Otto Mannchen-Helfen

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Otto Mänchen-Helfen (also: Maenchen-Helfen ; born July 26, 1894 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; died January 29, 1969 in Berkeley ) was an Austrian-American ancient historian and sinologist .

Life

From 1914 on, Mannchen-Helfen was a soldier in the First World War for four years , after which he studied sinology , archeology , ethnology and art history at the universities of Vienna , Gothenburg and Leipzig . After receiving his doctorate in 1923, he lived for some time as a private scholar before he was appointed to the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow in 1927 . From autumn 1927 on, Manne-Helfen was head of the sociological-ethnological department of the Marx-Engels-Institute in Moscow.

Book cover Journey to the Asian Tuwa (with graphic of the geographical location)

In 1927 he married the psychoanalyst Anna Aronsohn (1902–1991). In 1929 the "Communist University of the Working People of the East" (Kommunistitscheskij Universitet Trudjashschichs Vostoka) equipped an expedition to research the economic conditions in Tuva . With a lot of effort, Mannchen-Helfen had obtained permission to take part in this expedition. He was the first non-Russian who was allowed to enter the Tuva area, which is closed to foreigners. In his book "Journey into the Asian Tuwa", Mannchen-Helfen describes the living conditions in the area and its history very clearly. 28 photographs complete the explanations. Most of them are from him as an author, some come from press cliché and some are Union images, i.e. photos from agencies of the Soviet Union . After the end of the trip, Manne-Helfen immediately sent his notes and images to the West. He had decided to leave the Soviet Union forever and return to Central Europe . When he left the Soviet Union, he was strictly controlled by the border GPU and all material would have been taken from him. Writing the book in 1930 would hardly have been possible. With the publishing house Der Bücherkreis GmbH Berlin, Manne-Helfen found a publisher that, despite the global economic crisis , printed its manuscript for 170 book pages and the photos submitted in 1931.

In 1929 he toured Mongolia , Nepal , Kashmir and Afghanistan . He habilitated Although 1933 Berlin , emigrated but shortly afterwards to Vienna, where he qualified again and finally to the United States emigrated. There he became Professor of Oriental Studies at Mills College in 1939 . From 1947 until his retirement he worked at the University of Berkeley .

Due to his broad language skills - including command of ancient Greek , Latin , Russian , Chinese and Japanese - he was able to undertake comparative philological studies. He did important groundwork on the history of the Huns , some of which are now considered obsolete and some have been revised. In particular, he dealt with the thesis of Marxist historiography that the Asiatic equestrian peoples were military democracies.

He wrote a biography of Marx in 1935/36 together with Boris Nicolaevsky ; it was first published in French in 1937. The original German version was published unchanged in Hanover in 1963.

Fonts (selection)

  • The later books of the Shan-hai-King. (With a translation of books VI-IX). In: Asia Major. Vol. 1, 1924, ISSN  0004-4482 , pp. 550-586, digitized version (PDF; 868.57 kB) , (dissertation; also as a separatum).
  • Trip to Asian Tuva. Publishing house Der Bücherkreis, Berlin 1931.
  • Third of humanity. An East Asia book. Verlag Der Bücherkreis, Berlin 1932.
  • with Boris Nicolaievsky: Karl Marx, man and fighter. Translated by Gwenda David and Eric Mosbacher. Lippincott, Philadelphia PA 1936
    • Karl Marx. A biography. Foreword 1937. Foreword to the German edition 1963. Dietz Successor, Hanover 1963
  • The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture . Edited by Max Knight . Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1973 ISBN 0-520-01596-7
    • The world of the Huns. An analysis of its historical dimension. Translation of Viktor Straub. German-language edition provided by Robert Göbl . Böhlau, Vienna et al. 1978, ISBN 3-205-07119-0 .

literature

  • Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.2. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 761

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Help men, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Maenchen-Helfen, Otto; Maenchen-Helfen, Otto John; Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian ancient historian and sinologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 26, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH 29th January 1969
Place of death Berkeley