Georg August Wallin

Georg August Wallin ( born October 24, 1811 in Sund on the Åland Islands, † October 23, 1852 in Helsinki) was a Finnish orientalist and explorer.

His parents were firm head Israel Wallin Kumlinge and Johanna Maria Ahrenberg Eckerö. The family moved in 1817 to Turku as the father was appointed the firm Board for the Province of Turku and Pori County.

In 1829, the 18 -year-old Georg August Wallin to study oriental languages ​​began at the University of Helsinki. He obtained the Master's degree in 1836, and three years later he went to St. Petersburg, where he met Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad al - Sayyad Tantawi. Whose stories inspired Wallin to his first research trip to Egypt.

Six years he remained there and crossed the Arabic-speaking world. To gain acceptance and access to people and places, he presented himself as a Russian subject from Central Asia, the Muslim Abd -al- Wali. Wallin also had a Finn. His dark hair and brown eyes in combination with his language skills helped him to help. During his stay in the Arab world, he wrote diaries and letters. Due to his early death, but only a fraction of his research has been published. From 2010, a series of Wallin reports by the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland but is issued. Wallin was very knowledge of language, and he wrote his texts in Arabic, German, Latin, French, English and Swedish.

So far, Wallin has been observed in the historiography little, although he, along with two other Arabia travelers of the 19th century, Jean Louis Burckhardt and Charles Montagu Doughty, as well as Wilfred Thesiger in the 20th century, as one of the greatest explorers of the Arabian Peninsula applies.

Wallin traveled from 1843 to 1849 continuously in Egypt, Arabia, Persia and Syria, returned to Europe in 1849 and was appointed professor of Oriental languages ​​at the University of Helsinki in 1850; he died in Helsinki on 23 October 1852. His trip reports from the Orient gave SG Elmgren out.

Works (selection)

  • Georg August Wallin Reseanteckningar från Orients, 1843-1849 ARs: Dagbok och bref. efter resandens död utgifna af S. G. Elmgren. Helsingfors from 1864 to 1866.
  • Traveling in Arabia from 1845 to 1848. Edited and trans. by Uwe Pfullmann. Berlin 2004. ISBN 3-89626-401- X
  • William R. Mead, GA Wallin and the Royal Geographical Society, Studia Orientalia 23, 1958.
  • Georg Wallin, reprinted in Travels in Arabia, New York: Oleander Press, 1979: Notes taken falling on a Journey through part of Northern Arabia, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 20, 1851.
  • Narrative of a Journey from Cairo to Medina and Mecca, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 24, 1854.
  • Narrative of a Journey from Cairo to Jerusalem, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 25, 1855.
Integrated Authority File
369132
de