Ernst Krenn

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Ernst Krenn (born December 23, 1897 in Allentsteig , Austria ; † April 16, 1954 in Atzelsdorf ) was an Austrian Scandinavian who specialized in the Faroe Islands .

Life

Krenn attended the teacher training college in Krems an der Donau , where he passed his school leaving examination in 1917 and was called up for military service. However, since he was subsequently declared unfit for military service for health reasons, he did not take part in the First World War, but instead enrolled in the Protestant theological faculty of the University of Vienna . During his studies, Krenn obtained his Hebraicum , learned Swedish , studied in Lund in 1920 and learned Danish while traveling . Finally he turned to Scandinavian studies . He was a student of Rudolf Much . Krenn completed his studies in 1921 after just seven semesters.

In 1922 Krenn became a primary school teacher in the Waldviertel , after which he taught at various secondary schools , first in Allentsteig German, history and geography. He also continued to study Scandinavian studies . In 1927 he passed the university exams for Swedish, in 1928 for Old and New Icelandic , Danish and Faroese ; the latter as the first Austrian. Rudolf Much was of Krenn's performance so impressed, so Krenn 1934 finally to him about the Faroese poet and freedom fighter Nólsoyar Páll for Dr. phil. PhD. Krenn published his dissertation in 1939. From 1939 to 1941 he taught at the Wiener Neustadt teacher training college and from 1941 to 1943 at the secondary school in Gmünd. From 1943 until the end of the Second World War, Krenn had to serve as a medic in the Wehrmacht , despite being unfit for military service. After the end of the war, he taught again in his home community.

Krenn published an impressive number of works: “His list of publications, presented in 1950, includes 68 numbers with Scandinavian titles and eleven others that deal primarily with local history. In addition, there are 31, 25 of which are Scandinavian titles, which are described as 'in print' or 'worked out'. ”In 1950, Krenn completed his habilitation in Scandinavian studies . He wrote the most important works of his time on the Faroe Islands and the Faroese language in German, which, however, were sometimes criticized by experts ( Föroyische Sprachlehre, 1940). His manuscript for a Faroese-German / German-Faroese dictionary (12,000 headwords), a Faroese grammar and other works that had already been announced as “in print” or “in development” have remained unprinted and are considered lost. However, the dictionary was found in 2003 in the estate of Christian Matras in the National Library of the Faroe Islands . To express his attachment to the Faroe Islands, Ernst Krenn published his book Föroyar. The islands of peace with the nickname " Gjógv ", which refers to the place of the same name in the Faroe Islands (together with his wife Franzi, née Schuecker). His full Faroese pseudonym was "Álvur við Gjógv" (the name "Álvur" means "serious").

Also in 1950 he was offered a position as a high school teacher on the Faroe Islands , which he refused. In the same year the University of Iceland promised him the license to teach ; but what eventually became of this passage is not known. In any case, from the winter semester 1950/51, Krenn taught Old Norse Exercises as a private lecturer at the University of Vienna; He also gave lectures on the Edda and Faroese literary history. Krenn "fell victim to a tragic traffic accident in his hometown on April 16, 1954": During a journey to the Faroe Islands , he had a fatal accident in Atzelsdorf when he was changing from the bus in which he was traveling with his wife Franziska was captured by a Soviet military truck. He was dead on the spot.

Works

  • Krenn, Ernst (1938). Sound changes in Icelandic and Foeroy . Mödling: Anthropos.
  • Krenn, Ernst (1939). The Foroyian poet Páll Nólsoy and his bird song . ( Illinois Studies in Language and Literature . Volume 23. Number 4. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press. Krenn's PhD thesis.)
  • Krenn, Ernst (1940). Föroyische Sprachlehre (= Germanic library. 1st department: elementary and handbooks. 1st row: grammars. 22nd vol., ZDB -ID 576882-2 ). Heidelberg: Carl Winter's university bookstore.
  • Krenn, Ernst (1940) The Development of Föroyischen Literature (= Illinois Studies in Language and Literature 26, 1, ISSN  0073-5175 ). Urbana: The University of Illinois Press.
  • Krenn, Ernst with Krenn-Gjógv, Franzi (1944). Foroyar. The islands of peace. Münster: Regensbergsche Verlagsbuchhandlung. (The book is based on the experiences of a trip to the Faroe Islands in 1939 and on extensive studies by Krenn, some of which had already been published in magazines. With translations of Faroese fairy tales, sagas, prose texts and poems.)
  • Krenn, Ernst (1946). The school system on Föroyar . Zwettl: Berger & Schwarz.
  • Krenn, Ernst (1953). The Scandinavian peoples in their languages ​​and dialects . Vienna: European publisher.

literature

  • Barbara Giller: Heima í Føroyum. The Austrian Ernst Krenn and his passion for the Faroe Islands. In: Sven Hakon Rossel (Ed.): The north abroad - the abroad in the north. Forming and transformation of concepts and images of the other from the Middle Ages to today (=  Viennese studies on Scandinavian studies. Volume 15). 25th meeting of the IASS (International Association for Scandinavian Studies) in Vienna, 2. – 7. August 2004. Praesens, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-7069-0371-7 , pp. 291-298.
  • Otto Gschwantler: Scandinavian Studies at the University of Vienna. In: Helmut Neumann (Hrsg.): Austria's contribution to Iceland research. Bundesverlag, Vienna 1987, pp. 144–154. (For Krenn especially p. 151 ff.)
  • Leopold Schmidt: Nekrolog. In: Austrian Journal for Folklore, New Series Volume 8 (Complete Series Volume 57), 1954, p. 148 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Otto Gschwantler: Scandinavian Studies at the University of Vienna. In: Helmut Neumann (Hrsg.): Austria's contribution to Iceland research. Bundesverlag, Vienna 1987, p.1 52.
  2. ↑ Who is who in Austria 1957/58, p. 277.
  3. ^ Leopold Schmidt: Nekrolog. In: Austrian Journal for Folklore, New Series Volume 8 (Complete Series Volume 57), 1954, p. 148 f.
personal data
SURNAME Krenn, Ernst
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Krenn-Gjógv, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Scandinavian specialist in the Faroe Islands
DATE OF BIRTH December 23, 1897
PLACE OF BIRTH Allentsteig , Austria
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 1954
Place of death Atzelsdorf