Isidore Levin

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Isidor Levin (born September 20, 1919 in Daugavpils , Latvian SPR ; † July 24, 2018 in Hamburg ) was an Estonian folklorist , storyteller and theologian .

Career

Isidor Levin studied Estonian and comparative folklore with Walter Anderson and Oskar Loorits between 1937 and 1941, as well as Judaic , Semitic , religious history and biblical studies at the University of Tartu (formerly Dorpat ).

During this time he lived with his colleague Uku Masing and his wife Eha as a sublet and, thanks to their support, survived the invasion of the German troops and the first coercive measures against Jews. Uku and Eha Masing received the title Righteous Among the Nations from Yad Vashem . On March 16, 1942, Levin was arrested during a raid by the security service . Between 1942 and 1945 Levin was imprisoned in prisons and various concentration camps, most recently in the Stutthof concentration camp . Back in Tartu, he was arrested again, this time in Soviet, but was acquitted after eight months of pre-trial detention.

In 1947 he passed the candidate examination for comparative folklore. From 1952 to 1955 he studied Russian language and literature at the Pedagogical University in Leningrad and then completed an aspirant in distance learning. The following year he became a lecturer in German Folklore at the Leningrad Chair for German Studies.

In 1967 he completed his habilitation with a study of the Etana myth at the Institute for Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Between 1966 and 1984 he was head of a research team in Dushanbe on behalf of the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan , and from 1970 onwards also on behalf of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia in Yerevan , with the aim of organizing the folkloric archives, creating a large corpus work , as well as indigenous people To train researchers.

Isidor Levin was Professor Emeritus at the Universities of Saint Petersburg, Yerevan and Dushanbe. He was a founding member of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research (ISFNR) and was an honorary member of the Folklore Fellows . Levin died in July 2018 at the age of 98.

Prizes and awards

Publications

  • Etana. The cuneiform evidence of a story . In: Fabula, Vol. 8 (1966), pp. 1-63.
  • Fairy tales from the Caucasus. Edited by Isidor Levin. Translated by Gisela Schenkowitz. Düsseldorf 1978 (The fairy tales of world literature).
  • Armenian fairy tales. Edited by Isidor Levin in association with Uku Masing. Translated by Gisela Schenkowitz. Düsseldorf 1982 (The fairy tales of world literature).
  • Tsar's son at the river of fire. Russian fairy tales from the White Sea coast. Edited by Isidor Levin. Translated from Russian by Gisela Schenkowitz. Kassel 1984 ( The face of the peoples ; 50).
  • Fairy tales from the roof of the world. Lore of the Pamir peoples. Edited by Isidor Levin. Translated by Gisela Schenkowitz. Cologne 1986 (The fairy tales of world literature).
  • Fairy tales and Jews . In: Märchenspiegel , issue 2/1998 (5 pages).

literature

  • Evgenij A. Kostjuchin: Levin, Isidor . In: Encyclopedia of Fairy Tales Volume 8 (1996), Col. 997-999.
  • 2004 yearbook of the German Academy for Language and Poetry . Darmstadt 2005. ISBN 3-89244-875-2 . In this:
    • Alexander Gavrilow: Exemplary and stirring . Laudation for Isidor Levin on the award of the Friedrich Gundolf Prize 2004. pp. 51–55.
    • Isidor Levin: Spiritual bridges between people . Acceptance speech. Pp. 56-64.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary notice Isidor Levin , FAZ from August 11, 2018.
  2. ^ Obituary of the Solomon Birnbaum Society for Yiddish eV .
  3. ↑ s. Teenekas folklorist sai viimaks lõpudiplomi , Tartu Postimees, June 26, 2012 (Estonian)
personal data
SURNAME Levin, Isidore
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Estonian folklorist, storyteller and theologian
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Daugavpils , Latvian SPR
DATE OF DEATH July 24, 2018
Place of death Hamburg , Germany