Norbert Jokl

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Norbert Jokl

Norbert Jokl (born February 25, 1877 in Bisenz , South Moravia , † after May 6, 1942 on the way to or in Maly Trostinec ) was an albanologist and librarian . He is considered to be one of the founders of Albanology .

Life

Jokl came from a Jewish merchant family from South Moravia . After graduating from high school, he studied law in Vienna and received his doctorate summa cum laude in 1901 . In 1903 he entered the University Library of Vienna and began studying linguistics ( Indo-European , Slavic and Romance studies ), which he did with Paul Kretschmer , Vatroslav Jagić and Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke and graduated in 1908 with a doctorate. In 1907 he began to learn the Albanian language , which was hardly explored at the time, on an autodidactic basis. From then on he dedicated his life to her.

In 1912 Jokl was appointed private lecturer for "Indo-European Linguistics with special consideration of Albanian, Baltic and Slavic". In 1913 he received the venia legendi in this subject, and in 1923 an extraordinary university professorship followed. He was in charge of the department for general, Indo-European and Finnish-Ugric linguistics at the University Library of Vienna and was also responsible for the entire Slavic, Baltic and Albanian philology at the library. In 1937 he traveled to Albania for the first time , where he was recognized for his services to the Albanian language. Jokl wrote 67 scientific papers and gave 42 lectures. Until 1939 he was in charge of the albanological section of the “Indo-European Yearbook” and also wrote five articles for this magazine.

According to Georg Solta , one of Jokl's students, the bachelor Jokl lived alone, had hardly any social contacts and was mainly devoted to his work and science. In a curriculum vitae that Jokl wrote on the occasion of his application for a professorship, he wrote: “I am of a Jewish faith. My mother tongue and nationality is German. "

Against the background of the Nuremberg Race Laws and the Anschluss , Jokl was relieved of his duties in 1938 and retired. Even the year before he was for his services as librarian of Councilor title conferred. In the following period he received no support from his colleagues with the exception of his pupil Solta. Although he was considered a withdrawn scholar and had avoided exposing himself politically, his application made in 1939 for “gracious equality with first-degree half- breeds ” was dismissed in 1940. Jokl's attempts to find a new livelihood abroad, especially in the USA , were unsuccessful.

After the annexation of Albania by Italy in 1939, the Italian albanologist Carlo Tagliavini tried to organize a move Jokl and his academic library to Albania. The Italian Ministry of Education promised Jokl a position worth 600 gold francs per year as “organizer of the libraries of Albania”, but the plan failed because Jokl did not receive an exit permit.

On March 2, 1942, Jokl was arrested by the Gestapo in his apartment in Vienna-Neubau , Neustiftgasse 67-69, and taken to the Vienna-Leopoldstadt assembly camp , Castellezgasse 35. From the deportation lists of the documentation archive of the Austrian resistance it emerges that Jokl was transported to the Maly Trostinez extermination camp on May 6, 1942 and that he died either on the way there or only in the camp. There are, however, several versions of Jokl's death: suicide (in the assembly camp) to avoid being sent to Poland; Death from abuse in the Rossau barracks in Vienna , where Jokl was transferred shortly before the transport to Poland; (without crime scene :) Murder by the Gestapo (the man guilty of Jokl's death is said to have been hanged before January 22, 1948 ).

Jokl had bequeathed his Albanological library and his estate to the state of Albania. Regardless of this, Viktor Christian (1885–1963), Dean of the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Vienna , and Paul Heigl , Director of the National Library, vied with the authorities to secure these holdings, which are extremely valuable for “Reich German research”. Heigl was more successful, the library and the estate were “loaned” to the National Library in 1942. In 1946 the Austrian National Library kept the holdings on the grounds that Jokl had left no relatives entitled to claim. Of the originally more than 3,000 books, only around 200 can now be identified. Jokl's life's work, a handwritten edition of the Etymological Dictionary of Albanian by Gustav Meyer , cannot be found.

On April 29, 1982, the Senate of the University of Vienna decided to put Jokl's name (as the only librarian) on the plaque in the auditorium of the University of Vienna.

Selection of works

  • Studies on Albanian etymology and word formation. Hölder, Vienna 1911.
  • A (lessander) Brückner: Slavic-Lithuanian. ---: Albanian. Strasbourg 1917.
  • Finnish-Ugric as a source of knowledge for the older Indian-Germanic language history (Festschrift for Baudouin de courtenay, 1921).
  • Vok's Albanian song collection provided with linguistic and factual explanations , 1921.
  • Linguistic-cultural-historical studies in the field of Albanian. De Gruyter, Berlin (inter alia) 1923.
  • Albaner, language (Reallexikon der Prehistory, edited by M. Ebert, 1924).
  • South Slavic word stratography and Albanian loanwords. Makedonskija Naučen Inst., Sofija 1933. pp. 119–146.
  • On the topography of Albania. In: Zeitschrift für Ortsnameforschung, 10, 2. Oldenbourg, Munich (inter alia) 1934. pp. 181–206.
  • To the doctrine of the Alb.-Greek. Partial equations. In: Revue internationale des études balkaniques, 1. Inst. Balkanique, Beograd 1934, pp. 46–64.
  • About the Latin elements of the Albanian vocabulary. In: Glotta, Vol. 25, 1/2. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1936. pp. 121-134.
  • Balkan Latin Studies. In: Revue internationale des études balkaniques, 3rd Inst. Balkanique, Beograd 1936, pp. 44–82.
  • Linguistic contributions to the paleo-ethnology of the Balkan Peninsula. (On the question of the oldest Greek-Albanian relations.) From the estate, ed. v. Oskar E. Pfeiffer. With a prefix v. Georg R. Solta. Austrian Akad. D. Knowledge Phil. -Hist. Kl. Writings d. Balkan Commission. Linguistic Department, 29th Vienna 1984.

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Norbert Jokl  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Norbert Jokl, R (oland) Z (wanziger): The connection in 1938 - a librarian's fate . In: Communications from the Association of Austrian Librarians . No. 1/1988 (XLI. Volume), ZDB -ID 2018209-0 , p. 5 f. (Online at ALO ).
  2. ^ Gabriele Anderl: Emigration and Expulsion . In: Erika Weinzierl (ed.), Otto D. Kulka (ed.), Gabriele Anderl (collaboration): Expulsion and a new beginning. Israeli citizens of Austrian origin . Böhlau, Vienna (inter alia) 1992, ISBN 3-205-05561-6 , p. 241. - Online .
  3. ↑ Jokl's death . In: Simon: Tödlicher Bücherwahn , p. 32 ff.
personal data
SURNAME Jokl, Norbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian albanologist and librarian
DATE OF BIRTH February 25, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Bisenz , South Moravia
DATE OF DEATH after May 6, 1942
Place of death Maly Trostinec or on the way there