Werner Kaegi (historian)

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Kaegi (1977)

Werner Kaegi (born February 22, 1901 in Oetwil am See , † June 15, 1979 in Basel ) was a Swiss historian .

Live and act

Werner Kägi-von Speyr (1901–1979) Dr. phil., historian, translator, biographer, grave in the Hörnli cemetery, Riehen, Basel
Grave in the Hörnli cemetery , Riehen, Basel

Werner Kaegi was the son of Paul Kägi, reformed pastor in Oetwil am See. After attending the literary high school in Zurich, he studied history, art history and Italian literature at the universities of Zurich , Leipzig and Florence from 1919 to 1924 . In 1924 Kaegi started working on Hutten and Erasmus in Leipzig . Their friendship and their quarrel with Dr. phil. PhD . Further studies took him to Paris and Basel. He received his habilitation in 1933 at the University of Basel and in 1935 he was appointed full professor for Medieval and Modern History. Kaegi worked there until 1971 and had many listeners, including non-students. He developed an eight-semester cycle of lectures, which led from the late Roman Empire to the French Revolution, and which he added again and again. His colleague, who was almost the same age, Edgar Bonjour , who had recently been appointed to the chair of Swiss history and modern general history at the University of Basel, writes about their relationship in his memoirs : “Kaegi emphasized, according to his disposition and inclination, the intellectual and Cultural history, I political and institutional, we both also devoted ourselves to historiography [...] ”, and Bonjour mentions“ the good dissertations [...] that emerged from our seminars and that we have published in the series we both have together Basel Contributions to the Study of History published “.

Kaegi mainly researched the history of ideas and ideas. Particularly noteworthy is an extensive biography of Jacob Burckhardt . Among other things, he translated works by the Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga into German.

From 1951 Kaegi was a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry . In 1976 he became an elected member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1954 he received the Gottfried Keller Prize , in 1971 the Jacob Burckhardt Prize from the Basel Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Foundation and in 1977 the Erasmus Prize .

Werner Kaegi was married from 1935 to Adrienne von Speyr , the widow of his predecessor Emil Dürr , who became known as a Catholic mystic and through her collaboration with Hans Urs von Balthasar .

His estate is kept in the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel.

Works (selection)

  • Jacob Burckhardt. 7 volumes. Schwabe Verlag, Basel 1947–1982.
    • Volume I: Childhood and Early Adolescence. With 27 illustrations.
    • Volume II: The experience of the historical world. With 32 illustrations.
    • Volume III: The time of classical works. With 32 panels.
    • Volume IV: The Historical Office and the Late Travels. With 33 panels.
    • Volume V: The newer Europe and the experience of the present. With 29 panels.
    • Volume VI, 1/2: World history, medieval art history, the last years 1886–1897. With 29 panels.
    • Volume VII: Greek cultural history, life in the city-state, the friends, with registers of persons and places for the complete works.
  • Historical meditations [I]; Fretz & Wasmuth Verlag, Zurich 1942, 313 pp., Ill .; therein the essays: Origin of Nations ; The Rhine border in the history of Alemannia ; Erasmus from Rotterdam ; Of Machiavelli's faith ; Machiavelli in Basel ; Erasmus in the 18th century ; Voltaire and the Decay of the Christian Image of History ; The small state in European thinking .
  • European Horizons in Jacob Burckhardt's Thought: Three Studies ; Winterthur 1962 ( Neujahrsblatt der Buchdruckerei Winterthur ; 9), in it the essays: Jacob Burckhardt and the English-speaking world ; Spain and the Counter Reformation ; Dutch heyday and Italian classic .
  • Historical Meditations , [Volume 3], introduced and ed. by René Teuteberg , Schwabe, Basel 1994, (with catalog raisonné), ISBN 3-7965-0965-7 .

literature

  • Manfred Welti : It doesn't work without women: Werner Kaegi (1901–1979). Self-published, Basel 1993.
  • Werner Kaegi: Historical Meditations , [Volume 3], introduced and ed. by René Teuteberg , Schwabe, Basel 1994, pp. 9-22, 35 f. (with catalog raisonné), ISBN 3-7965-0965-7 .
  • Hanno Helbling: European Swiss historian, on the 100th birthday of Werner Kaegi ; in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , No. 47, February 26, 2001, p. 25.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ René Teuteberg, in: Werner Kaegi: Historische Meditationen , [Volume 3], introduced and ed. by René Teuteberg , Schwabe, Basel 1994, pp. 9–22, especially p. 19.
  2. ^ Edgar Bonjour: Memories; Helbing & Lichtenhahn Verlag, Basel 1983, 304 pages, ISBN 3-7190-0851-7 , p. 95.
  3. ↑ Michael Assmann, Herbert Heckmann (Ed.): Between Criticism and Confidence. 50 years of the German Academy for Language and Poetry. Wallstein, Göttingen 1999, p. 32.
  4. ↑ Member History: Werner Kaegi. American Philosophical Society, accessed October 16, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Kaegi, Werner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kägi, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 22, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Oetwil am See
DATE OF DEATH June 15, 1979
Place of death Basel