Vilhelm Grønbech

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Vilhelm Grønbech (born June 14, 1873 in Allinge on Bornholm , † April 21, 1948 in Helsingør ) was a Danish polymath, cultural historian , religious scholar and from 1915 to 1943 professor at the University of Copenhagen .

Life

Grønbech studied philology in Copenhagen from 1890 , worked in the Royal Library and as a teacher and received his doctorate in 1902 with a thesis on the historical phonetics of the Turkish language. He also studied psychology and worked as a church organist. In 1914, the University of Leipzig unsuccessfully offered him a chair. In 1915 he became professor of religious history in Copenhagen. During the German occupation, his lectures attracted large numbers of listeners. The magazine Frie Ord ("Free Word"), which he founded together with the theologian and democracy theorist Hal Koch , became a widely read organ. He was nominated eleven times between 1914 and 1944 for the Nobel Prize in Literature . He became a member of the Royal Danish Academy for Science and Art, an honorary citizen of Allinge and was given an honorary apartment in Helsingborg.

Grønbech was married twice. His son Kaare Grønbech was a specialist in Asian languages.

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His topics were the Germanic religion and Germanic mythology , which he worked on with high literary standards, epic breadth and great empathy, but also European and Asian mysticism , the Christian religion, the missionary history of Scandinavia and German romanticism.

In his essay Primitive Religion (1915) he showed the complexity of the ancient religions and rejected the evolutionary three-stage theory of the development of religions by James George Frazer .

His epoch-making classic, in German translation with the title Culture and Religion of the Teutons , is based on the analysis of the elementary concepts of the spiritual culture of the Teutons (salvation, honor, peace, gem, beer drink, etc.), which he illuminates deeply. In the absence of written records, he relied on stories and legends that were written down later. In this work he also develops a theory of the ritual drama of the Teutons (ritual prizes, deaths, heroic songs and dances). In doing so, he reached a degree of approximation to his subject that had hardly been reached until then, but occasionally exceeded the limit of speculation in his attempt, influenced by German Romanticism, to develop a kind of interpretation of the essence or psychology of the Teutons.

He used a similar method in his four-volume work Mystikere i Europa og India on Greek, medieval-European and Indian mysticism. He dedicated the last volume to romantic writers (including William Blake ).

In Religiøse strømninger i det nittende aarhundrede ("Religious currents in the 19th century") he sees the beginning of the religious crisis in the western world not in the age of the Reformation , but in the romanticism of the late 18th century. However, the theory of evolution holds the chance that people will regain their trust in universal laws.

Selected publications

  • Forstudier til tyrkisk lydhistorie . Copenhagen 1902.
  • Before folkeæt i oldtiden . Volume I-IV (1. Lykkemand and Niding . 2. Midgård and Menneskelivet . 3. Hellighed and Helligdom . 4. Menneskelivet and Guderne ). 1909 to 1912 Copenhagen ² 1955. (Extended English version under the title The Culture of the Teutons , Oxford University Press 1932, 2 vol .; German under the title Kultur und Religion der Teutons , Hamburg: Hanseatische Verlags-Anstalt 1937–1939, 4 vol .; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1954, 2 vol .; numerous new editions; reprint of the two volumes in one volume Leipzig 2011.)
  • Primitive religion . Stockholm 1915.
  • Culture og Virkelighed. Festskrift tillägnad professor Vitalis Norström on 60-års dagen January 29, 1916 . Stockholm 1916, pp. 159-70.
  • Religious currents in the nittende århundrede . Copenhagen 1922.
  • William Blake . Artist. Digter. Mystic . Copenhagen 1933.
  • Mysticism in Europe and India . Volumes I-IV, Copenhagen 1925 to 1935.
  • Friedrich Schlegel i årene 1791-1808 . Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab XXII, Copenhagen 1935.
  • Jesus Menneskesønnen . Copenhagen 1935.
  • Hellenisms . Volume I-II, Copenhagen 1940.
  • Paul . Jesus Christ the Apostle . Copenhagen 1940.
  • Kristus. The opstandne frelser . Copenhagen 1941.
  • Hellas . Volume IV, Copenhagen 1942 to 1953 (1. Adelstiden . 2. Revolutions . 3. Guder and Mennesker . 4. Tænkere and Tragikere . 5. Supplement ).
  • He lives et fund. En bog om humor and tragedie . Copenhagen 1951.
  • Atomic bombs and other essays . Copenhagen 1957.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Database of Nobel Prize Winners and Candidates on nobelprize.org
  2. ^ Kaare Grønbech: The Turkish language structure. Copenhagen 1936.
personal data
SURNAME Grønbech, Vilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish religious scholar
DATE OF BIRTH June 14, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Bornholm
DATE OF DEATH April 21, 1948
Place of death Elsinore