Friedrich Wilhelm August Mullach

Friedrich Wilhelm August Mullach (born January 1, 1807 in Berlin ; † June 8, 1882 ibid) was a German classical philologist , neo-Graecist and historian of philosophy .

life and work

Friedrich Wilhelm August Mullach attended the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster and studied Protestant theology at the Berlin University from 1825 to 1828 , later philosophy and classical philology, to which he was particularly drawn to the lectures of August Boeckh . On December 28, 1828 he passed the teaching examination; then he taught at the Köllnisches Gymnasium for a few months . From October 1829 to October 1833 he was a member of the Royal Seminary for Learned Schools, which was directed by August Boeckh. In addition to the theoretical training in the seminar, Mullach taught at the Friedrichswerder high school and at the gray monastery high school. During this time Mullach also obtained his doctorate as Dr. phil. after, which he reached in 1831 at the University of Halle (Saale) with a thesis on the philosopher Democritus . In addition, Mullach learned the modern Greek language from some Berlin-based Greek scholars from 1829 to 1831.

In March 1834 Mullach was hired as a teacher at the French grammar school in Berlin . He taught Latin and Greek, interpreting the authors in Latin with the students in Greek lessons and in French in Latin lessons. In the course of this work, Mullach wrote a Latin school grammar in French, which appeared in 1841. In 1839 Mullach was promoted to full teacher, in December 1845 he received the title "Professor".

In addition to his work at the grammar school, Mullach occupied himself with scientific studies, especially the history of pre-Socratic philosophy and the modern Greek language and literature. Mullach saw the Greek language and culture as a unit from ancient times to the present. He rejected the designation "Modern Greek" for the current Greek language because the peculiarities of this language level had already developed in the Byzantine period ; he preferred to speak of a "vulgar language" ( Dimotiki ).

Mullach's scientific intentions, in particular to spread the Greek language in the learned world, made him want a wider sphere of activity. In 1853 he applied for a habilitation in the subjects of Classical Philology and Modern Greek at Berlin University. The reviewers August Boeckh and Immanuel Bekker , however, had reservations about admitting Mullach for both subjects because they lacked the author's critical skills in his academic work . Therefore, on December 3, 1853, the philosophical faculty only allowed Mullach's habilitation “for modern Greek”.

Mullach had already retired from the grammar school on October 1, 1853. Since then he has lived as a private lecturer and private scholar on listening fees and fees for his publications. Since his modern Greek lectures and exercises were rarely attended, he tried to expand his teaching license to include classical philology and thus to reach more listeners; however, his application was rejected by the faculty. Nevertheless, from 1855 Mullach also gave lectures on the interpretation of ancient Greek and Latin authors, initially in the modern Greek language. After the summer semester of 1862, Mullach no longer offered any modern Greek courses. Since then he has limited himself to the interpretation of ancient authors in Latin. After Boeckh's death in 1868 he was appointed associate professor. He died on June 8, 1882 at the age of 75.

Mullach's research had two main focuses: the history of philosophy and the vernacular Greek literature and language. His studies of the history of philosophy primarily concerned the pre-Socratic philosophers, whose doctrine and writings are only preserved in scattered testimonies from later writers and philosophers. Mullach wrote several individual studies on philosophers such as Democritus and Empedocles , as well as a collection of fragments on Democritus (1843), an edition of Aristotle's doxographic writings (1845) and an edition of the late antique commentary by Hierocles on the so-called " Golden Verses " of the Pythagoreans (1853) . His main work was an extensive collection of the fragments of the Greek philosophers, which he published in three volumes from 1860 to 1881. The collection was in use for a long time because of its completeness and clarity, but it was criticized from a philological and critical point of view by experts. Some of it has not yet been replaced. The fragments of the pre -Socratic philosophers by Hermann Diels and Walther Kranz have been authoritative for pre-Socratic philosophers since 1903 (6th edition 1951–1952).

Mullach's studies of modern Greek (or, as he preferred, "vulgar") literature and language were based on his acquaintance with Greek scholars in the years 1829–1831; at that time he began reading Byzantine and modern Greek authors. He published a bilingual (Greek-Latin), annotated edition of the Batrachomyomachia paraphrase of the early modern writer Demetrios Zenos (1837), critical studies on various Byzantine authors (1852) and a grammar of the Greek vulgar language in historical development (1856), which culminated his scientific occupation with modern Greek.

Fonts (selection)

• Quaestionum Democritearum specimen . Berlin 1835
• Demetrii Zeni Paraphrasis Batrachomyomachiae vulgari Graecorum sermone scripta. Quam collatis superioribus editionibus recensuit, interpretatione Latina instruxit et commentariis illustravit Fr. Guil. Aug. Mullachius. Berlin 1837
• Grammaire latine à l'usage des classes inférieures et moyennes du Collège Royal Français . Berlin / Paris / Brussels / Geneva 1841
• Quaestionum Democritearum specimen secundum . Berlin 1842
• Democriti Abderitae operum fragmenta. Collegit, Recensuit, vertit, explicuit ac de philosophi vita, scriptis et placitis commentatus est Frid. Guil. Aug. Mullachius. Berlin 1843
• Aristotelis de Melisso, Xenophane et Gorgia disputationes. Cum Eleaticorum philosophorum fragmentis Ocelli Lucani, qui fertur, De universi natura libello coniunctim edidit, recensuit, interpretatus est Frid. Guil. Aug. Mullachius. Berlin 1845
• Disputatio de Empedoclis prooemio . Berlin 1850
• Coniectaneorum Byzantinorum libri duo . Berlin 1852
• Hieroclis in aureum Pythagoreorum carmen commentarius. Recensuit et illustravit Frid. Guil. Aug. Mullachius. Berlin 1853. Reprint Hildesheim 1971
• Quaestionum Empedoclearum specimen secundum . Berlin 1853
• Grammar of the Greek vulgar language in historical development . Berlin 1856
• Fragmenta philosophorum Graecorum. Collegit recensuit vertit annotationibus et prolegomenis illustravit indicibus instruxit Fr. Guil. Aug. Mullachius. Paris 1860–1881. Reprinted in Aalen 1968

literature

• Scholarly Berlin in 1845. Directory of writers living in Berlin in 1845 and their works . Berlin 1846, pp. 251f.
• Friedrich August Eckstein : Nomenclator philologorum . Leipzig 1871, p. 391.
• Wilhelm Pökel : Philological writer's lexicon . Leipzig 1882, p. 185.
• Philological weekly . 2nd year (1882), Col. 797f.
• Conrad Bursian : History of Classical Philology in Germany from the Beginnings to the Present . Second half, Munich and Leipzig 1883, p. 927.
• Festschrift to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the French grammar school . Berlin 1890, p. 102f.
• Ilse Rochow : Modern Greek studies at the Berlin University from 1850 to 1905 . In: Johannes Irmscher , Marika Mineemi (Ed.): Ὁ Ἑλληνισμὸς εἰς τὸ ἐξωτερικόν. About relations between Greece and other countries in recent times (= Berlin Byzantine Works 40). Berlin 1968, pp. 553-583 (on Mullach especially pp. 556-562).

Web links

Wikisource: Friedrich Wilhelm August Mullach  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by Friedrich Wilhelm August Mullach in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} See Rochow (1968).
2. ↑ See Bursian (1883).