Oskar Nachod

Oskar Nachod (born March 4, 1858 in Leipzig , † October 2, 1933 in Dresden ) was a German businessman , private scholar and Japanologist .

Life

Grave site of the Japanese researcher Oskar Nachod in the Südfriedhof in Leipzig

Oskar Nachod was born as the son of the Leipzig businessman and co-owner of the company CG Reissig & Co. , Moritz Nachod (1810–1889). He attended the commercial college in his hometown and then went abroad for further training in the commercial profession. After extensive travels through France , England and America , he returned to Leipzig and first became an authorized signatory , then head of the company for English manufactured goods founded by Christian Gottfried Reissig and his father on Brühl 20.

With his inclination to be more of a scholar than a businessman, he withdrew more and more from managing the company. He studied at the University of Berlin under Adolph von Wenckstern . At the suggestion of his friend Dr. Heinrich Bokemeyer, General Secretary of the German Colonial Society , began studying the files left behind by the Dutch East India Company . From this he developed the theme of his dissertation , due to which he at the Faculty of Arts 1897 University of Rostock doctorate was. In his foreword Nachod remarked clairvoyantly: There is no doubt about the peoples who appear called to participate more actively in the general competition of the cultural nations in the coming 20th century than before and to let their voices ring more lively than ever before in their concert to count the Japanese .

As a private scholar, he now concentrated his research on the historically largely unexplored country. In 1906 the first volume of his fundamental work on the history of Japan appeared . After more than twenty years of research, Nachod was able to present the first and second parts of the second volume in 1929 and 1930. Sensing that his strength would not be sufficient to complete this large-scale work, he devoted himself increasingly to compiling a bibliography of Japan. After the publication of the third volume, Oskar Nachod, who had completely sacrificed his great fortune to science, died in Dresden after a long illness. His ashes were buried in the south cemetery in Leipzig.

Fonts

• The relations of the Dutch East India Company to Japan in the seventeenth century , dissertation, Friese, Leipzig 1897 digitized version of the Preuss. Berlin State Library
• An undiscovered gold country. A contribution to the history of the discoveries in the northern Great Ocean , in: Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur- und Volkskunde Ostasiens, 1898/99
• History of Japan , vol. 1, first book: Die Urzeit (up to 645 AD) , Gotha 1906 (general history of states, section 2: history of the non-European states, 1,1,1)
• Japan , in: Julius von Pflugk-Harttung (Hrsg.): Weltgeschichte. The development of mankind in state and society, in culture and intellectual life , Vol. 3: East Asia , Berlin 1910
• Bibliography of Japan , Vol. 1: 1906–1926: Number 1-4019 , Vol. 2: 1906–1926: Number 4020-9575 , Leipzig 1928
• History of Japan , Vol. 2, First Half: The Adoption of Chinese Culture (645 to approx. 850 AD) , Leipzig 1929
• History of Japan , Vol. 2, Second Half: The Adoption of Chinese Culture (645 to approx. 850 AD) , Leipzig 1930
• Bibliography of Japan , Vol. 3: 1927-1929: number 9576-13959. With additions for the years 1906–1926 , Leipzig 1931
• Bibliography of Japan , Vol. 4: 1930-1932: number 13596-18398. With additions for the years 1906–1929. Completed from the estate and edited by Hans Praesent. With a foreword by Karl Haushofer , Leipzig 1935

literature

• Obituary for Oskar Nachod , in: Ostasiatische Rundschau , 15th year, No. 3, Hamburg 1934, p. 65

Web links

• Literature by and about Oskar Nachod in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Nachod: The Relations of the Dutch East India Company to Japan , p. III