Ludwig Gumplowicz

Ludwig Gumplowicz

Ludwig Gumplowicz (also: Ludwig Gumplowitsch ; Polish Ludwik Gumplowicz * 9. March 1838 in the Republic of Kraków (now Poland ); † 19th August 1909 in Graz , Austria ) was a Polish lawyer and professor of Heads of State and Administrative Law at the University Graz . He is considered one of the founding fathers of European sociology .

Life

Gumplowicz was born as the son of the Krakow rabbi Simon Gumplowicz into an established family of Galician rabbis. He had been baptized for his career, but throughout his life he retained a keen interest in Jewish affairs, such as the question of a “Jewish nationality”.

Gumplowicz studied law at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where he became a lawyer and publicist. As an ardent Polish patriot, he took part in the January uprising of the Poles against Russia in 1863 . As a result of the failure of this uprising and due to continued nationalist agitation, Gumplowicz had to leave Krakow.

In 1876 he began his academic teaching activities in Graz as a private lecturer for administrative teaching and he became an associate professor there in 1882 and a full professor in 1893 (taught until 1908).

Of his sons, Władysław played a role in the socialist party, while Maximilian ( Max Gumplowicz , Vienna ) devoted himself to research into medieval Polish history and in a work on the beginnings of the Jewish religion in Poland ( Początki religii żydowskiej w Polsce , 1903) represented the dubious thesis of the Khazarian origin of the Polish Jews.

The son Maximilian died in 1894. Ludwig Gumplowicz wrote a dedication in the book published in Innsbruck from the estate of Max Gumplowicz on the history of Poland . In 1909 Ludwig Gumplowicz, incurably ill with tongue cancer for a long time, took his own life with his almost blind wife. This news was received with great shock in the circles of the very popular professor.

Teaching

His origins from the republic of Krakow, which was soon annexed by the multi-ethnic state Austria-Hungary , and from a Jewish family made him familiar with the problem of oppressed ethnic groups at an early stage and influenced his lifelong advocacy for the cause, especially of the Slavic- speaking minorities in the Habsburg Empire .

Sociologically an early representative of the later sociology of conflict , he initially took the “ races ”, after his “sociological turn” the “ groups ” as a starting point and saw the state as an institution of subjugation to certain ruling groups (cf.: elite ). Theodor Geiger saw in him, as in Émile Durkheim, a representative of sociologism , d. H. believes that society as such represents a kind of super-personality that lives an existence independent of its members. Gumplowicz's theory can generally be subordinated to sociological positivism , according to which social developments are subject to natural laws that are the task of sociology to uncover.

As a macro - theoretically oriented analyzer, he predicted a warlike outward turn in the case of the successful cultural integration of the minorities of a state and accordingly predicted a world war in 1909 in his work “ Der Rassenkampf ”. At that time he was considered a " social Darwinist ".

His political standpoints and his polemical temperament brought him numerous Polish and Italian students, so that his theories gained influence in Poland and Italy , but also in the crown lands of Croatia and Bohemia , while he received less attention from German sociologists. Gustav Ratzenhofer stands out among the influenced scholars .

In 1959, Gumplowiczstrasse was named after him in Vienna- Donaustadt (22nd district) .

Anti-zionism

Gumplowicz was a declared opponent of Zionism , although he did not act against it. His attitude emerges from an interesting correspondence with Herzl in December 1899. Herzl's letter to Ludwig Gumplowicz in Graz (December 11, 1899):

"Dear Professor, your this week's essay in the 'Future' ('Sociological Conception of History', Vol. 29) has stimulated me to many thoughts and to the desire to get to know your view on Zionism. You have probably heard of this crazy movement. I'll have some publications sent to you: my brochures and the shorthand minutes of the three Basel congresses . It gives me lasting pleasure that the university and other serious circles have not noticed or understood the movement so far. A nice detail: in my first writing about the Jewish state , with which this movement, which is already spreading all over the world, began, a chapter was devoted to the legal basis of the state. In the place of the poorly opportunistic theory of 'natural necessity' - no longer to speak of contrat social - the theory of negotiorum gestio [Herzl's legal comparison with ' management without a mandate '] , which, it seems to me, predates your sociological view can exist. This theory, which is perhaps at least debatable, has not yet been recognized by anyone. I don't seem to be doing well enough. Read the stuff I send you when you have time to observe a movement that is not yet historic but it may become. Sincerely. Your devoted Th. Herzl "

Gumplowicz's answer of December 12, 1899:

“Dearest Doctor! You are doing me an injustice if you believe that I am your congress speech etc. I don't know any writings (including those from Nordaus !) - I've read them all and I have them. Read with overcoming because I was often furious with both of you - I threw the writings angrily under the table again and again - only to read them again carefully - with increasing anger . I want to condemn both of you - if I were not a determinist and not condemning a criminal. I am an old defender in criminal matters and would also warmly plead for you and Nordau: because I understand your motives, I understand the natural necessity for your sad nonsensical current - and last but not least I believe that despite all this - despite all the nonsense of the in bring but their is something good with it is nähmlich [sic] a self-reflection of Judaism and the initiation of moral uplift. You ask why I sat still and didn't speak out against Zionism? Because it would be in vain - because it is too natural , but still a - wrong movement! (There are many erroneous movements and currents that ultimately create something good - that is, they do not achieve their proclaimed goal but generate some respectable by-products that they have not thought of. Socialism is such a movement too!) By the way, what do I need to stand up against Zionism - since for 25 years I have been developing in numerous writings a theory that has fundamentally refuted the same ! Your theoretical, historically garnished foundations of Zionism are all wrong! You are caught in a terrible historical error - u. of a political naivete that I can only forgive poets . You do not know that the Jews made two major historical false reports - once when they reported in Palestine that they came directly from Egypt - the second time when they reported in Eastern Europe that they were from Palestine! Both are wrong! Just as wrong as that our 'Aryans' come from India! Just as one incorrectly deduces ancestry from the language here, one incorrectly deduces ancestry from religion there ! In the literary estate of m. Son Max finds a treatise. about the 'beginnings of the jew. Religion in Poland '- which I have reservations about publishing in order not to give the anti-Semites a few more swear words - but which proves the truth of who actually these millions of Polish etc. Russian Jews are! In Palestine, their ancestors were just as little as the Palestinians in Egypt! That is your historical basis! And now your political naivete! Do you want to found a state without bloodshed? Where did you see that? Without violence and without cunning? So very open and honestly - on stocks? Go and write poems & songs. Features including the Nordau - but leave me out with your politics! Or are you counting on the Willi gondola and the Abdul-Hamid ? They believe these two fat lumps of meat can found a state for the Jews - even if they weren't 'achbroischim' [Yiddish: 'rats'] as they are! Dear Doctor! forgive my so familiar frankness - these are m. Views on the matter. Since I do not consider myself infallible as I speak no one on Zionism which appends him. Enthusiastic Zionists and others come to me . ask me for advice (e.g. Dr. Moses Schorr from Lemberg). I told him - I do not share these views - but I do not do anti-Zionist propaganda - I am not pulling anyone off! I don't know what this naturally necessary nonsense can be for? Since I don't know - so I stay away and passive. I regret this movement - as I regret the poor sick man who writhes in pain and the like. that I can't help! With best regards! Your most devoted Gumplowicz "

Fonts (selection)

• Jewish conditions in Krakow then and now , 1859
• Prawodawstwo polskie wzwędem Żydów , Cracow 1867 (on the history of the Jewish legislation in Poland)
• Raçe und Staat , 1875 (2nd revised edition as "Rasse und Staat" 1909 in the appendix to the 2nd edition of Der Rassenkampf )
• Philosophisches Staatsrecht , 1877 (2nd edition under the title Allgemeine Staatsrecht , Innsbruck 1897; translation of the 1st edition into Spanish by Pedro Dorado Montero, 1898)
• The law of nationalities and languages ​​in Austria-Hungary , Vienna 1879
• Rule of Law and Socialism , Vienna 1881
• Administrative apprenticeship taking into account Austrian administrative law , Vienna 1882
• Der Rassenkampf, sociological studies , Vienna 1883, online . (2nd ed. 1909; translation into French by Charles Baye, 1893)
• Outline of Sociology , Vienna 1885 (also translated by Baye)
  • 2nd edition 1905 ( online )
• Introduction to Austrian constitutional law , Berlin 1889 (2nd edition Berlin 1896 under the title Compendium of Austrian Legal History )
• Austrian constitutional law , Vienna 1891 (2nd edition 1902)
• The sociological state idea , Graz 1892 (2nd edition Innsbruck 1902)
• Sociological essays , Innsbruck 1899
• Sociology and Politics , Leipzig 1902
• History of State Theories , 1905
• Social philosophy in outline , posthumously 1910

Editing

• Ludwig Gumplowicz published the magazine Kraj ( Land ) from 1869 to 1874

Literature (selection)

• Horst Reimann:  Gumplowicz, Ludwig. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 307 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Gumplowicz Ludwig. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 2, Publishing House of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1959, p. 106 f. (Direct links on p. 106 , p. 107 ).
• D. Goetze: The state theory of Ludwig Gumplowicz . 1969. Heidelberg University, dissertation.
• Hans Kammler : The origin of the state. A Critique of Overlay Theory, Westdt. Publishing house, Cologne 1966.
• John F. Oppenheimer (Red.) And a .: Lexicon of Judaism. 2nd Edition. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh u. a. 1971, ISBN 3-570-05964-2 , col. 263.
• G. Salomon: Selected works by Ludwig Gumplowicz , 4 vols., Innsbruck 1926–1928.
• Julius Hans Schoeps (Ed.): New Lexicon of Judaism. Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, Gütersloh / Munich 1992, ISBN 3-570-09877-X , p. 177.
• BJ Stern (Ed.): The letters of Ludwig Gumplowicz to LF Ward . 1933.
• Salomon Wininger : Grosse Jüdische National-Biographie , Czernowitz, 1925–1936, Vol. II, pp. 554 f .; Vol. VII., P. 40.
• B. Zedrowski: Gumplowicz's extensive bio-bibliography . Berlin 1926.

Web links

Commons : Ludwig Gumplowicz (sociologist)  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Ludwig Gumplowicz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Web edition of the University of Graz

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Horst Reimann, in NDB Vol. 7 (1960), p. 307 f.
2. ↑ Ludwig Gumplowicz and his wife took poison, 1909
3. ↑ Theodor Geiger: Ideology and Truth. A Sociological Critique of Thought. Luchterhand: Neuwied and Berlin 2nd ed. 1968. p. 19
4. ↑ Ludwig Gumplowicz: Outline of Sociology. Manzsche kuk Hof- Verlags- und Universitäts-Buchhandlung: Vienna 2nd ed. 1905. S. 5 and S. 157
5. ↑ Quoted here from the edition of the work, Herzl, Briefe und Tagebücher , Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1991, Vol. 5, p. 267 for related note
6. ↑ On this correspondence see: Werner J. Cahnman , Scholar and Visionary. The Correspondence Between Herzl and Ludwig Gumplowicz. In: Herzl Year Book I., 1958.