Jakob von Wallenburg

Jakob von Wallenburg (born September 10, 1763 in Vienna ; † June 28, 1806 there ) was an Austrian orientalist and diplomat .

Life

Jakob von Wallenburg came from an old noble family. One of his ancestors was Veit von Wallenburg , who was the highest war paymaster in Vienna during the first Turkish siege (1529). Jakob von Wallenburg received his training at the Oriental Academy in Vienna and came to Constantinople in 1782 at the age of 19 as a language boy, as the retired pupils of this institute were called . There his scientific qualification for the diplomatic service in the Orient was completed under the direction of Peter Philipp Herbert. He soon advanced to become the first interpreter and in this capacity rendered great service to the Austrian state for a long time: in Constantinople itself, on various trips and missions in Asia, then especially in 1787–90 during the Turkish War of Emperor Joseph II , where he was called to his headquarters as well as afterwards with the Peace of Sistowa (August 4th 1791) From then on he devoted himself increasingly to oriental literature, returned to Vienna in 1802, became a councilor for the secret Imperial and Royal Court and State Chancellery in 1806, but died that same year at the age of 42.

Wallenburg had a perfect command of the classical languages; He also understood important European and several Slavic languages ​​as well as Modern Greek , Turkish , Arabic and Persian . Great political, statistical, nautical and commercial knowledge as well as his close acquaintance with the Ottoman Empire and Egypt benefited him in his work and in dealings with the Orientals. In 1792 he began in Constantinople with a French translation of Masnawī , a moral didactic poem by the Persian Sufi mystic Jalāl ad-Dīn ar-Rūmī . Where a faithful translation was not possible, Wallenburg instead gave circumscribing comments and provided a complete commentary and glossary on the Masnawī . His work took six years to complete. When he returned to Vienna, the translation and the corrected text after various copies were to be printed, but the fire of 1799, which destroyed half of Pera , destroyed the text and translation.

In 1804 Wallenburg began translating the famous Shahnameh of Firdausi into French. His friend A. de Bianchi gave a detailed report on this prepared translation in his work Notice sur le Shah-Namé de Ferdoussi et traduction de plusieurs pièces relatives à ce poème. Ouvrage postume de M. le conseiller de Wallenbourg précédé de la biography de ce savant (Vienna 1810). Due to his untimely death, Wallenburg was unable to complete the translation of the great Persian poet's work; it was not very advanced. Wallenburg also worked on Franciszek Meninski's Lexicon arabico-persico-turcicum , which Jenisch edited in four folio volumes in the second edition in Vienna in 1780.

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Wallenburg, Jacob von . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 52nd part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1885, p. 250 f. ( Digitized version ).