Eduard Hahn (ethnologist)

Eduard Hahn (born August 7, 1856 in Lübeck , † February 24, 1928 in Berlin ) was a German agrarian ethnologist , geographer and economic historian .

Live and act

Eduard Hahn, son of Georg Carl Hahn , probably the oldest German canning company, studied medicine and later natural sciences at the universities of Jena , Greifswald and Leipzig since 1877 . In 1887 he received his doctorate from Ernst Häckel in Jena with a dissertation on a coprophage beetle species . He then went to Berlin , where he maintained close and friendly contacts with the geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen . He advised him to do his habilitation with a historical-geographical study on the origin and distribution of domestic animals.

Hahn was happy to take up this topic. However, since he was financially independent, he took his time. It was not until 1910, at the age of 54, that he qualified as a professor at the University of Berlin with a paper on the development of plowing culture for the subject "History and Geography of Agriculture", in the same year at the Agricultural University of Berlin . Until his death he worked in Berlin as a private lecturer , since 1921 with the title of associate professor . He could no longer develop any greater academic effectiveness. In 1910 he was accepted into the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina . He had remained unmarried.

Hahn tried in numerous publications to explain the origin of the early forms of agriculture and the domestication of domestic animals . His most important scientific publication is the book " Pets and their relationship to the economy of people " , published in 1896 . In this original work, he refutes the "three-stage theory" that had been generally recognized in science up to that point, according to which man developed from the original state of hunter and fisherman to nomadic farmer, and replaces it with a theory of cultural and economic forms. This new theory was judged very critically by specialist scientists (geographers, cultural historians, ethnologists, sociologists), but Hahn's stimulating and witty considerations influenced the scientific discussions about the development history of rural economic forms for decades.

In the book " Demeter and Baubo. An attempt at a theory of the origin of our agriculture " (1897) Hahn deals with the connection between the origin of the plow culture and religious sexual beliefs . Among his other books on the history of agriculture are " The emergence of the plow culture " (1909) and " From the hoe to the plow " (1914 and 1919). In several essays, especially in his book " The Economy of the World at the End of the XIXth Century " (1900) Hahn presents himself as a pessimistic cultural critic and opponent of colonialism .

Major works

• Domestic animals and their relationship to the human economy. A geographic study. With a chromolith. Map: The economic forms of the earth . Duncker & Humblot Leipzig publisher 1896.
• Demeter and Baubo. Attempt of a theory of the origin of agriculture . Self-published by Schmidt in Comm. Lübeck 1897.
• The economy of the world at the end of the XIX. Century. A critique of economic geography and some positive suggestions . Verlag Carl Winter Heidelberg 1900.
• The age of the economic culture of mankind. A review and an outlook . Carl Winter Heidelberg 1905.
• The emergence of economic work . Carl Winter Heidelberg 1908.
• The emergence of the plow culture (our agriculture) . Verlag Carl Winter Heidelberg 1911. - Zugl. Habil.-Schr. Univ. Berlin 1910.
• From hoe to plow . Verlag Quelle & Meyer Leipzig 1914; 2nd edition, ibid. 1919 = Science and Education, Vol. 127.

literature

• Festschrift for Eduard Hahn's 60th birthday. Given by friends and students. [Editorial committee: Hugo Mötefindt , Alfred Vierkandt , Walther Vogel ]. Strecker and Schröder publishing house, Stuttgart 1917 (= studies and research on human and ethnology; vol. 14) (with picture and list of scriptures), digitized version .
• Richard Krzymowski: The agrarian historical theories of Eduard Hahn . In: Landwirtschaftliche Jahrbücher Vol. 53, 1919, pp. 485-499.
• Walter Conradt: Eduard Hahn . In: Hinter Pflug and Buch Vol. 3, 1926/27, pp. 208–211.
• Thies Hinrich Engelbrecht: Eduard Hahn † . In: Geographische Zeitschrift Vol. 34, 1928, pp. 257-259.
• Alfred Vierkandt: In memory of Eduard Hahn . In: Archive for the history of mathematics, natural sciences and technology, Vol. 11, New Series II (1928/29), 1929, pp. 225–239 ​​(with picture).
• Paul Honigsheim: Eduard Hahn and his position in the history of ethnology and sociology. A word to remember . In: Anthropos Vol. 24, 1929, pp. 587-612 (with picture).
• Walther Vogel: Eduard Hahn, ethnologist and geographer . In: Biographisches Jahrbuch Vol. 10 for the year 1928, 1931, pp. 88–93.
• Ulrich Berner: Eduard Hahn's importance for agricultural ethnology and agricultural history of the present . In: Journal for Agricultural History and Agricultural Sociology, Vol. 7, 1959, pp. 129–141.
• Ernst Wahle:  Hahn, Eduard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 504 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Ernst Plewe: Eduard Hahn 1856–1928 . In: Geographisches Taschenbuch and Jahrweiser für Landeskunde 1975/76. Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden 1975, pp. 239–246 (with picture).

Web links

• Literature by and about Eduard Hahn in the catalog of the German National Library