Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall
Joseph Freiherr von Hammer- Purgstall ( born June 9, 1774 Graz, Styria, † November 23, 1856 in Vienna ) was an Austrian diplomat and orientalist. He was known as a translator of oriental literature and is regarded as the founder of scientific Ottoman and an Austrian pioneer of Oriental Studies.
Life
Hammer was born in 1774 as the son of ennobled in 1791 Gubernialrates Austrian Josef (from) hammer. By the age of 14 he attended the lower classes of the Graz school and came in 1784 to Vienna, where he attended school at the Barbara pen. At 15, he joined the k.k. Academy of Oriental Languages in Vienna, which developed mainly interpreters ( "Language youths ") for the diplomatic service. In the five- year course, he learned, among other things, together with the later Austrian Foreign Minister Franz Maria von Thugut, Turkish, Persian and Arabic, as well as Italian, French, Latin and Greek. It showed his talent for languages , in 1790, he interpreted when visiting a Turkish delegation.
He remained after graduating from the Academy, where his scientific work began. He translated excerpts the Encyclopedia of the Turkish scholar Hajji Khalifa and worked with the historian Johannes von Müller (1752-1809) and the Orientalists Bernhard Freiherr von Jenisch ( 1734-1807 ).
In 1799 he first came to Istanbul. In 1800 he made as an interpreter and secretary of the British Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith with the campaign against the French in Egypt on HMS Tigre and also took part in the relief of Acre. He accompanied Sidney Smith to London, where he learned English and went on to Paris, where he met the orientalist Silvestre de Sacy, in 1801 to Austria.
In 1802 he was secretary of legation in Istanbul, where he undertook smaller trips to Greece and Turkey. During this time he wrote travel reports, the novel Antar and translated stories from " The Arabian Nights ".
The constant conflict with his superiors led in 1806 to his transfer to the Austrian Consulate General in Jassy ( Moldavia ).
In 1807 he got a job as Hofdolmetscher the Chancellery in Vienna and was from 1809 to 1818, the magazine of the Orient Bazaars out. In 1817 he was appointed councilor. Caroline of Henikstein (1797-1844), daughter of Joseph of Henikstein, became his wife. They had two daughters: Isabella (1819-1872), who married the industrialist and heir of Louis Brevillier Heinrich Trenk Tonder (1812-1887) later, and Eveline (1824-1887), the industrialist Adolf Maximilian von Bernd (1819 - 1897) got married.
After he was adopted after the death of his friend, Count Wenzel Johann Purgstall and his son from the originating from Scotland Countess Jane Anne of Purgstall that started him as heir of Castle Grove field in Styria, including the local Fideikommissherrschaft, he was in 1835 under the name charged by hammer Purgstall in a baron.
Since he was already transferred any really demanding task in Istanbul, he devoted himself mainly to literature. Later, in Vienna, he came into conflict to Metternich when he signed the written by writers ' memorandum on the present conditions of censorship in Austria " with. Finally, he worked only at home. During the Napoleonic occupation, he was responsible for the libraries. He managed to limit their looting. In December 1809, he was able to negotiate even the return of some valuable writings in Paris.
Joseph von Hammer- Purgstall translated many works into German - for example, Diwan of Hafiz (1812 ), a work that made for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the inspiration for his West-Eastern Divan (1819 ). Since 1810, he sought the establishment of an Austrian Academy of Sciences, which finally came about in 1847. From 1848 to 1849 he was its first president.
He was buried at the cemetery in Klosterneuburg - Weidling.
Was founded in 1958 A. Weikert named after him "Hammer -Purgstall Society " (short HPG ), the cultural contacts with the Near East, maintains and living in Austria supervised students from the Islamic world.
The 125th anniversary of the death of his oeuvre, the Austrian Post a special stamp.
Established in 2008, discharged Styrian cultural festival regionale08, under the title " DIWAN - Limits and congruences ", had Hammer Purgstall as the main reference point and its site of action castle grove field as a central venue for events.
Works
- The Ottoman empire state constitution and state government; Vienna in 1815, 2 volumes
- Story of the beautiful oratory of Persia, Vienna 1818
- History of the Ottoman Empire, Pest 1827-33, 10 volumes (online)
- Painting Hall of the biographies of great Moslem rulers, 1837.39,6 volumes.
- History of the Golden Horde in Kipchak, Pest 1840
- Diwan of Hafiz from Persian, Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1812-13, 2 vols.
- Tales of the 1001 Nights from Arabic, Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1823-24, 3 vols
- Poems of Baki from Turkish, Vienna 1825
- Life of Cardinal Khlesl, Vienna 1847-51, 4 volumes
- Portrait gallery of the Styrian nobility, Vienna 1855
- Rose oil. First and zweytes vial or a customer sagas and the East of Arabic, Persian and Turkish sources collected. Stuttgart: Cotta, 1813, 2 volumes
- About the internal administration under the Chalifate countries (1835 )
- Literary history of the Arabs. From its beginning until the end of the twelfth century the Hidschret (1850-1856)
- The Camel (1854 )
- History of the Khans of the Crimea under Ottoman rule (1856 )
- The Gallerinn on the Riegger Castle (1849 ), 3 volumes
- Memories and Letters ( digitized the 2011 edition: Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol.3 )
Honors and Awards
In total, he has been awarded 15 medals of Austria, Bavaria, Denmark, France, Hannover, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia, Sweden and Turkey, including:
He holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Graz and Prague.
In 1894 (2nd district) was named the Hammer Purgstall alley after him in Vienna Leopoldstadt.