Eduard Erkes

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August Eduard Erkes (born July 23, 1891 in Genoa , † April 2, 1958 in Leipzig ) was a German sinologist and ethnologist .

Life

Eduard Erkes grave in the south cemetery in Leipzig

Eduard Erkes (Agostino Edoardo Erkes) was born in Genoa in 1891 as the son of the businessman Heinrich Erkes and naturalized in Germany in 1906 . After studying in Bonn and Leipzig, he received his doctorate in Leipzig in 1913. From 1913 to 1921 he was a research assistant at the Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig. In 1917 he completed his habilitation at the University of Leipzig and was appointed private lecturer in Chinese. He was professionally connected to the Leipzig School of Sinology, which emerged from the tradition of Georg von der Gabelentz and Erkes' teacher and father-in-law August Conrady . In 1919, Erkes joined the SPD and became an atheist . From 1921 to 1933, Erkes was curator and head of the Asian department of the Ethnographic Museum in Leipzig. His appointment as associate professor was initially rejected in 1925; it was not until 1928 that he was appointed an unscheduled associate professor of Chinese. He spent 1931–32 with a family in Beijing and published about it in 1947 in the magazine Urania :

"The Chinese [...] never neglects what western women do so easily when they believe they have found a secure position in marriage, practices much more careful personal hygiene, takes much more care of themselves, and thus keeps themselves constantly young and girlish, walks also respond to the man's erotic desires with much more devotion and understanding than western women usually manage, and ensures that it always remains what the man wants to see in her. So the Chinese know how to love several women at the same time so that none of them feels neglected. "

In 1933 Erkes and his wife, graphic designer Anna-Babette Erkes-Conrady were, after denunciation by Otto cumin with disbarment occupied. The two were accused of "political unreliability".

After the end of the war, Eduard Erkes became an adjunct professor in 1945 and, in April 1947, a full professor of East Asian philology at the University of Leipzig. He also held lectures at the Humboldt University in Berlin and initially headed the Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig . He became an active member of the SED . Since 1950 he was a full member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences .

On May 7, 1951, the East Asian Seminar of the University of Leipzig was upgraded to its own East Asian Institute .

Works (selection)

  • Yellow river and great wall. Journey through China's past and present . Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1958.
  • History of China from the beginning to the invasion of foreign capital . Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1956, ²1957.
  • New contributions to the history of the Chou King Yu . Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1954.
  • The development of Chinese society from prehistoric times to the present . Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1953.
  • The problem of slavery in China . Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1952.
  • The shamanistic origin of the Chinese ancestor cult . Sinologica 2, 1950.
  • The history of China . Berlin, People and Knowledge, 1948.
  • China and Europe. Contrast and balance between two world cultures . Leipzig, Volk und Buch, 1947.
  • Shape change of the gods in China . Researches and Advances 21-23, 1947.
  • Mysticism and Shamanism , Artibus Asiae 8, 1945.
  • The pig in ancient China . Monumenta Serica 1, Henri Vetch, 1942.
  • The God of Death in Ancient China . T'oung Pao 25, 1939.
  • On the saga of Shun , T'oung Pao 34, 1939.
  • Arthur Waley's Lao Tzu translation . Hadl, 1935.
  • On the oldest history of the seal in China . Gutenberg, 1934.
  • Traces of Chinese value creation myths . T'oung Pao 28, 1931.
  • The gods of ancient China . The world circle 5/6, 1930.
  • The totemism among the Chinese and their relatives . Weule Festschrift, Leipzig 1929.
  • Chinese-American Myths Parallels . T'oung Pao 24, 1926.
  • How God was created . Jena, Urania-Verlags-Gesellschaft, 1925.
  • Book and letterpress printing in China . Gutenberg Festschrift, 1925.
  • The old Chinese color names. A contribution to the materialistic conception of history, in: Otto Jenssen , The living Marxism. Ceremony for the 70th birthday of Karl Kautsky , Jena 1924, pp. 333–343.
  • Chinese literature . Breslau, Ferdinand Hirt, 1922.
  • Chinese . Leipzig, Dürr & Weber, 1920.
  • China . Gotha, FA Perthes, 1919.
  • The world view of Huai-nan-tze . Berlin, Oesterheld, 1918.
  • Japan and the Japanese . Leipzig, Veit, 1915.
  • Ancient Chinese incantation poems. The "recall of the soul" (Chao-Hun) of Sung Yüh . Leipzig, 1914.

literature

  • Ronald Lambrecht: Political dismissals in the Nazi era. Forty-four biographical sketches by professors at the University of Leipzig , Leipzig 2006, pp. 64–67.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eduard Erkes: The Chinese Family . In: Urania . Urania Verlags-Gesellschaft, Jena 1947, p. 55 ff .
  2. ^ Biography of Eduard Erkes (1891–1958), University of Leipzig, East Asian Institute. Retrieved November 24, 2013. Retrieved November 24, 2013 .
personal data
SURNAME Erkes, Eduard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Erkes, August Eduard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sinologist and ethnologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 23, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Genoa
DATE OF DEATH April 2, 1958
Place of death Leipzig