Hermann Vámbéry

Hermann Vámbéry

Hermann Vámbéry (German) or Ármin Vámbéry (Hungarian) or Arminius Vámbéry (Latin and English) (birth name: Hermann Wamberger or Bamberger or Vamberger ; born March 19, 1832 in St. Georgen near Preßburg ; † September 15, 1913 in Budapest ) was a Hungarian orientalist , Turkologist , traveler and presumed secret agent in British service.

Life

He came from a poor Orthodox Jewish family, was paralyzed from birth and had to work for a living from the age of twelve, first as an apprentice tailor and later as a private tutor. In addition, he conducted studies in ethnography and linguistics. Vámbéry enjoyed the lessons of the Piarists in St. Georgen near Pressburg , but subsequently continued his autodidactic training and acquired extensive knowledge of numerous languages. After initially focusing on European languages, he also learned Arabic , Turkish and Persian , which he was fluent in.

Inspired by the desire to explore the Asian origins of the Magyars , he traveled to Constantinople at the age of 22 , where, as a teacher of European languages ​​in the house of Asif Beis , then Rifaat Pasha, he found the opportunity to learn various Turkish dialects and languages ​​from 1857 to 1863. At the same time he also got translations of works from Turkish history and published a German-Turkish dictionary (see list of publications). Vámbéry was one of the European scholars who tried to scientifically justify the nationalist ideology of Turanism . The basis of his defense of the irredentist aspirations of Pan-Turkism was his work Das Türkenvolk , published in 1885 .

With the support of the Hungarian Academy, Vámbéry, disguised as a Sunni dervish , made a pilgrimage from 1861 to 1864 to the countries of Armenia , Persia and Turkestan, which had been hermetically sealed for western travelers , and brought back valuable geographical , ethnographic and linguistic results. On behalf of the English Geological Institute and as a British agent, he traveled under the pseudonym Raschid Effendi across the Urals and the east coast of the Caspian Sea to Central Asia, where he identified the Bashkirs as relatives of the Hungarians, but only noted one linguistic union. After stays in Khiva , Tehran , Trebizond , Bukhara , Samarkand and Herat , he returned to Constantinople. His travelogue Travels and Adventures in Central Asia appeared in 1864 and was received with great interest across Europe. This was especially true for England, which at the time was fighting with Russia for supremacy in Central Asia ( The Great Game ).

Hermann Vámbery, 1861

After his return from Asia in the spring of 1864, Vámbéry received an enthusiastic reception in London, whereupon he accepted a professorship at the University of Budapest . From 1865 to 1905 he was professor of oriental languages ​​in Budapest and was considered a staunch opponent of Finno-Ugric studies . Vambery denied a linguistic relationship between Finns and Hungarians and classified the Hungarian language as a Turkic language mixed with Ugric elements . This thesis is no longer upheld today, Hungarian is considered a Ugric language with strong Turkic influences. His works - including some novels - have appeared in English, German and Hungarian. The orientalist Ignaz Goldziher was one of his students .

Vámbéry's son was Rustem Vámbéry (1872–1948), a Hungarian criminal lawyer and politician; In 1902 he became a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Budapest, in 1919 a full professor and dean and a member of the Hungarian National Council from 1918.

Zionism

Vámbéry was u. a. personal friend of Sultan Abdülhamid II (whom he sometimes called Yiddish contemptuously in letters to Herzl "mamser-ben-nennide" = son of a bitch, bastard, son of an unclean woman) and supported the then emerging political Zionism by, after a long time and again Her Herzl obtained an audience with the Sultan in 1901.

In June 1900 Vámbéry was with the Sultan; Herzl set everything in motion to get him an audience with the Sultan, which nothing came of it. The reasons given by various people involved contradicted each other. Finally, Herzl visited him in Tyrol (June 16, 1900) and wrote about it in his diaries:

“I got to know one of the most interesting people in this limping 70-year-old Hungarian Jew who doesn't know whether he is more Turkish or English, writes German, speaks 12 languages ​​with the same perfection, etc. 5 religions known, of which he was a priest in two. Given the intimate knowledge of so many religions, he naturally had to become an atheist. He told me 1001 stories [sic] from the Orient, about his intimacy with the Sultan etc. He immediately took full trust in me and the people. said to me under my word of honor that he was English a. Turkish secret agent. The professorship in Hungary is a figurehead after long torture in the midst of an anti-Jewish society. He showed me a lot of secret documents, albeit in Turkish, which I cannot read but can only admire. Including handwritten notes by the Sultan. He immediately sent Hechler away abruptly, he wanted to be alone with me. He started: “I don't want to have money, I'm a rich man. I can't eat golden beef steaks. I've got a quarter of a million, I don't need half my interest. If I help you, it's about the matter. ”He let me tell you all the details of our plan, money, etc. He confided in me that the Sultan had called him to stir up the mood for him in the European papers. Can I help out? I answered evasively. In between he kept coming back to the memorabilia of his life, which were, however, great. Through Disraeli he became an agent of England. In Turkey he began as a singer in coffee houses, a year and a half later he was the intimate of the Grand Vezier. He could sleep in Yildiz [in the Sultan's chambers], but says he could be murdered there. He eats at the Sultan's table - intimacy with his fingers from the bowl - but he cannot get rid of the thought of the poisoning. And a hundred other such picturesque things. I told him ... write to the Sultan to receive me, 1. because I can serve him in the press, 2. because the mere fact of my appearance removes his credit. I would like you to be the interpreter. But he fears the rigors of the summer trip. My time was up. It remained uncertain whether he would do anything ... But he hugged and kissed me when I said goodbye ... "

After Vámbéry had stressed to Herzl that he would stand up for Zionism not for the money but for the just cause, he demanded 5,000 British pounds shortly afterwards for the possibility of an audience or the arrangement of a Jewish loan to Turkey as well as a written one Guarantee declaration for the corresponding commission payment.

At the end of December 1900, the newspapers reported that Turkey had tightened immigration restrictions for Palestine because of political Zionism; on it Herzl Vámbéry wrote (December 28, 1900):

“I don't think that's just a bad sign, but a good one. The whore [meaning Turkey] wants to raise the price, so she says that she is not available. Am I right? "

At the beginning of January 1901, Herzl tried to make himself submissive to the Sultan through Vámbéry by issuing direct threats: The Jews would cut off all sources of money for Turkey if it did not show itself a little more pleasantly.

In August 1901, Herzl demanded that Vámbéry should make it clear to the Sultan again what Herzl and the Zionists could do for him, Herzl could even have “got the Sultan a torpedo destroyer” and spared him the French humiliation [the French had to enforce a contentious demand against Turkey occupied the island of Mytilene with warships and had only withdrawn after the Ottoman Empire had undertaken to pay in installments]; Incidentally, Herzl Vámbéry offered 300,000 guilders to purchase the charter for the Jewish settlement of Palestine; He can use the money as he likes to achieve the purpose or keep it for himself, only the result counts. The letter had an effect: Vámbéry, who allegedly did not need any money, replied that if in doubt he wanted to take an important post in the Ottoman government himself or even overthrow the sultan.

Herzl's contact with Vámbéry came about on the advice of Tobias Marcus from Merano; Marcus, one of the first Zionists in Italy, characterized Vámbéry in a letter to Herzl (September 13, 1898) as follows:

“As I have already indicated, V. is an extremely complex individuality. Above all a brilliant person, but - without delicacy, without education and without heart. Full of himself and his importance, he looks down on everyone who means something in public. Despiser of all confessions, etc. of patriotism, allegedly the greatest freethinker u. Cosmopolitan, he glorifies Islam and he worships England. All in all, a strongly revering u. People moving in contradictions whose sayings are not to be taken seriously, but who must be approached with the greatest caution, because their opposition is dangerous. "

As Herzl's agent in Constantinople, Dr. Soma Wellisch (1866–1926), a Hungarian-born Jewish doctor who for many years headed the health department of the Turkish Ministry of the Interior. He was Vámbéry's confidante with the Sultan.

Dracula

Vámbéry was the inspiration for the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker , published 1897th In 1890 Stoker met Vámbéry, who told him about the legend of the Romanian prince Vlad III. Drăculea told; from this character Stoker developed the fictional character of the vampire Dracula.

Publications

• German-Turkish pocket dictionary . Constantinople 1858
• Abuschka . Chagata dictionary, edited and translated from oriental manuscripts, Pest 1861 (Hungarian)
• Travel in Central Asia . Leipzig 1865, 2nd edition 1873, which work has been translated many times
  • New edition I was called Reschid Efendi. Travel in Central Asia . Brockhaus, Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-325-00293-5
• Chagatan language studies . Leipzig 1867
• My hikes and experiences in Persia . Leipzig 1867
• Sketches from Central Asia Leipzig 1867
• Uyghur language monuments and the Kudatku-Bilik . Innsbruck 1870
• History of Bochara . Stuttgart 1872, 2 volumes
• Islam in the 19th century . Leipzig 1875
• Morals from the Orient . Berlin 1876
• Etymological Dictionary of the Turkotataric Languages . Leipzig 1878
• The primitive culture of the Turkotatar people based on linguistic research . Leipzig 1879
• The origin of the Magyars . Leipzig 1882
• The Turkish people in their ethnological and ethnographic relationships . Leipzig 1885
• The Scheibaniade, an Özbegian heroic poem . Text and translation, Budapest 1885
• Western cultural influence in the east . Berlin 1906

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Vámbéry, Hermann . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 49th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1884, pp. 239–249 ( digitized version ).
• Obituary of September 15, 1913 in Pester Lloyd (PDF)
• Salomon Wininger : Large Jewish National Biography with more than 11,000 biographies of well-known Jewish men and women from all times and countries. A reference work for the Jewish people and their friends . Volume 6, Tipografia "Arta", Czernowitz, undated (1931), pp. 173–174 ( digitized version ).
• Lory Alder, Richard Dalby: The Dervish of Windsor Castle. The Life of Arminius Vambery . London 1979.
• Peter Haber : language, race, nation. The Hungarian Turkologist Ármin Vámbéry . In: Peter Haber, Erik Petry, Daniel Wildmann: Jewish identity and nation. Case studies from Central Europe . (= Jewish Modernism; 3) Cologne 2006, pp. 19–49; ISBN 3-412-25605-6 .
• Ruth Bartholomä: From Central Asia to Windsor Castle. Life and work of the Hungarian orientalist Arminius Vámbéry (1832–1913) . Ergon, Würzburg 2006, ISBN 3-89913-499-0 (= working materials on the Orient; 17).

Web links

Wikisource: Hermann Vámbéry  - sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Hermann Vámbéry in the catalog of the German National Library
• Vámbéry Polgári Társulás (with a comprehensive list of works and references)
• Vambéry, Armin (Hermann)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Evidence for the letters, statements and events in the section “Zionism” can be found scattered in: Theodor Herzl, Briefe und Tagebücher, 7 volumes, ed. by Alex Bein , Hermann Greive , Moshe Schaerf, Julius H. Schoeps, Johannes Wachten, Berlin / Frankfurt a. M./Wien 1983–1996