David Ruhnken

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David Ruhnken

David Ruhnken (born January 2, 1723 in Bedlin near Stolp , Pomerania , † May 14, 1798 in Leiden ) was a German - Dutch scholar and librarian at the University Library in Leiden .

Life

In his early childhood, David Ruhnken grew up on the Wintershagen estate , not far from Stolpmünde , in Western Pomerania , where his father, Hans Christian Ruhnken, had become the estate manager in 1725. The parents were Protestant, the father Reformed , the mother, born Maria Gäske (or Geschke ), Lutheran . Ruhnken followed his father's confession. After he had attended elementary school there and had also been taught by the village pastor Martin Lenz, his parents sent him to the city school in Schlawe , where they had relatives. From there he moved to the Collegium Fridericianum in Königsberg (Prussia) at Easter 1739 . At the Fridericianum he belonged to the close circle of friends around Immanuel Kant and Johann Cunde . He already knew Cunde from their school days in Stolp. Ruhnken's parents had chosen him for church service, but after two years of study at the University of Wittenberg he turned to science. Ruhnken lived in Wittenberg in close friendship with professors Johann Daniel Ritter and Johann Wilhelm von Berger . He owed them his thorough training in ancient history and Roman antiquity and literature. From them he learned a pure and clear Latin style. In Wittenberg Ruhnken also took lectures in mathematics and Roman law .

The only thing that drove him away from Wittenberg was his desire to study Greek literature . Neither in Wittenberg nor at any other German university was Greek seriously practiced at this time, except in connection with the Bible and the early Church Fathers . Friedrich August Wolf was the founder of Greek research in Germany, and Richard Porson's mockery that "the Germans in Greek are sadly to seek" had a real core.

The status of Greek in Germany in 1743 was such that the leading figures were Johann Matthias Gesner and Johann August Ernesti . Ruhnken was advised by his Wittenberg friends to attend the University of Leiden , where, on the suggestion of Richard Bentley , the great scholar Tiberius Hemsterhuis had founded the only true Greek school on the continent since the days of Joseph Justus Scaliger and Isaac Casaubon .

Hemsterhuis and Ruhnken developed a close friendship that lasted from Ruhnken's arrival in Leiden in 1743 until Hemsterhuis' death in 1766. After a few years it was already clear that Ruhnken and Valckenaar were the two students of the great master who would be his successor. As his reputation grew, some efforts were made to bring Ruhnken back to Germany, but after settling in Leiden he only left the Netherlands for a year-long trip to Paris to rummage through the libraries there (1755).

In 1757 Ruhnken was entrusted as Hemsterhuis' assistant with lectures in Greek, in 1761 he followed Oudendorp as professor of Latin with the title of full professor of history and rhetoric. This promotion aroused the displeasure of some native Dutch people, who saw themselves more in the chair. Ruhnken's defense was the publication of some works on Latin literature that dwarfed and silenced rivals.

In 1766 Valckenaar took over Hemsterhuis' chair, which did not detract from the friendship between the two until Valckenaar's death in 1785. She also survived the joint candidacy for the important position of university librarian in Leiden, which Ruhnken won. In addition, Ruhnken also took part in the organizational tasks of the Leiden University and was rector of the Alma Mater in 1767/68 . Ruhnken's late years were overshadowed by domestic misfortunes and political upheavals that continued to excite the Dutch after the outbreak of war with England in 1780 and which brought Leiden University to the brink of dissolution.

Ruhnken was in no way a hermit or a pedant. He was handsome, had pleasant manners and an open, unpretentious personality. He was sociable and did not care about social ranks. His biographers say of him that in his early days he knew how to sacrifice to the sirens without becoming a traitor to the muses. He liked life in the fresh air; he loved the sport, at times devoted two or three days a week to it. To other scholars, Ruhnken was generous and dignified, gave generous support and mostly met attacks with a smile.

In science, he holds an important position on the European continent as a link between Bentley and today's researchers. Hemsterhuis' spirit and goals were entrusted to him and faithfully maintained by him. He greatly expanded the circle of those who valued the taste and precision of classical research and helped vigorously in the emancipation of Greek from theology ; But it must not be forgotten that he was the first in recent times to have dared to snatch Plato from the hands of professional philosophers - men who were presumptuous enough to interpret the ancient texts in part without knowing the original language.

David Ruhnken died on May 14, 1798 in Leiden at the age of 75.

Works

Ruhnken dealt extensively with the history of Greek literature, especially the literature of the speakers, with the Homeric hymns, the scholia or Plato and the Greek and Roman grammarians and rhetoricians . A discovery famous in his day was that there was a large piece of Longinus embedded in the text of Apsines' work on rhetoric . The modern view of the writings ascribed to Longinus have reduced interest in this discovery without diminishing its merit.

Original editions

  • Diss. I et II de Galla Placidia Augusta. Wittenberg 1743
  • Epistola critica I in Homeridarum hymnos et Hesiodum, ad LG Valckenarium. Leiden 1749
  • Epistola critica II in Callimachum et Apollonium Rhodium, ad JA Ernestium. Leiden 1752 (see later Homeri hymn etc.)
  • Thalelaei, Theodori, Stephani, Cyrilli, aliorumque ICtorum Graecorum Commentarii in Tit. D. et Cod. De Postulando, s. de Advocatis Gr. et Lat. cum annotatiohibus. The Hague 1752
  • Timaei Sopbistae Lexicon vocum Platonicarum. Nunc primum edidit, atque animadversionibus illustravit. Leiden 1755; Editio secunda, multis partibus locupletior. Leiden 1789
  • Oratio de Graecia, aitium ac doctrinarum inventrice. Leiden 1757
  • Oratio de Doctore umbratico. Leiden 1763
  • P. Rutilius Lupus de figuris sententiarum et elocutionis libri duo, recensuit et notas adiecit. Acc. Aquilae Romani, et Julii Rufiniani de eodem argumento libri. Leiden 1768
  • Elogium Tib. Hemsterhusii. Leiden 1768; Editio altera auctior, cum duabus Richardi Bentleii Epistolis ad Hemsterhusium. Leiden 1789, Halle 1788
  • Dissertatio de vita et scriptis Longini. Leiden 1776, Qxford 1778
  • C. Velleii Paterculi quae supersunt ex historiae Romanae voluminibus duobus, cum integris animadversionibus doctorum. Leiden 1779
  • Homeri hymn in Cererem, nunc primum editus. Leiden 1781, also under the title: Homeri Hymnus in Cererem, nunc primum editus; accedunt duae Epistolae criticae ex editione altera, multis partibus locupletiores. Leiden 1782
  • M. Anton. Mureti Opera omnia, ex MSS. aucta et emendata, cum brevi annotatione et praefatione. Leiden 1789
  • Annotationes in Joh. Alberti Glossarium Hesychianum T. II; in Callimachum in Ernesti editione; in Xenophontem in. Xenophontis Memorabilum editione Ernestiana quinta. Leipzig 1773, 1778
  • Preface to the edition of Apuleii Metamorphoseon libri IX, cum notis variorum, in primis Francisci Oudendorpii. Leiden 1786
  • Preface to the Dutch edition of IJG Scheller's Latin Lexicon. Leiden and Amsterdam 1799
  • Scholia in Platonem; ex Codd. MSS. multarum bibliothecarum primum edidit. Suffering 1800

Modern editions

literature

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Zeitschrift für das Gymnasialwesen (published by AG Heydemann and WJC Mützell on behalf of and with the assistance of the Berlin Gymnasium Teachers' Association). Volume 3, Berlin 1849, p. 696.
personal data
SURNAME Ruhnken, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Dutch scholar and librarian at the University Library in Leiden
DATE OF BIRTH January 2, 1723
PLACE OF BIRTH Bedlin near Stolp , Pomerania
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1798
Place of death Suffer