Lucian Scherman

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Lucian Scherman

Lucian Scherman (born October 10, 1864 in Posen , † May 29, 1946 in Hanson (Massachusetts) ) was a German Indologist and director of the Ethnographic Museum in Munich .

Studies and academic work

Scherman was the son of a merchant and house owner from Poznan. After attending grammar school in Breslau and Posen , he began studying Sanskrit at the University of Breslau in 1882 with Adolf Friedrich Stenzler . In 1883 he moved to Munich , where he continued his studies at the University of Munich. Scherman was "also an in-depth explanation of the philosophical hymns from the Rig Veda and Atharva-Sanhita both in itself and in relation to the philosophy of the older Upanishads" in the summer semester 1885 with the work of his doctorate . This work also represented the answer to a prize question that his teacher, Ernst Kuhn (1846–1920) had asked in the faculty. Scherman received the advertised prize for his work.

In 1892 he completed his habilitation with a thesis on "Materials on the History of Indian Visionary Literature". From 1893 he taught as a private lecturer and from the winter semester of 1901/02 as an associate professor, the basics of Sanskrit, the ethnology of India and behind India, Buddhism and general book studies. In 1907, Scherman took over the management of the “Royal Ethnographic Collection in the Gallery Building” as a curator, which later became the Museum of Ethnology , for which he was responsible for moving to today's house on Maximilianstrasse .

From October 1910 to December 1911, Lucian Scherman and his wife Christine undertook an extensive research trip through Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Burma (now Myanmar) and India (now India and Pakistan). Scherman's reputation at home and abroad was so important that in 1916 a special chair was created for him “for ethnology in Asia with special consideration for Indian cultures”. Scherman was an extraordinary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences from 1912 and a full member from 1929 .

family

In 1889, Lucian Scherman married the Munich photographer Christine Reindl (1865–1940), with whom he had a son and three daughters. Until her death in 1940, his wife was not only a wife for Scherman, but also an employee and colleague.

Persecution and emigration

On October 1, 1933, Lucian Scherman was forced into retirement by the National Socialists and not retired because he was Jewish . His successor was Heinrich Ubbelohde-Doering in 1933 . In the following years he and his wife suffered from the National Socialist regime and finally emigrated to the United States in April 1939 to Hanson (Massachusetts) about 30 kilometers south of Boston . Her son was already working there as a doctor at a hospital. Christine Scherman was seriously ill when she emigrated and died in the USA in 1940. The loss hit her husband hard. Nevertheless, he was still active in science until his death six years later. He was even able to publish an article in German in the middle of the war in the journal of the American Oriental Society , which had made him a member in 1939.

Scherman, whose doctorate was revoked by the National Socialists in 1940, among others , received a certain rehabilitation through the efforts of his daughter Frieda Hörburger, who remained in Germany, before his death . On April 1, 1946, he was given all rights back as a retired professor, a few weeks before his honored death in Hanson on May 29, 1946.

literature

  • Friedrich Wilhelm (Ed.): Scherman, Lucian. Small fonts. Stuttgart 2001.
  • Friedrich Wilhelm:  Scherman, Lucian. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 699 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Bruno J. Richtsfeld (Ed.): August Herrmann Franckes (1870–1930) Editing of the Ser India and Ladakh Collection Francke / Körber in the Ethnographic Museum in Munich from 1928. The Ser India Collection of the State Museum of Ethnology in Munich I. In: Munich contributions to ethnology. Yearbook of the State Museum of Ethnology in Munich. Volume 14. 2010/11, pp. 65-128.
  • Bruno J. Richtsfeld (ed.): The correspondence between Lucian Scherman and Albert von Le Coq and the reasons for the failure of a Ser India department at the Ethnographic Museum in Munich. The Indian collection of the State Museum for Ethnology Munich II. In: Munich contributions to ethnology. Yearbook of the State Museum of Ethnology in Munich. Volume 14. 2010/11, pp. 129-193.

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personal data
SURNAME Scherman, Lucian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Indologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1864
PLACE OF BIRTH Poses
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1946
Place of death Hanson (Massachusetts)