Rudolf Much

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Rudolf Much in the arcade courtyard of the University of Vienna

Rudolf Much (born October 7, 1862 in Vienna ; † March 8, 1936 ibid) was an Austrian German and Scandinavian medievalist , classical philologist and religious scholar . He was the son of the prehistorian Matthäus Much and is considered a representative of the so-called Germanic antiquity and linguistics.

Life

Much came from a middle-class Catholic family and was married three times. His children came from the second marriage with Elisabeth, geb. Schmidt († 1926). He studied classical and German philology at the University of Vienna ; at the instigation of his academic mentor Richard Heinzel , he expanded his spectrum to include Nordic philology . With this he received his doctorate in 1887 with a thesis "On the prehistory of Germany". In 1888 a study visit to Denmark at the University of Copenhagen and a research trip through the rest of Scandinavia followed; In 1904 an extensive trip to the British Isles followed. In addition to studying philology in Vienna, Much also studied there with the geographic historian Wilhelm Tomaschek , whose special interest in the tribal areas of the Germanic tribes he shared. This was reflected in his habilitation "German headquarters" from 1893, with which he received the license to teach Germanic language history and antiquity. In 1901 he was given the title “Extraordinary” in Vienna. Prof. ”with teaching assignment on“ Germanic and Celtic antiquity as well as Scandinavian languages ​​and literatures ”; then, in 1904, an extraordinary professorship for "Germanic language history and antiquity". In order to prevent an appointment to Berlin, in 1906 he was appointed full professor of the newly founded chair for “Germanic language history and antiquity”, which was expanded in 1907 with the addition “and Scandinavian Studies”. The offer to move to Berlin included not only a full professorship at the university but also the management of the local Museum of Ethnology . Although he did not accept this, folklore remained a lifelong field of activity for him. Internally, Much was one of the supporters of the Academic Association of Germanists in Vienna from 1926, a student association that excluded women from membership and had an Aryan paragraph . He held his chair in Vienna until his retirement in September 1934, and for health reasons he only taught two semesters as an emeritus. Among his most famous students were Siegfried Gutenbrunner , Otto Höfler , Dietrich Kralik , Julius Pokorny , Walter Steinhauser (successor to Much's chair), Robert Stumpfl , Lily Weiser-Aall , Richard Wolfram . The ideological rifts of the 20th century did not stop at Much's family either. If his third wife Cornelie (1880–1963) was a National Socialist, his son Dr. med Horand Much, executed in Berlin in 1943 for political reasons. Rudolf Much was buried in an honorary grave in the Baumgartner Friedhof (group E, number 331) in Vienna.

Act

Much's work essentially dealt with German religious history and mythology, German tribal history, linguistic history, legal history and folklore. He always included the Old Icelandic-Scandinavian sources, to which he also dedicated separate treatises (songs of the Edda and Sagas).

For Much, these writings were primarily sources of the history of language and religion; the literary-historical aspect was less important for his work. Likewise, he hardly provided any research work on older German literature, and if so, then only with a view to using it as a source for linguistics, geography, religion and mythology. Like Karl Helm and others, in contrast to earlier research, he made a clear distinction between mythology and Germanic religion.

In the history of linguistics, he researched especially in the field of national names, but also in the border areas of linguistics and religious studies as well as onomatology in general. In the field of onomatology he tended towards the cultural-historical direction of etymology, which dealt programmatically with the interaction of words and their objective meaning. As a result, he became co-editor of the magazine " Words and Things ".

As a major work muchs his comment applies to the Germania of Tacitus , who in many cases still is valid and 1937 was published posthumously. On the other hand, his 248 articles on Johannes Hoops ' " Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde " (1st edition) are largely only of research historical value , the content of which has been overtaken in many cases by the results of more recent work (including the comprehensive new edition of the Reallexikon).

As a young man, Much belonged to the German national movement around Georg von Schönerer and was in contact with its leaders. References to his existing German national sympathies can not only be found in the Senate minutes of the University of Vienna from the end of the 1920s, but can also be seen in his membership in the German community . He also belonged to the anti-Semitic professors ' clique "Bärenhöhle" . On the other hand, Much tried to prevent the appointment of the National Socialist Josef Nadler , in which he assumed a mixture of personal political convictions with his theories of literary history.

His behavior is particularly controversial in academic discussions with others such as the Jewish Germanist Sigmund Feist , the author of the Germanic substratum hypothesis , in which Much ignored elementary rules of politeness. He attacked Feist in several articles with extreme severity, due to his Celtomanic indefensible theses on the origin of the Teutons and the Germanic language. Klaus von See spoke of "personal abuse and anti-Semitic allusions". The accusation, which goes back to the literary scholar Ruth Römer and the classical philologist Allan Lund , that Much's attack was largely determined by his Germanomaniac anti-Semitism , racism and personal hatred, was most recently denied by Hermann Reichert . Reichert provides evidence - like Birkhan (1970) before - that it was solely the massive technical errors in a number of Feist's publications that determined the cause, form and content of the dispute on the part of Much. In addition, Reichert showed that racism and anti-Semitism, contrary to the claims by Lund and Römer, cannot be ascertained in Much's publications and that this cannot be inferred from his private correspondence. Peter Wiesinger describes Much's attitude to these debates and the unscientific portrayal of Germanic antiquity and the Germanic peoples as a “bitter, truth-loving contender” against all contemporary “strange” views that have been popular since the turn of the 20th century, including those products from Germanophiles or German national spirit.

Much worked with the Jewish doctor and Social Democrat Clemens von Pirquet and wrote 120 articles for his "Encyclopedia of Nutrition". One of his most prominent students, Julius Pokorny, had a Jewish background, and Max Hermann Jellinek had a lifelong friendship since they were studying together. Jellinek made the printing of Much's Festschrift possible with a donation, and Much contributed to Jellinek's Festschrift. At Much's funeral, Jellinek is said to have simultaneously translated the clergyman's funeral sermon into Gothic. Much's political stance must be seen against the background of the violent clashes of the First Republic .

Memberships

Publications (selection)

  • German headquarters - a contribution to Germany's oldest history . Niemeyer, Halle a. P. 1892.
  • The southern march of the Germanic peoples . In: Contributions to the history of German language and literature 17, 1893, pp. 1–136.
  • The Germanic sky god . Niemeyer, Halle a. P. 1898.
  • German tribal lore . Göschen, Leipzig, Berlin (among others) 1900.
  • The name Germanic . Hölder, Vienna 1920.
  • Baudihillia and Friagabis . In: Festschrift for Max Hermann Jellinek , Vienna - Leipzig 1928, pp. 75–85.
  • The Germania of Tacitus , explained by Rudolf Much; Winter, Heidelberg 1937, 3rd edition, edited by Wolfgang Lange and Herbert Jankuhn , 1967.

literature

  • Helmut Birkhan : Teutons and Celts up to the end of Roman times. The expressive value of words and things for the earliest Celtic-Germanic cultural relations. (= Meeting reports. Academy of Sciences in Vienna, Philosophical-Historical Class, 272). Hermann Böhlaus successor publishing house, Cologne / Vienna / Graz 1970. S. 55 ff.
  • Allan A. Lund : German ideology in National Socialism. To the reception of the 'Germania' of Tacitus in the Third Reich. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 1995, ISBN 3-8253-0243-1 .
  • Ders .: The first Teutons. Ethnicity and ethnogenesis. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 1998, ISBN 3-8253-0685-2 , p. 31f.
  • Hermann Reichert : Rudolf Much. In: Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Volume 20: Metuonis - Scientific Methods. 2nd, completely revised and greatly expanded edition. de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2002, ISBN 3-11-017164-3 , pp. 273-279.
  • Ders .: Rudolf Much. In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 2: H-Q. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , pp. 1271-1273.
  • Hermann Reichert, Corinna Scheungraber (ed.): Germanic antiquity: sources, methods, results. Files from the symposium on the occasion of the 150th birthday of Rudolf Much Vienna, 28.-30. September 2012. (= Philologica Germanica 35). Fassbaender, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-902575-63-0 . In this:
    • Helmut Birkhan: Rudolf Much as a faculty member. Pp. 21-86.
    • Hermann Reichert: Rudolf Much, * October 7, 1862 in Vienna, † there March 8, 1936. pp. 179–197.
    • Matthias Springer : Shepherd against Much. To research the Germanic peoples names. Pp. 273-313.
    • Heiko Steuer : Rudolf Much's explanations on the Germania of Tacitus from 1837 from the point of view of archeology after 75 years. Pp. 315-347.
    • Otto H. Urban : Matthäus Much, the "Schliemann of Lower Austria" and his worldview. Pp. 355-369.
  • Ruth Römer : Sigmund Feist. German - Germanist - Jew. In: Native , 91, 1981, pp 249-308.
  • This: Sigmund Feist and the Society for German Philology in Berlin. In: Mutterssprache 103 (1993), pp. 28-40.
  • This: Linguistics and racial ideology in Germany. Fink, Munich 1989, p. 96ff. (Digitized version)
  • Rudolf Simek :  Much, Rudolf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-428-00199-0 , p. 250 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Ders .: Rudolf Much. In: German Biographical Encyclopedia . KG Saur Verlag, Munich u. a. 1996, ISBN 3-598-23160-1 .
  • Peter Wiesinger , Daniel Steinbach: 150 years of German studies in Vienna. Extra-university early German studies and university German studies. Edition Praesens, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-7069-0104-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reichert (2002): pp. 273, 274; Simek: p. 250; Course catalog of the University of Vienna WS 1934/35 and SS 1935.
  2. ^ Rudolf Much: Explanations of words. In: Journal for German Word Research 2, 1902, pp. 283–287.
  3. ↑ Klaus Taschwer: A secret thing about the bear cave. How an anti-Semitic professor cartel from the University of Vienna expelled Jewish and left-wing researchers after 1918. In: Regina Fritz, Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, Jana Starek (ed.): Alma mater antisemitica: Academic milieu, Jews and anti-Semitism at the universities of Europe between 1918 and 1939, Volume 3, new academic press, Vienna 2016, p. 221– 242, here p. 230
  4. ↑ Reichert (2002): p. 274. Irene Ranzmaier: Stamm und Landschaft. Josef Nadler's conception of German literary history. (= Sources and research on literary and cultural history 48 (282)). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-020052-2 , p. 373 ff.
  5. ↑ Karl Horst Schmidt : Celtic and Germanic. In: Jürgen Untermann , Bela Brogyanyi (Ed.): The Germanic and the reconstruction of the Indo-European basic language. Files of the Freiburg Colloquium of the Indo-European Society, Freiburg, 26.-27. February 1981. John Benjamin BV Philadelphia / Amsterdam 1984, ISBN 90-272-3515-5 , pp. 126f.
  6. ↑ Klaus von See: Barbarian Germane Arier: The search for the identity of the Germans. Winter, Heidelberg 1994, ISBN 3-8253-0210-5 , p. 347
  7. ↑ Ruth Römer: Sigmund Feist and the Society for German Philology in Berlin. In: Mutterssprache 103 (1993), pp. 33-36.
  8. ↑ Allan A. Lund: The first Germanic peoples. Ethnicity and ethnogenesis. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 1998, ISBN 3-8253-0685-2 , p. 31f.
  9. ↑ Hermann Reichert: (2000), pp. 143, 145-150. Ders .: (2015), pp. 192, 196.
  10. ^ Peter Wiesinger, Daniel Steinbach: 150 Years of German Studies in Vienna. Extra-university early German studies and university German studies. Edition Praesens, Vienna 2001, p. 72.
  11. ↑ Reichert: (2015), p. 189.
  12. ↑ Birkhan: (2015), p. 22 fn. 1

Web links

Commons : Rudolf Much  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Much, Rudolf
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian philologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 7, 1862
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 8, 1936
Place of death Vienna