Thomas Chabert

Thomas Chabert , from 1813 von Chabert , from 1840 Knight of Ostland (* 1766 in Constantinople , † March 13, 1841 in Vienna ), was an Austrian orientalist .

biography

Chabert came from a Pera- based family of Levantine dragomaniacs originally of French origin. His father Jean-Joseph (1727–1789) was a dragoman of the kingdoms of Poland and Sicily , his mother Lucie Tomagian a Catholic Armenian . In 1779 Thomas Chabert was accepted into the Oriental Academy in Vienna. In 1785 he took over a professorship for oriental languages at the same institution , which he held until 1817. In addition to oriental languages ​​such as Turkish and Persian , he also taught Italian and French . From 1793 onwards, the well-educated Chabert also served as a secretary for the Lower Austrian land rights, where he worked as a Greek translator. In 1813 he was from II. Franz in erbländischen nobility ennobled . In 1840 he was raised to the knighthood with the predicate of Ostland .

With Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall , who entered the Oriental Academy in 1789, Chabert maintained a close collaboration that was reflected in oriental studies. Chabert has published various important works in German, French and Italian, including translations by Latîfî and Aşık Çelebi . On the basis of the grammar book by Franciscus à Mesgnien Meninski , which had been edited by Adam František Kollár , Chabert wrote a short guide for learning the Turkish language for military people published in 1789 . One of his students in the Ottoman literary language authored the play (1810 print) is one of the first plays in Turkish.

literature

• Alexander H. de Groot: Dragomans' Careers: The Change in Status in Some Families Connected with the British and Dutch Embassies in Istanbul, 1785-1829 . In: Alastair Hamilton et al. (Ed.), Friends and Rivals in the East: Studies in Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Levant from the Seventeenth to the Early Nineteenth Century. Brill, Leiden 2000, pp. 223-246.
• Alexander H. de Groot: The Levantine Dragomaniac: Natives and foreigners in their own country; Cultural and language boundaries between East and West (1453–1914) . In: Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik (Ed.), Understanding and Understanding. Ethnology - Xenology - Intercultural Philosophy. Justin Stagl on his 60th birthday. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2002, pp. 110–127.
• Claudia Römer: Meninski's Grammar Simplified: Thomas von Chabert's Manual Short instructions for learning the Turkish language for military people, Vienna 1789 (= Otto Spies Memorial Series, ed. By Stephan Conermann & Gül Şen, vol. 3). EB-Verlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86893-254-6 .
• Çetin Sarıkartal: Two Turkish-Language Plays Written by Europeans at the Academy of Oriental Languages ​​in Vienna During the Age of Haydn . In: Michael Hüttler and Hans Ernst Weidinger (Eds.), Ottoman Empire and European Theater. Vol. II: The Time of Joseph Haydn: From Sultan Mahmud I to Mahmud II (r.1730–1839). Hollitzer, Vienna 2014.
• Maria A. Stassinopoulou: The mystery secretary and the silver levy. A mishap about Thomas Chabert (1766–1841) as a Greek-German translator . In: Márta Csire et al. (Ed.), A country with characteristics: language, literature and culture in Hungary in transnational contexts. Central European Studies for Andrea Seidler. Praesens Verlag, Vienna 2015, pp. 89–94.

Remarks

1. ↑ after his ennoblement, the name also appears in forms such as Thomas von Chabert-Ostland , Thomas Ritter von Chabert-Ostland u. Ä.