Viadrus
Viadrus is the assumed name of the river god of the Oder and of the river itself, which rises in Moravia and flows through Silesia , Brandenburg and Pomerania into the Baltic Sea.
Name origin
An ancient name for the Oder is not known for certain. In the text Dagome Iudex , Mieszko I. mentions the Oddera river as the western border of Greater Poland around 990 . The neo-Latin name of the river Viadrus fluvius seems to go back to the scholar Jodocus Willich , professor in Frankfurt an der Oder , who stated Francofordii cis Viadrum as the place of printing of a font in 1543 .
In Frankfurt (Oder) the European University Viadrina bears the name Viadrina, derived from Viadrus (the one on Viadrus). The historical predecessor university , the Brandenburg University of Frankfurt , already had this nickname.
Modern writers fear that the name Viadrus would have been wrongly introduced for the Oder by the scholar Jodocus Willich in 1543. Alfred Stückelberger from the Ptolemaios Research Center at the University of Bern and the Berlin Professor Dieter Lelgemann , project manager at the German Research Foundation , and their colleagues suspect that the Oder is the Suebus mentioned by Ptolemaios with its mouth in Swinoujscie , while the Viadua mentioned by Ptolemaios is the Wieprza (Wipper) is a river between the Oder and the Vistula that flows into the Baltic Sea at Darłówko (formerly Rügenwaldermünde). The riddle should be solved, because on the maps of Waldseemüller from 1513 and 1520 the course of the Oder is marked with both Odera fl. And Viadus fl.
Pictorial representation
Viadrus is often depicted as a strong, grown man with reeds in his hair, wearing a himation , the oar in one hand and the spring vase in the other.
- One of the oldest references is contained in the cover of a book by Martin Opitz from 1625.
- Around 1725 there was a representation of the Viadrus at what was then the Berlin Gate in Stettin (today Brama Portowa - German: Hafentor - in Szczecin ).
- In the former Jesuit college in Breslau there is a ceiling painting from 1732 by Johann Christoph Handke from Olomouc in the Leopoldina-Aula , which shows the Oder god on the throne next to the patron saint of the city, Wratislawia , and Silesia ( allegory of Silesia).
- Also in the former Jesuit college in Breslau there is a painting by Felix Anton Scheffler from 1734 with the Viadrus in the Imperial Staircase.
literature
- Heiko Walther-Kampf, Ernst-Otto Denk: Viadrus Heimatbuch für Bad Freienwalde (Oder) and surroundings et Terra Transoderana , 3rd year 2011, Bad Freienwalde Tourismus GmbH
- Alfred Stückelberger and Florian Mittenhuber: Klaudios Ptolemaios, Handbuch der Geographie , supplementary volume, Schwabe Verlag 2009
- Gerhard Rasch: Ancient geographical names north of the Alps , Verlag de Gruyter, Berlin 2005
Individual evidence
- ^ Jodocus Willich : Problemata De Ebriorvm affectionibus & moribus , Francofordii cis Viadrum, printed by Ioannes Hanaw, 1543. Online
- ↑ Ralf Loock: A river poses a riddle , in Märkische Oderzeitung , Journal 10./11. April 2010, p. 5. Online