Wilhelm Crönert

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Wilhelm Otto Crönert (born April 3, 1874 in Traben ; † October 8, 1942 in Horbach) was a German classical philologist and papyrologist . He worked as a private lecturer and associate professor at the University of Strasbourg (1911–1914), but after losing his position spent most of his life as a private scholar.

In Germany he is mainly known for the canceled revision of Passow's concise dictionary of the Greek language . In Italy, on the other hand, he is regarded as the founder of the scientific development of the Herculanian papyri and is accordingly valued.

Life

Youth and Studies

Crönert came from a family of winemakers on the Moselle. He attended elementary school in Aachen , then the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Cologne and finally passed the school leaving examination in Trier in 1893. He then moved to Halle with his family and studied classical philology, Romance studies and history at the university there . His teachers included the philologists Friedrich Blass , Wilhelm Dittenberger and the archaeologist Carl Robert . In the fall of 1894, Crönert moved to Göttingen University for two years , where he was particularly influenced by the linguist Wilhelm Schulze and the philologists Friedrich Leo and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff . After another semester in Halle (summer semester 1896) Crönert was in the winter semester 1896/1897 with a thesis on the herculanensischen papyri his doctorate , which was supervised by Wilamowitz and Schulze. Crönert's dissertation was fundamental for the scholarly development of the Herculanean papyri and included palaeographic , grammatical and codicological approaches.

Takeover of the "New Passow"

After completing his doctorate, Crönert initially lived in his parents' house in Halle, continued to work on the Herculanean papyri and, from 1899, deepened his studies at the University of Bonn with Franz Bücheler and Hermann Usener . On July 4, 1901, he received the Charlotten Foundation Prize for Philology for his study "on the use of double personal names among the Greeks and specifically the Egyptians", which secured him an income of 1200 marks for four years. Funding from his teacher Wilamowitz was decisive for his scientific career: Wilamowitz had been in contact with the Göttingen publisher Wilhelm Ruprecht ( Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht ), who wanted to create a new concise Greek dictionary based on the outdated Passow dictionary . The Passow Lexicon originated in the 1930s and was now obsolete by its English adaptation by Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott under the title A Greek-English Lexicon . German classical philology wanted to catch up with this deficit. The publisher had been looking for an editor for a long time without success. In 1898 Wilamowitz recommended his student Crönert for the company and in 1899 Crönert signed a contract with the Göttingen publishing house, which stipulated the working time for six years and the number of sheets from 180 to a maximum of 200.

Lecturer in Strasbourg and participation in the First World War

Due to the wealth of his family, Crönert was financially independent and was able to build up a large private library in which almost all of Greek literature was represented in text editions and commentaries. In 1911 he completed his habilitation in Classical Philology at the University of Strasbourg ; In 1914 he was appointed associate professor there. From 1913 to 1914 the first three editions of his Greek dictionary appeared, which reached as far as the lemma ἀνά ; Paul Maas and Karl Mittelhaus stood by his side as permanent collaborators , while Wolf Aly and Ernst Fraenkel read along with the correction. The work was largely positively received by experts, but remained at risk due to the long processing time. After the first three deliveries, Crönert had to stop his scientific work because he was called up as a reserve officer for World War I in the summer of 1914 . In May 1918 Crönert was taken prisoner by the English, from which he did not return home until autumn 1919.

Private scholar in the Black Forest

After the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by France, Crönert was expelled in January 1919 and could not return to his Strasbourg professorship. He even had to fight for the return of his work equipment, which was stored in the basement of his Strasbourg apartment, until December 1920. After this setback, Crönert could no longer gain a foothold in the academic world in Germany. He spent the rest of his life as a private scholar. He lived on a farm in Horbach near St. Blasien in the Black Forest, where he was equally active in science and agriculture. He continued to work on his dictionary until his death without ever finishing it. He lived very withdrawn, had little contact with his family and was only in contact with a few colleagues (especially the Freiburg philologists Otto Immisch and Wolfgang Aly ).

During the time of National Socialism , Crönert emerged for the last time through publications. He wrote newspaper articles that were clearly committed to the zeitgeist. He responded to Benedetto Croce's criticism of the Third Reich ( Das Deutschland, das wir liebten , 1936) with an open letter to Benedetto Croce , a friend of Germany, in Naples about Germany's present renewal and the future of the German spirit (1937). This text contained "a crude mixture of Hellenistic state philosophy - especially Aristotle - and National Socialist ideology with all its catchphrases" ( Ulrich Schindel ). According to the verdict of Marcello Gigante (1923–2001), Crönert's enthusiasm for National Socialism is “proof of the peculiarity and unreality of his character and also of his nationalism, which arose in the trenches and was nourished by Nazi propaganda: the strict and Sometimes ingenious studies of papyrology and philology did not prevent such intellectualistic madness, which was intensified by the loneliness of the Black Forest in its drastic, unconditional and absurdity. "

Wilhelm Crönert died on October 8, 1942 as a result of a leg injury he sustained while chopping wood. Crönert bequeathed his extensive library to the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen , which also acquired the Crönert coin collection from his widow (Crönert collection) . The books were cataloged by Emilie Boer in 1943 and did not come to Göttingen until 1946, where Karl Deichgräber and, after him, Ulrich Schindel took care of their listing. In the 2000s, the books were in a separate room in the library of the Göttingen Seminar for Classical Philology; since 2011 they are housed in the magazine of the SUB Goettingen . Numerous books come from Wilhelm Kroll's estate , which Crönert bought wholesale in 1940 . Crönert's card box and other tools for his lexicon only partially survived the war.

Fonts (selection)

According to Frank Martin Beck's list of publications ( see below ), Crönert wrote approx. 70 articles and approx. 120 reviews. In addition to the three deliveries of his lexicon, there are also the following monographs:

  • Quaestiones Herculanenses . Göttingen 1898 (dissertation)
    • Italian translation by Enrico Livrea: Studi ercolanesi . Napoli 1975
  • Memoria Graeca Herculanensis . Berlin 1903 ( meeting reports of the Prussian Academy of Sciences ). Reprint Hildesheim 1963
  • Kolotes and Menedemus. Texts and studies on the history of philosophers and literature . Leipzig 1906 ( studies of palaeography and papyrus studies 6). Reprint Amsterdam 1965

literature

  • Frank Martin Beck: Wilhelm Crönert Complete Bibliography 1897–1988. Bibliography of all recordable titles by W. Crönert on philology, including his reviews, translations and / or reprints . Unpublished manuscript, Tübingen 1991.
  • Mario Capasso : Storia fotografica dell'Officina dei Papiri Ercolanesi , Napoli 1983, pp. 80–81 (with picture).
  • Valentina Garulli: Il laboratorio loboniano di Wilhelm Crönert . In: Eikasmós . Volume 16 (2005), pp. 488-498
  • Valentina Garulli: Le lettere dalla prigionia di Wilhelm Crönert . In: Eikasmós . Volume 20 (2009), pp. 365-402
  • Marcello Gigante: Per un profilo di Wilhelm Crönert . In: Cronache Ercolanesi , Volume 16 (1986), pp. 94-99.
  • Marcello Gigante: B. Croce e W. Crönert . In: Cronache Ercolanesi , Volume 17 (1987), pp. 109-112.
  • Ulrich Schindel: Crönertiana . Unpublished manuscript, Göttingen 2008.

Web links

Wikisource: Wilhelm Crönert  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Adam Bülow-Jacobsen: Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Papyrologists, Copenhagen, 23-29 August, 1992 , 1994, pp. 77-78.
  2. ↑ Meeting reports of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin . Year 1901, 2nd half volume, p. 765.
  3. ^ A b Wilhelm Ruprecht: Fathers and Sons: Two Centuries of Booksellers in a German University Town. Göttingen 1935. pp. 230-231.
  4. ^ New Yearbooks for German Science , Volume 2 (1926), p. 622.
  5. ↑ Crönertiana (2008) 8.
  6. ↑ Gigante (1987) 112.
personal data
SURNAME Crönert, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Crönert, Wilhelm Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical philologist and papyrologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Trot
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1942
Place of death Horbach near St. Blasien