Leopold von Ranke

Franz Leopold Ranke, from 1865 von Ranke ( born December 21, 1795 in Wiehe, † May 23, 1886 in Berlin) was a German historian, historiographer of the Prussian state, university teachers and royal Prussian Privy Council.

Family

Leopold von Ranke was the eldest son of the lawyer Gottlieb Israel Ranke (1762-1836) and his wife Friederike Ranke, born Lehmicke (1776-1836), was born. He was the brother of the theologian Friedrich Heinrich Ranke (1798-1876) and the theologian Ernst Ranke ( 1814-1888 ). His nephews were the physiologist and anthropologist Johannes Ranke and in 1891 also ennobled physician Heinrich von Ranke.

Ranke married 1843 Helena Clarissa Graves ( 1808-1871 ) from an old English family: the daughter of the Dublin Police Commissioner John Crosby Graves ( 1776-1835 ) and Helena Perceval ( 1785-1835 ). The couple had three sons, Otto Ranke (1844-1928), Major General Friedhelm (1847-1917), who married his cousin Selma von Ranke, and Albrecht (1849-1850) and a daughter Maximiliane ( 1846-1922 ). The British writer Robert Graves was a relative of Leopold von Ranke.

He was raised on 22 March 1865 in Berlin in the Prussian nobility.

Life

Leopold von Ranke attended from 1809 to 1814 the country Pforta. He studied from 1814 to 1818 in theology and philology at the University of Leipzig.

From 1818, he was a high school teacher in Frankfurt ( Oder) and since 1825 he was associate professor in Berlin. From 1827 to 1831 Ranke traveled the archives of the former Holy Roman Empire, 1829 to the State Archives of Venice. Since 1832, member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, he became a full professor there in 1834. 1841 Ranke was appointed by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV historiographer of the Prussian state ( the income collected as published twelve books of Prussian history, 1878/1879 ).

In 1871 he presented as blind, his teaching, but worked resolutely to his work: he took the revision and supplementation of older works in attack to publish his Complete Works. 80 - year old, he began to dictate his world history, from the 1880 annual volume was published and which was supplemented after his death from his records. He died in 1886. His tomb is in the churchyard Sophie.

Honors

In 1853 he was awarded the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art, and in 1855 the Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts. 1885, he was named an honorary citizen of Berlin and 1888 Rankestraße it was named in honor.

Significance of his work

Ranke is one of the founding fathers of modern historical scholarship. After the Prussian reforms ( 1810 ) and the establishment of the first University of Berlin under Wilhelm von Humboldt, the science concept of historicism had prevailed. Historicism differed by a systematic and source-critical approach of the previous primarily philosophical view of history.

This approach has yielded Ranke a methodology that combines the old narrative history with the new scientific bases ( with an increasing professionalization through the study of history ). The historian has therefore an object to show "how it was actually" is. Ranke it comes to the greatest possible objectivity in the reproduction of the story. This trait of his historiography leads in the second half of the 19th century in the German historiography to the expression of so-called " Neorankeaner ". These include, inter alia, Erich Marcks, Max Lehmann and Max Lenz. They stand in contrast to historians such as Heinrich von Sybel, Heinrich von Treitschke and Johann Gustav Droysen who see the story with a daily political task, on the methodological ground Ranke. Nevertheless, they do not remain unaffected by the other flow. Objectivity in history does not mean current political neutrality. This is also true for vine itself most sustainable effect reached his works mainly to the Reformation, the Roman popes, to the English and French history in the 17th century. In the international historiography of his time, there are in fact only a few who can compare with him. These include, inter alia, Jules Michelet and Thomas Babbington Macaulay.

For Ranke the aesthetics of language was as important as the actual content. Devastating and sometimes lasting effect to this day he is accused by some that literary form and intellectual discovery are not held apart by its sophisticated language.

Ranke has its importance according to a number of major students, which in turn form even back their own schools. Here we call as his oldest and probably most important for the development of German historiography Heinrich von Sybel. Even Jacob Burckhardt, Carl von Noorden and Wilhelm Maurenbrecher have studied for a time in Berlin with tendril.

Ranke's historiography is essentially political history of states. The persons who have come have political significance in any way. The exploration of the world of states is the essence of him. The social aspects as the social sub-layers do not occur often with him. One of the few chapters in its history, where they occur so revolutionary in the story that they can not be ignored, the topic of German Peasants' War applies. This view of history is reflected particularly in the history of the Reformation period and the 17th century. But is not without consequence for the history of the 19th century. End of the 19th century there is between the so-called Rankeanern and Karl Lamprecht dispute over methods of historical research, which was actually less of a factual dispute as a denigration of the new thinking approach Lamprecht.

From 1833 to 1836 Ranke published the Historical- Political magazine. Since Ranke wrote the bulk of the feature in the magazine itself, this is now regarded as " unique personal creation of the editor of imperishable effect ".

Works

• History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations from 1494 to 1514 (1824 )
• Princes and peoples of Southern Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (1827 ff )
• The Serbian revolution. From Serbian papers and communications of (1829 )
• The Popes during the last four centuries (1834-1836) Duncker and Humblot Volume 1, Berlin 1834 ( digitized and full text in German Text Archive )
• Duncker und Humblot Volume 2, Berlin 1836 ( digitized and full text in German Text Archive )
• Duncker und Humblot Volume 3, Berlin 1836 ( digitized and full text in German Text Archive )

• Duncker and Humblot Volume 1, Berlin 1839 ( full text, digitized and full text in German Text Archive )
• Duncker und Humblot Volume 2, Berlin 1839 ( digitized and full text in German Text Archive )
• Duncker und Humblot Volume 3, Berlin 1840 ( digitized and full text in German Text Archive )
• Volume 4 Duncker und Humblot, Berlin 1843 ( digitized and full text in German Text Archive )
• Duncker und Humblot Volume 5, Berlin 1843 ( digitized and full text in German Text Archive )