Jan de Vries (philologist)

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Jan de Vries (1932)

Jan Pieter Marie Laurens de Vries (born February 11, 1890 in Amsterdam ; † July 23, 1964 in Utrecht ) was a Dutch medievalist , linguist , lexicographer and religious scholar .

De Vries was one of the most technically skilled old Germanists of his time, his contributions to so-called "Germanic antiquity", to religious, linguistic and literary studies are standard scientific literature and reference, even if the results of more recent research partially revise his conclusions. He was particularly interested in etymology , mythology , the history of religion and place name research .

biography

Jan de Vries studied Dutch , Old Germanic , Sanskrit , Prakrit and Pali in Amsterdam and received his doctorate in 1915. From 1914 to 1918 he was an officer in the First World War . From 1919 to 1926 he worked as a Dutch teacher at a secondary school in Arnhem . From 1925 to 1945 he taught as a professor of Germanic antiquity at the University of Leiden .

During the Second World War , de Vries saw the German occupation as an opportunity to create a new order in the Netherlands as well. From 1940 to 1941 he was chairman of the " Algemeen-Nederlands Verbond ", which had existed since the 19th century and promoted cultural exchange between the Netherlands and Flanders . De Vries was vice-president of the “Nederlandse Kultuurraad”, founded under German aegis, and was appointed head of an “Institute for Dutch Language and Folk Culture” in The Hague in 1942 . He worked with the Ahnenerbe of the SS , but was treated with suspicion by executives because he opposed a superiority of the "Germanic race" propagated by the Ahnenerbe. He was also skeptical of a certain intellectual Germanic continuity from the Nazi ideology Antiquity to modern times. De Vries also emphasized the Dutch independence in language and culture, contrary to the Pan-Germanic endeavors of the Nazi ideology. In September 1944 de Vries left the Netherlands and went to Leipzig , where he got a position as a lecturer with the Germanist and friend Theodor Frings . Through the advocacy of the head of the "Germanic control center" of the ancestral legacy of the SS, Hans Ernst Schneider , de Vries received a six-month scholarship from the German Research Foundation , which in the spring of 1945 was extended for another six months. In 1943 he received the Rembrandt Prize of the FVS Foundation , awarded by the University of Hamburg (presented in Hamburg in autumn 1944).

In 1946, de Vries lost his professorship in Leiden as a collaborator. His membership in the Royal Academy was declared terminated. He was interned and found guilty in a process of spiritual collaboration in 1948 . The prison sentence was settled with internment.

From 1948 to 1955 Jan de Vries worked as a teacher. He also published in international specialist periodicals, especially in German-language ones, on his main research areas. During this time he wrote a book on the Celtic religion and produced the second and revised edition of his "Old Germanic Religious History", then the "Old Norse Literary History" and his "Old Norse Etymological Dictionary".

His contributions to the discussion about the genesis of the Germanic heroic saga join with those of Franz Rolf Schröder , Hermann Schneider and Hans Kuhn in turning away or correcting the strict system designed by Andreas Heusler of a pure literary nature of the heroic saga. De Vries and Schröder again emphasized the mythical connections or the mythical basis of the heroic saga.

Publications (selection)

Monographs
  • The spiritual world of the Teutons. Halle ad Saale 1943. (3rd edition Darmstadt 1964).
  • Old Germanic Religious History I. (= Outline of Germanic Philology ; 12.1), 2nd, completely revised edition of the 1935 edition, Berlin 1956. (3rd unaltered edition Berlin / New York 1970 [Reprint 2010])
  • Old Germanic Religious History II. (= Outline of Germanic Philology ; 12.2), 2nd, completely revised edition of the 1936 edition, Berlin 1957. (3rd unaltered edition Berlin / New York 1970 [Reprint 2010])
  • Etymologically Woordenboek. Why did our names come from vandaan? Utrecht-Antwerp 1958.
  • Celts and Teutons. (= Bibliotheca Germanica ; 9), Bern 1960.
  • Hero song and legend. (= Dalp Collection ; 78), Bern 1961.
  • Old Norse etymological dictionary. Leiden 1961. (2nd improved edition 1962, 3rd unchanged edition [Reprint] 1977)
  • Celtic religion. (The Religions of Mankind 18). Stuttgart 1961 [Reprint 2003].
  • Research history of mythology. Orbis academicus I, 7. Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg / Munich 1961.
  • Woordenboek of the Noord- en Zuidnederlandse plaatsnames. Utrecht-Antwerp 1962.
  • Old Norse Literature History I. (= Outline of Germanic Philology ; 15), 2nd, heavily revised edition of the 1941 edition, Berlin 1963. (3rd unchanged edition in one volume with a foreword by Stefanie Würth , Berlin / New York 1999 [Reprint 2012])
  • Old Norse Literary History II. (= Outline of Germanic Philology ; 16), 2nd heavily revised edition of the edition from 1942, Berlin 1964. (3rd unchanged edition in one volume with a foreword by Stefanie Würth, Berlin / New York 1999 [Reprint 2012 ])
  • Smaller fonts. Published by Klaas Heeroma, Andries Kylstra, Berlin 1965 [Reprint 2012].
Contributions
  • The western Norse tradition of the legend of Ragnar Lodbrok. In: Journal for German Philology 53 (1928), pp. 257-302.
  • Contributions to the study of Othin especially in his relation to agricultural practices in modern popular lore. In: Folklore Fellows' Communications , 94 (1931).
  • The problem of Loki. In: Folklore Fellows' Communications , 110 (1932).
  • Om Eddaens Visdomsdigtning. In: Arkif för Nordisk Filologi 50 (1934), pp. 1-59.
  • Harald Fairhair in legend and history. In: Contributions to the history of German language and literature 66 (1942), pp. 55–117.
  • The motif of the father-son fight in the Hildebrand song. In: Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 34 (1953), pp. 257–274; Ogam 9 (1957), pp. 122-138. Again in: Karl Hauck (Ed.): To the Germanic-German heroic saga. (= Paths of Research 14) Darmstadt 1965, pp. 248–284.
  • The Starkadsage. In: Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 36 (1955), pp. 281–297.
  • The myth of Balder's death. In: Arkif för Nordisk Filologi 70 (1955), pp. 41-60.
  • Homer and the Nibelungenlied. In: Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 38 (1956), pp. 1–19. Again in: Karl Hauck (Ed.): To the Germanic-German heroic saga. (= Ways of research ; 14), Darmstadt 1965, pp. 393-415.
  • The legend of Wolfdietrich. In: Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 39 (1958), pp. 1-18.
  • The second Guðrúnlied. In: Journal for German Philology 77 (1958), pp. 176–199.
  • Theodoric the Great. In: Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 42 (1961), pp. 319-330.
  • Germanic and Celtic Heroic Traditions. In: Saga-Book 16 (1962-1965), pp. 22-40.
  • Celtic and Germanic Religion. In: Saga-Book 16 (1962-1965), pp. 109-123.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jan Zimmermann: The FVS Foundation's Culture Awards 1935–1945. Presentation and documentation. Edited by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation FVS Hamburg 2000, p.
personal data
SURNAME Vries, Jan de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vries, Jan Pieter Marie Laurens de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch Germanist, Scandinavian and religious scholar
DATE OF BIRTH February 11, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Amsterdam
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 1964
Place of death Utrecht