Hermann Gundert (missionary)

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Hermann Gundert
Hermann Gundert (1832)

Hermann Gundert (born February 4, 1814 in Stuttgart , † April 25, 1893 in Calw ) was a German missionary , linguist , Indologist , teacher , writer and publisher . He wrote the first grammar of the South Indian language Malayalam , "A Malayalam and English Dictionary", and wrote historical and geographical works in the Malabar region and in Germany. He translated the Bible into Malayalam and is therefore also known as "Luther Keralas". Hermann Gundert was the grandfather of the poet and writer Hermann Hesse and the missionary and East Asian scholar Wilhelm Gundert .

Life

Hermann Gundert attended the Stuttgart Latin School and the Monastery School in Maulbronn as well as the Tübinger Stift , where he was a student of David Friedrich Strauss , among others . He studied theology in Tübingen, where he became a member of the Patriots' fraternity in 1831 , from which he later left. During his studies he also had contact with Ludwig Uhland . In 1835 he was promoted to Dr. phil. PhD .

He was a teacher, missionary, linguist, writer and publisher. He made great contributions to the study of the South Indian Malayalam language and the development of the history of Malabar (now Kerala ), as well as to the introduction of the modern school system that eventually led to New Malayalam. Today Kerala is the state of India with the highest literacy rate . Gundert not only brought with him a solid classical education, but also his experience that he had made in other parts of South India. Today he enjoys great recognition in Kerala.

As the first school inspector for Malabar and Kanara , Gundert influenced the development of the modern school system from elementary school to university education in an area that stretched about 600 km from Kozhikode in the south via Mangalore to Hubli in the north and from Thalassery about 100 km into Inland as far as Manantavadi in the Wynad Mountains .

After his return to Germany in 1859, Gundert initially worked in Calw at Calwer Verlag and from 1862 was its director. Gundert edited relevant historical works and commentaries on the Old and New Testament by well-known authors or wrote them himself. For years he published five magazines at the same time and wrote hundreds of articles himself without - as a rule - revealing his authorship. He contributed his extensive knowledge to lectures throughout the country and at international mission conferences and stimulated the worldwide discussion on understanding between peoples and religions.

His wife Julie, born in French-speaking Switzerland, plays an important role in Gundert's life and work. Dubois, whom he married in Chittoor in July 1838 . She was not only the first missionary wife of the Basel Mission in India, but also founded the first "girls 'institutes" (girls' schools with homes) in Mangalore, in Thalassery and in Chirakkal near Kannur . Well-trained women who were instructed in the Protestant faith emerged from these schools and became great pillars of the new congregations.

In Kerala and increasingly also in Germany, Hermann Gundert is becoming more important. On the occasion of the hundredth year of his death, seminars were held in Calw in 1993 and the Hermann Gundert Conference in Stuttgart with a large Indian participation. Malayalam research and Gundert's level of awareness gained a new boost in India and Europe.

On the occasion of Gundert's 200th birthday, the Hermann-Hesse-Stadt Calw declared 2014 the Gundert year. Various institutions in the city organized celebrations, lectures, exhibitions, school programs, seminars and a Gundert family day in cooperation with the Hermann Gundert Society. On October 9, 2015 - in cooperation with Thunchath Ezhuthachan University Tirur , Kerala - a Gundert chair was established at the University of Tübingen : Every semester, an Indian guest lecturer from Kerala holds courses in the Malayalam language as well as on literature, Hold history and culture of Kerala. Thanks to Gundert's grandson Hermann Hesse (1877–1962), the family tradition lives on to a large extent in literature - both in German and in many of the world's languages ​​in which Hesse's works are translated. Hesse's enthusiasm for the mystical and Indian culture came from his grandfather. So he was able to write books like Siddhartha without ever having visited India . The close bond with his grandfather was also evident in the understanding that Gundert showed his grandson when he left the seminar in Maulbronn . Hesse later dedicated literary monuments to his grandfather: Gundert is directly described in his writings Grandfather and Childhood of the Magician; in Siddhartha he lives on poetically as the ferryman “Vasudeva” and in the Glasperlenspiel as “music master”.

In October 2015, a “Gundert Chair” for Malayalam was founded in cooperation between the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and the Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University Tirur.

The Hermann Gundert Society as a non-profit association continues Gundert's intellectual legacy and serves to foster intercultural dialogue . For this purpose, the activities are divided into five main areas: exchange, training, science, art and travel.

Hermann Gundert's estate is administered by the Tübingen University Library and has now been completely digitized . In addition to grammars and primers as well as religious texts, it also contains literary works, such as the first novel published in Malayalam. It also includes works on a variety of media, from palm leaf manuscripts to printed and lithographed books. Most of the works are written in the languages Malayalam , Kannada , Tulu , Tamil , Telugu and Sanskrit . Part of the estate also consists of texts and notebooks that Hermann Gundert and his missionary colleagues wrote in different languages.

Life's work

Thalassery

In addition to the translation of the Bible, Hermann Gundert created a dictionary and the first systematic grammar of the Malayalam language.

He studied the local culture intensively, wrote school books and in 1847 brought out the first newspaper in the local language in the town of Thalassery (Tellicherry). He translated works from Sanskrit to Malayalam, including a Buddhist pamphlet from the first century AD against the caste system. Gundert is still revered for his services in Kerala today, a street in Thalassery is named after him and a five meter high monument is dedicated to him.

The new university library in Kannur , the largest library in South India, was named after him in 2014. A statue of him is said to adorn the entrance portal.

literature

  • Christoph Friedrich Eppler :  Gundert, Hermann . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 49, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, pp. 632-634.
  • Albrecht Frenz (Ed.): Hermann Gundert - Bridge between India and Europe. Süddeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Ulm 1993, ISBN 3-88294-186-3
  • Albrecht Frenz: Hermann Gundert. With pencil in hand to the dictionary . In: In: Anke te Heesen u. a. (Ed.): Vocabulary. Collecting and Finding Words, Universitätsstadt Tübingen, Tübingen 2008 (Tübingen Catalogs, Volume 81), pp. 58–69, ISBN 978-3-910090-85-9 .
  • Hermann Gundert: Hesse's grandfather with a global understanding of the world. In: Moments: Contributions to regional studies of Baden-Württemberg . 2/2002 . ISSN  1619-1609
  • Johannes Hesse : From Dr. Hermann Gundert's life. Reprint of the edition from 1894. Calwer Verlag, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-7668-3233-6 Book, table of contents and reading sample
  • Andreas Römer: Missionary Dr. Hermann Gundert. (1814-1893) . Evangelical Society, Stuttgart 1914
  • Karl Frohnmeyer: Hermann Gundert: Missionary and Scholar . Evangelischer Missionsverlag, Stuttgart 1955
  • Gerhard Rosenkranz :  Gundert, Hermann. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 315 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Jutta Rebmann: Julie Gundert: Missionary in India and grandmother Hermann Hesse . Stieglitz-Verlag, Mühlacker 1993, ISBN 3-7987-0314-0 review
  • Wolfgang Schöllkopf: Between City, Monastery and Hour. Hermann Hesse's grandfather Hermann Gundert's theology studies in Tübingen as reflected in his diary. In: Sönke Lorenz, Volker Schäfer (Ed.): Tubingensia. Impulses for city and university history; Festschrift for Wilfried Setzler. Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2008, ISBN 978-3-7995-5510-4 , pp. 483-501
  • Siegfried Pick, Albrecht Franz, P. Kristudes, Johanna Pick: Everywhere was reality, everywhere was magic. Hermann Gundert, Hermann Hesse and India, the land of longing. , Draupadi-Verlag, Heidelberg 2015 ISBN 978-3-945191-06-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume II: Artists. Winter, Heidelberg 2018, ISBN 978-3-8253-6813-5 , pp. 269-272.
  2. ↑ Asia-Orient-Sciences - Gundert Chair for Malayalam ( Memento of the original from January 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-tuebingen.de
  3. ^ Hermann Gundert Portal - Home. Retrieved November 21, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Calw: Once again a large monument set , Schwarzwälder Bote , May 25, 2014, accessed on June 9, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Gundert, Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German linguist, teacher, missionary and publisher
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1814
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 1893
Place of death Calw