Václav Hanka

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Váceslav Hanka

Václav Hanka (also: Váceslav, Váceslavič , German: Wenzel (Wenzeslaus) Hanka ; born June 10, 1791 in Hořiněves ; †  January 12, 1861 in Prague , Austrian Empire ) was a Czech linguist and writer.

Life

Hanka's birthplace

Václav Hanka attended the high school of the Order of Jesuits in Hradec Králové , which he graduated from high school in 1809. He then studied philosophy at the Charles University in Prague and from 1813 to 1814 law at the University of Vienna . Returning to Prague, he engaged in Slavic linguistic research and was a favorite student of Josef Dobrovsky , whose spelling reform of the Czech language he promoted. From 1818 Wenzel Hanka was head of the literary collection in the Bohemian National Museum in Prague, became a lecturer in 1848 and, after 1849 , professor for Slavic languages ​​at the Charles University in Prague.

Hanka's grave in the Vyšehrad cemetery

Hanka became known through two manuscripts, the Königinhofer manuscript and the Grünberger manuscript , which he forged masterfully in 1817 and 1818 with Václav Alois Svoboda and Josef Linda to simulate Czech heroic epics and lyrical texts from the 13th and 14th centuries. Hanka also published the texts in German-Czech, and Svoboda published a translation into German in 1819, which Goethe knew and valued. Jernej Kopitar raised the first doubts about the authenticity of these texts in 1824 . After a long controversy, the allegedly found texts have been considered a forgery by the three authors mentioned above since 1886.

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk , who later became the 1st President of Czechoslovakia , let opponents have their say in the controversy over the authenticity of the Königinhof manuscript and the Grünberger manuscript in the monthly magazine Athenaeum, which he published in Prague . Despite evidence of forgery, there were disputes about the authenticity of the manuscripts well into the 20th century.

Wenzel Hanka published studies on both manuscripts and arranged for translations not only into German, but also into other European languages. Because the increase in Czech national self-confidence was about proving that something similar was also present in Czech national literature parallel to Middle High German epic and lyric poetry. In this era of emerging nationalisms in Europe, such cultural issues also had a strong political component. So a historian at the end of the 20th century can judge: These "allegedly medieval poems, but in truth falsified by him [meant: Hanka], old Czech poetry [...]" had their special meaning. preserved through its use as authentic and genuine in František Palacký's history of Bohemia, so that "the sharp anti-German tendency of these nationalistic works also had a politically negative effect."

Works

Complete list of publications by Wenzel Hanka in: Constantin von Wurzbach : Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich , containing the life sketches of the memorable people who were born or lived and worked in the Austrian crown lands since 1750, Volume 7.

literature

Web links

Commons : Václav Hanka  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The following in this section is essentially based on Goethe (Berlin edition), Schriften zur Literatur , Berlin / Weimar (Aufbau-Verlag) 1984, vol. 18, p. 849 (= remarks on Goethe's writing from 1827 Bohemian poetry )
  2. ↑ Goethe (Berlin edition), Poetic Works , Berlin / Weimar (Aufbau-Verlag) vol. 1, p. 962 (= note on p. 622, the poem Das Strüßchen )
  3. ↑ Friedrich Prinz, Bohemia's German and European culture: similarities and dividing lines in a two-peoples country , in: Friedrich Prinz (ed.), Böhmen und Moravia , Berlin: Siedler 1993, p. 299. = German history in Eastern Europe (unnumbered volume)
personal data
SURNAME Hanka, Václav
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Váceslavič, Váceslav; Hanka, Wenzel (German); Hanka, Wenceslas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Czech linguist
DATE OF BIRTH June 10, 1791
PLACE OF BIRTH Hořiněves
DATE OF DEATH January 12, 1861
Place of death Prague