Ján Bakoš

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ján Bakoš (born March 2, 1890 in Modra ; † January 24, 1967 in Kolín ) was a Slovak Protestant theologian , Semitist and university professor in Bratislava and the founder of modern Slovak oriental studies .

biography

Ján Fridrich Bakoš was born on March 2, 1890 as the son of master locksmith Rudolf Bakoš and Mária Kadlečik in the city of Modra in the south-west of today's Slovakia, which at that time still belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary. After graduating from the Protestant grammar school in Bratislava, he studied from 1909 for three years at the Evangelical Theological Academy there, where he learned Hebrew and Arabic from Aladár Hornyánszky (1873-1939). Following his linguistic interests, he continued his studies from 1912 in the subjects of theology and Semitic studies in Göttingen with Julius Wellhausen , Enno Littmann and Rudolf Smend , which, in addition to language acquisition, also included getting to know a text-critical, academic way of working. Since he had to leave Göttingen in the course of the First World War in 1915, he was only able to do so in 1920 with his work “ The designation of vowels using consonant characters in the Semitic languages. "To the Dr. phil. be awarded a doctorate.

As early as 1919, he had been teaching, alongside his former teacher Hornyánszky, who held the New Testament chair, Old Testament studies at the newly organized Slovak Evangelical Theological Faculty, of which he was dean from 1944–1945. Being on numerous study trips, u. a. Paris, Berlin and Rome, collected scientific material enabled him to continue his semitistischen studies and he was on the recommendation of the Prague orientalist Rudolf Růžička and Bedrich Hrozný in 1931 for the subject of North Semitic languages and cultures at the Comenius University habilitation and began to hold courses in this field, initially parallel to his previous work.

After receiving the title of Professor of Semitic Studies in 1944, Bakoš was finally appointed full professor at the Philosophical Faculty of Comenius University in 1946, where he worked until his retirement in 1959. In 1960 he was the founding director of the Cabinet of Oriental Studies of the Slovak Academy of Sciences .

Ján Bakoš died on January 24, 1967 on the way back from Prague to Bratislava in the town of Kolín, about 60 km east of Prague on the Czech upper reaches of the Elbe.

Awards and honors

  • Member of the Oriental Institute in Prague (1927)
  • Corresponding member of the Royal Bohemian Academy of Sciences in Prague
  • Associate member of the Bohemian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Prague
  • Member of the learned Šafařík Society in Bratislava
  • Slovak National Prize for Arts and Sciences (1948)
  • Full member of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (1953)
  • Silver Medal of the Order of Merit of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (1962)
  • Gold medal of the Comenius University in Bratislava (1962)
  • Order of Labor
  • Member of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (1965)

Works

One focus of Ján Bakoš's academic work was the investigation of the ancient Syrian culture and its mediating position between the Hellenistic-Byzantine and the Arab world of the spirit. He first translated and commented on the scientific works of the old Syrian authors Barhebraeus and Mōšē bar Kēphā , and later those of the Arab philosopher Ibn Sīnā ( Avicenna ). His most important works include:

  • Le candélabre des sanctuaires de Grégoire Aboulfaradj dit Barhebraeus. Part I.-II. Paris 1930, 1933.
  • The zoology from the hexaemeron of Mōšē bar Kēp (h) ā. In: Archiv Orientální 2, 1930, pp. 327–361, 460–491.
  • Psychology de Grégoire Aboulfaradj dit Barhebraeus d'après la 8 e “base” de l'ouvrage “Le Candélabre des sanctuaires”. Brill, Leiden 1948.
  • La Psychologie d'Ibn Sīnā (Avicenne) d'après son œuvre aš-Šifā '. ČSAV, Prague 1956.

literature

  • Milan Repáš (Ed.): Slovenská akadémia vied 1953–1973. [The Slovak Academy of Sciences 1953–1973.] Bratislava 1973. (p. 51)
  • Stanislav Segert: À l'occasion du soixante-dixième anniversaire du professeur Ján Bakoš, membre de l'Académie slovaque. In: Archive Orientální 28, 1960, pp. 1–4 ( digitized version ).
  • Stanislav Segert: The scientific work of Ján Bakoš. In: Stanislav Segert (ed.): Studia semitica philologica necnon philosophica Ioanni Bakoš dicata. Bratislava 1965. (pp. 13-21).
  • Stanislav Segert: À la mémoire du Professeur Ján Bakoš, membre de l'Académie tchécoslovaque des sciences. In: Archiv Orientální 35, 1967, pp. 181–182 ( digitized version ).

Web links

  • Ladislav Drozdík: Bakoš Ján - slovenský semitolog. In: Jan Filipský (Ed.): Kdo byl kdo. Čeští a slovenští orientalisté, afrikanisté a iberoamerikanisté . Libri, Prague 1999, ISBN 80-85983-59-1 ( online version ). ( Who was who? Czech and Slovak Orientalists, Africanists and Latin Americanists. )

Remarks

  1. ↑ See baptism entry 10/1890 in the church book of the Slovak Lutheran congregation in Modra at familysearch.org .
  2. ↑ Published in Göttingen in 1920.
  3. ↑ This educational institution of the Evangelical Church has a history that goes back to 1606, during which it changed its name several times (see the article in the Slovak Wikipedia ). Since 1990 it has been integrated into the Comenius University in Bratislava as the theological faculty (see the historical overview from 1919 on its homepage ( Memento from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )).
personal data
SURNAME Bakoš, Ján
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bakoš, Ján Fridrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Slovak Protestant theologian, Semitist and university professor in Bratislava, founder of modern Slovak oriental studies
DATE OF BIRTH March 2, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Modra
DATE OF DEATH January 24, 1967
Place of death Kolín