim Society in Lyck ) with an annotated Arabic translation. It was followed by Ibn Guzman . He published essays in the Notes of the Eastern Department of the Imperial Archaeological Society (1893), in the Works of the Neophilological Society (1892) and in the Journal of the Russian Ministry of Education ( On the First Jewish School in Siberia ). As an enthusiastic admirer of Jewish art, he published the book L'ornement hébreu ( Berlin 1903) together with Vladimir Stassow , in which examples of text decorations from Hebrew manuscripts from Syria , Yemen and Africa were presented. Günzburg compiled a catalog and a description of the manuscripts of the Institute for Oriental Languages ​​at the Foreign Ministry and wrote a series of articles for the Revue des Études Juives , the Revue Critique , the Russian journals Problems of Philosophy and Psychology ( essay on the history of Kabbalah ) and Sunrise and Hebrew newspapers like Ha-Meliz . He also contributed to the anniversary publications for Leopold Zunz , Moritz Steinschneider , Daniel Chwolson , Abraham Harkavy , Baron Rosen and others.

Günzburg's library with its collection of rare books and valuable manuscripts was one of the most important private libraries in Europe. Were important in particular Machsorim from Spain , Italy , the Provence and Africa, the divans of the most important poets of the Spanish era, Yemeni manuscripts in the various fields of knowledge, part one of a Autodafé rescued -Cremation Talmud , Jerusalem recipes with kabbalistic and philosophical commentary from S Cyrilo from the bequest of Isaac Abrabanel and manuscripts with Targumim and their Arabic translations. There were also rare incunabula , the Bomberg Bible, part of a Venetian Talmud from 1522 and old polyglots (including Complutensian polyglots ). Günzburg bequeathed his library to the Jewish Public Library in Jerusalem . However, this could not be realized initially because of the First World War . After the October Revolution and long negotiations, the export of the library was finally banned by the government. The library was transferred to the manuscript department of the Russian State Library in Moscow , while the collections on Jewish life were transferred to the Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR in Petrograd .

1898–1905 Günzburg was chairman of the board of directors of the Volga - Caspian oil production and trading company .

Günzburg was chairman of the St. Petersburg Jewish community, member of the committees of the Society for the Spread of Enlightenment among the Jews and the Society for the Spread of Agriculture by Russian Jews, chairman of the central committee of the Jewish Colonization Association , founder of the Society for Oriental Studies , chairman of the Society Chowewe Sefat Eber , member of the Jewish scholarly committee of the Ministry for Public Enlightenment, member for life of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society and the Paris Société asiatique and one of the founders of the Société des études juives in Paris.

Günzburg initiated the Society for Jewish Scientific Editions , of which he was a committee member. He sponsored and supported the Jewish Brockhaus-Efron Encyclopedia and was one of its editors. He conducted oriental studies courses in St. Petersburg, in which Henrich Sliosberg also gave lectures on the history of legislation on the Jews in Russia. Like his father and grandfather, he always tirelessly defended Jewish interests. Thanks to his good connections with government officials, he was often able to avert legal proceedings against groups and individuals. He founded organizations for poor Jews and for Jewish students, and he supported a Jewish orphanage in St. Petersburg, a farm in Minsk and an agricultural school for Jewish colonists in Novopoltava near Klyuchi . In 1910 he became chairman of the first congress of Jews on problems in their religious life .

In 2017, the Israeli National Library and the Russian State Library agreed to digitize the Günzburg Collection and make it available online, comprising 2,000 manuscripts in several languages ​​and 9,000 books from the 12th to 19th centuries. It is planned to integrate the digitized collection into the International Collection of Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts, Ktiv of the Israeli National Library.

Web links

Commons : David Günzburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 5 июля. Родился барон Давид Гинцбург (accessed February 28, 2017).
2. ↑ Encyclopaedia Britannica: David, Baron Günzburg  ( 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. (accessed on February 28, 2017).  
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Herman Rosenthal, S. Janovsky: Günzburg, David, Baron (accessed on February 28, 2017).
4. ^ Address book St. Petersburg . Suvorin -Genossenschaft, St. Petersburg, 1904, ISBN 5-94030-052-9 , S. 1247 .
5. ↑ Михаил Носоновский: Из истории высшего еврейского образования в России (accessed February 23, 2017).
6. ↑ Коллекция Гинцбургов. Russian State Library, accessed November 9, 2017 . 
7. ^ Klaus Graf : Israeli National Library and Russian State Library agree on digitization and online provision of the Günzburg Collection. In: archivalia. November 9, 2017. Retrieved November 9, 2017 . 
8. ↑ Historic Moment: The Günzburg Collection will be Made Public to the Jewish World. National Library of Israel, accessed November 9, 2017 . 
9. ↑ International Collection of Digitized Hebrew Manuscripts. National Library of Israel, accessed November 9, 2017 .