Hans Thurn (Byzantinist)

This article deals with the German Byzantinist Hans Thurn; for the journalist, translator and author see Hans Thurn (journalist) .

Hans Thurn (full name: Johann Erwin Karlheinz Thurn , born February 16, 1934 in Kötzting , † December 15, 1993 in Würzburg ) was a German Byzantinist and librarian .

Life

Hans Thurn, the son of a tax officer, attended elementary school and high school in Straubing . His excellent Abitur certificate enabled him to receive the Bavarian state scholarship. From the winter semester of 1953/54 he studied Greek, Byzantine, Latin and German at the University of Munich . After the state examination in 1958 he wrote his dissertation at the suggestion of Franz Dölger , with which he was awarded a Dr. phil. received his doctorate .

Instead of going to school, Thurn started a career as a librarian. From 1959 to 1961 he was a trainee lawyer at the Bavarian State Library in Munich. In 1961 he went to the University Library of Würzburg as a library assistant , where he worked until the end of his life. He initially headed the acquisitions department, later the manuscript department, which he shaped very strongly through his personality. In this function, Thurn made a contribution to the indexing of the manuscript holdings of the university library, which he made codicologically , philologically and historically accessible. In five sub-volumes, which appeared from 1970 to 1994 (last volume posthumously), he presented catalogs of the medieval manuscript holdings, thus creating a basis for historical source research. Due to his sudden death, this work was abruptly stopped and has not been resumed since. Therefore about 800 manuscripts (mostly modern) have not been scientifically processed. He did similar work for the court library Aschaffenburg and the university library Erlangen.

Thurn also brought his versatile knowledge to academic teaching. He taught as a lecturer at the University of Würzburg at the Catholic-Theological Faculty, at the Medical Faculty (library studies, history of medicine) and from 1977 at the Philosophical Faculty I in the Department of Classical Philology and Byzantine Studies. In this department he acquired the venia legendi for Classical Philology in 1985 due to his publications, with special emphasis on late antiquity and tradition. In 1991 he was appointed adjunct professor.

In addition to this work, Thurn continued to deal with Byzantine studies. In 1973 he published a critical edition of the Chronicle of Johannes Skylitzes . From 1978 he worked on a critical edition of the Chronicle of Johannes Malalas , which was almost complete when he died early at the age of 59. It was completed by Athanasios Kambylis and appeared in 2000. Thurn's translation of the Malala was completed by Mischa Meier and appeared in 2009.

Fonts (selection)

• Oikonomia from the early Byzantine period to the iconoclast. Semasiological investigation of a word family . Munich 1961 (dissertation)
• with M. Zeitler: Book lovers in Lower Franconia from the 14th to the 19th century. Catalog of the exhibition on the occasion of the annual conference of the Franconian Bibliophile Society, 22. – 25. September 1967 . Würzburg 1967
• The manuscripts of the university library in Würzburg. Volume 1: The manuscripts of the Cistercian Abbey of Ebrach . Wiesbaden 1970
• The manuscripts of the university library in Würzburg. Volume 2, 1st half: Manuscripts from Benedictine origins: Amorbach Kitzingen, Münsterschwarzach, Theres, Würzburg, St. Afra, St. Burkhard, St. Jakob's Schottenkloster; Appendix: Erfurt, Minden, Mondsee . Wiesbaden 1973
• Ioannis Scylitzae synopsis historiarum . Berlin / New York 1973
• with Josef Hofmann: The manuscripts of the Aschaffenburg court library . Aschaffenburg 1978
• The Greek manuscripts of the Erlangen University Library . Wiesbaden 1980
• The manuscripts of the university library in Würzburg. Volume 3, 2nd half: The paper manuscripts of the former cathedral library . Wiesbaden 1981
• Byzantium - another empire. The age of the Macedonian dynasty, translated from the historical work of Johannes Skylitzes, introduced and explained by Hans Thurn. Part 1. End of the Iconoclasm and the Macedonian Renaissance (early 9th to mid 10th century) . Graz 1983
• The manuscripts of the university library in Würzburg. Volume 3, 1st half: The parchment manuscripts of the former cathedral library . Wiesbaden 1984
• The manuscripts of the university library in Würzburg. Volume 2, 2nd half: The manuscripts from St. Stephan zu Würzburg . Wiesbaden 1986
• The manuscripts of the university library in Würzburg. Volume 4: The manuscripts of the small provenances and fragments . Wiesbaden 1990
• Vita Benedicti: Würzburg, University Library, Mpth.q.8 . Munich 1991
• The manuscripts of the university library in Würzburg. Volume 5: Holdings up to secularization: acquisitions and additions up to 1803 . Wiesbaden 1994

published posthumously

• Athanasios Kambylis (ed.): Ioannis Malalae Chronographia . Berlin / New York 2000
• with Karin Morvay, Hans-Günther Schmidt, Paul Gerhard Schmidt : The dated manuscripts of the Würzburg University Library . Wiesbaden 2004
• Johannes Malalas, World Chronicle. Translated by Johannes Thurn and Mischa Meier. With an introduction by Claudia Drosihn, Mischa Meier and Stefan Priwitzer and explanations by Claudia Drosihn, Katharina Enderle, Mischa Meier and Stefan Priwitzer. Stuttgart 2009

literature

• Ludwig K. Walter: Prof. Dr. phil. Hans Thurn (February 16, 1934– December 15, 1993) . In: Würzburg diocesan history sheets . Volume 56, 1994, pp. 11-12 ( PDF; 53.3 kB ).

Web links

• Literature by Hans Thurn in the catalog of the German National Library
• Thurn, Hans .  Publications in the bibliographic database of the Regesta Imperii .