Franz Josef Sulzer

Franz Josef Sulzer (born May 20, 1727 in Laufenburg (Baden) , † August 1791 in Piteşti ) was an Austrian historian and Romanist who served as an officer in Transylvania .

life and work

Sulzer was an Austrian captain and captain in Transylvania from 1759 to 1773 and from 1783 until his death . His father-in-law Josef von Drauth (1709–1762) was a senator in Kronstadt ( Brașov ). Sulzer had studied in Freiburg im Breisgau , but his attempts to gain a foothold in the university failed.

In his history of Romania he turned (also with linguistic arguments) as a forerunner of Robert Rösler against the Dako-Romance theory of continuity and advocated the migration theory, according to which the Romanians would not have reached Transylvania until the 12th century.

Sulzer's grammatical treatise on the Wallachian language was one of the sources of the grammar of the Romance languages by Friedrich Diez .

Werner Bahner 1981, p. 400 writes: "Sulzer's contribution to research into the Romanian language and culture [...] rarely received the attention it deserves."

Franz Josef Sulzer was the father of the diplomat Josef Friedrich von Sulzer (1767–1837).

Works

• History of the transalpine Daciens , that is the Walachey, Moldavia and Bessarabia. In connection with the history of the rest of Daciens, designed with critical freedom as an attempt at a general Dacian history, 3 vols., Vienna 1781–1782 (in vol. 2, pp. 151–269: Grammatical Treatise of the Wallachian Language )
• Old and new or its literal (see above!) Journey through Transylvania , the Timisoara Banat, Hungary, Austria, Bavaria, Swabia, Switzerland and Alsace etc. in three letters to Mr. Preacher Theodor Lange, to Kronstadt in Transylvania, no place 1782

literature

• Constant von Wurzbach: Biographical Lexicon of the Kaiserthums Oesterreich , 40th part. Vienna 1880, pp. 306–308 ( digitized version )
• Albert Schumann:  Sulzer, Josef . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 37, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1894, pp. 151-153.
• Klaus Steinke: Tratatul de gramatică a limbii române al lui Fr. Sulzer , in: Anuar de lingvistică şi istorie literară 22, 1971, pp. 93–111
• Werner Bahner : To the beginnings of Romanian linguistics , in: Jürgen Trabant (Hrsg.): Logos Semantikos I. History of the philosophy of language and linguistics . Berlin / Madrid 1981, pp. 395–403 (here: pp. 400–402)