Johann Gustav Droysen

Gustav Droysen
Gustav Droysen.jpg
Born6 July 1808 (1808-07-06)
Treptow, Pomerania, Kingdom of Prussia
(now Poland)
Died19 June 1884 (1884-06-20) (aged 75)
Berlin, Brandenburg, German Empire
EducationUniversity of Berlin
(PhD, 1831)[1]
Era19th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolHistorism[2]
InstitutionsUniversity of Berlin
University of Kiel
University of Jena
ThesisDe Lagidarum regno Ptolemaeo IV Philometore rege (1831)
Main interests
Historical method
Notable ideas
The erkennen–erklären–verstehen distinction[3]
Influences
Influenced

Johann Gustav Bernhard Droysen (/ˈdrɔɪzən/; German: [ˈdʁɔʏzn̩]; 6 July 1808 – 19 June 1884) was a German historian. His history of Alexander the Great was the first work representing a new school of German historical thought that idealized power held by so-called "great" men.

Early life and education

Droysen was born at Treptow in Pomerania (now Trzebiatów in Poland) on 6 July 1808. His father, Johann Christoph Droysen, was an army chaplain who had been present at the celebrated siege of Kolberg in 1806–1807. As a child, Droysen witnessed some of the military operations during the War of Liberation, his father by then being pastor at Greifenhagen, in the immediate neighbourhood of Stettin, which was held by the French for most of 1813. These youthful impressions laid the foundation of his ardent attachment to the Kingdom of Prussia. He was educated at the gymnasium of Stettin and at the University of Berlin; from 1827 to 1829 he was the private tutor of Felix Mendelssohn, who set several of his poems in his Op. 9 12 Songs. In 1829 he became a master at the Graues Kloster, one of the oldest schools in Berlin; in addition, he gave lectures at the University of Berlin, from 1833 as Privatdozent, and from 1835 as professor, without a salary.[6] The famed historian Jacob Burckhardt visited his class in his last semester (1839–40).[7]

During these years Droysen studied classical antiquity; he published a translation of Aeschylus in 1832 and a paraphrase of Aristophanes (1835–1838),[8] but the work by which he made himself known as a historian was his Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen (History of Alexander the Great; Berlin, 1833 and other editions), a book that long remained the best work on Alexander the Great.[9] It was in some ways the herald of a new school of German historical thought, for it idealized power and success, a conceptual framework Droysen had learned from the teaching of Hegel. Droysen followed the biography of Alexander with other works dealing with Alexander's Greek successors, published under the title of Geschichte des Hellenismus (Hamburg, 1836–1843), in which he created the term "Hellenistic" to refer to the period between Alexander's conquests and the emergence of the Roman Empire.[10] A new and revised edition of the whole work was published in 1885, and translated into French, but not at the time into English.[6] His Vorlesung des Freiheits Krieg (in English: Lectures of the War of Liberation)[11] appeared in 1846 and his Outlines of the Principles of History, published 1858, translated 1893, was widely read throughout German universities.[12] He followed this with Erhebung der Geschichte zum Rang einer Wissenschaft (1863), a methodological study that reflected his new approach to research and writing.[13]

History meets politics

In 1840, Droysen was appointed professor of history at the University of Kiel. There, the political movement for the defense of the rights of the Elbe duchies, of which Kiel was the center, attracted his interest. Like Friedrich Christoph Dahlmann, he placed his historical learning at the service of the estates of Schleswig and Holstein and composed the address of 1844, in which the estates protested against the claim of King Christian VIII of Denmark to alter the law of succession in the duchies.[6] The issue was diplomatically negotiated through the London Protocol of 1852, and ultimately resolved in a war between Denmark and allied forces from Austria and Prussia in the Second Schleswig War.

드로이센의 첫 번째 위대한 정치적 출현은 1843년 카를 볼드 왕과 독일인 루드비히가 샤를마뉴의 손자들 사이에 맺은 베르둔 협정의 천년 기념일에 일어났다. 샤를마뉴와 그의 아들 비오 루이, 드로이센의 유산은 이 사건에서 독일 국가의 증거를 발견했다.[14] 이후 드로이센은 베를린에서 '베르둔에서 협정'이라는 제목으로 많은 청중에게 강연을 하였는데, 이 강연은 듣는 사람뿐만 아니라 독일 카이저 자신에게도 뜨거운 환영을 받았다.[15]

프러시아 패권주의 지지

1848년 드로이센은 혁명 프랑크푸르트 의회의 일원으로 선출되었고 제안된 헌법을 작성하기 위해 위원회의 비서로 활동했다.[6] 그는 이것을 독일 통일로 가는 유일한 실현 가능한 경로로 보고 프러시아의 우세를 확고히 지지했다.

"독일 질문 전체가 프로이센과 오스트리아의 단순한 대안이라는 사실을 감출 수 없다. 이러한 상태에서 독일인의 삶은 양극과 양극을 가지고 있다. 즉, 전자의 경우, 국가적, 개혁적, 후자의 경우, 모든 이익은 왕조적이고 파괴적이다. 독일어 문제는 헌법상의 문제가 아니라 권력에 관한 문제인데, 프러시아 군주제는 이제 전적으로 독일어인 반면 오스트리아의 문제는 그럴 수 없다."[16]

드로이센은 1849년 프로이센의 프레데릭 윌리엄 4세가 황위를 거부한 후 프랑크푸르트 의회에서 은퇴한 최초의 의원 중 한 명이었다. In the following two years, Droysen continued to support the cause of the duchies, and in 1850, with Carl Samwer, he published a history of the dealings of Denmark with Schleswig and Holstein, Die Herzogthümer Schleswig-Holstein und das Königreich Dänemark seit dem Jahre 1800 (Hamburg, 1850). 같은 해 런던에서 슐레스비히-홀슈타인의 두키족을 향한 덴마크의 정책이라는 제목으로 번역본이 출판되었다. 이 작품은 정치적 중요성이 큰 작품 중 하나였으며 덴마크와의 투쟁에서 후치인들의 권리에 대한 독일 여론 형성에 기여했다.[6][17]

Legacy to Prussian historiography

In his later years, Droysen was almost entirely occupied with Prussian history. After 1851, he was appointed to a professorship at Jena; in 1859, he was called to Berlin, where he remained until his death. In 1851, he brought out a life of Count Yorck von Wartenburg (Berlin, 1851–1852), generally considered one of the best biographies in the German language[18] and then began his great work on the Geschichte der preussischen Politik, or, in English, The History of Prussian Politics (Berlin, 1855–1886). Seven volumes were published, the last posthumously; in total the work consumed 32 volumes. It forms a complete history of the growth of the Prussian monarchy to the year 1756. This, like all Droysen's work, shows a strongly marked individuality, and a penchant of tracing the manner in which important dynamic forces worked themselves out in history.[6][19]

Personal life

Droysen was twice married, and died in Berlin. His eldest son, Gustav, wrote several well-known historical works, namely, Gustav Adolf (Leipzig, 1869–1870), a study of the Gustavus Adolphus, the King of Sweden during the Thirty Years War, and Herzog Bernhard von Weimar (Leipzig, 1885), a study of Duke Bernhard, another able Protestant General during the Thirty Years War;[20] an Historischer Handatlas (Leipzig, 1886), a geographic analysis of historical and territorial changes, and several writings on various events of the Thirty Years' War. Another son, Hans Droysen, was the author of some works on Greek history and antiquities.[6]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Kiel University – Famous Scholars from Kiel
  2. ^ Colin Cheyne, John Worrall (eds.), Rationality and Reality: Conversations with Alan Musgrave, Springer 2006, p. 266.
  3. ^ A distinction among the three methodologies of scientific inquiry: recognising (pertaining to philosophical, theological, and speculative research), explaining (pertaining to mathematical and physical research) and understanding (pertaining to historical research); see: Johann Gustav Droysen, Grundriss der Historik, Verlag von Veit & Comp., 1868, p. 11: §14.
  4. ^ a b Beiser (2011), p. 295.
  5. ^ Werner Jacob Cahnman, Joseph Maier, Judith Marcus and Zoltán Tarr (ed.), Weber & Toennies: Comparative Sociology in Historical Perspective: "Max Weber and the Methodological Controversy in the Social Sciences", Transaction Publishers, 1943, p. 42, note 21.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Droysen, Johann Gustav". Encyclopædia Britannica. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 596.
  7. ^ Nippel, Wilfried. Johann Gustav Droysen: Ein Leben zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik. C.H. Beck, 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-56937-1, p. 20.
  8. ^ Nippel (2008), p. 7.
  9. ^ Nippel (2008), p. 8.
  10. ^ Chaniotis, Angelos (2011). Greek History: Hellenistic. Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide. Oxford University Press. p. 8. ISBN 9780199805075.
  11. ^ Nippel, p.
  12. ^ "Johann Gustav Droysen." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. Accessed 11 June 2009 [1].
  13. ^ Nippel (2008), pp. 7–22.
  14. ^ Nippel (2008), pp. 52–53.
  15. ^ Nippel (2008), p. 53.
  16. ^ Droysen, J.G. Modern History Sourcebook: Documents of German Unification, 1848-1871. Found at: [2]. Accessed on 9 April 2009.
  17. ^ Nippel (2008), pp. 241–245.
  18. ^ Nippel, Das Leben des Feldmarschalls Grafen York von Wartenburg. Veit u. comp., 1854. [3]
  19. ^ Nippel (2008), pp. 20–25.
  20. ^ Gustav Droysen (son), Bernhard von Weimar. Duncker & Humblot, 1885

References

  • "Johann Gustav Droysen." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. Accessed 11 June 2009.
  • Frederick C. Beiser, The German Historicist Tradition, Oxford University Press, 2011.
  • Wilfried Nippel. Johann Gustav Droysen: Ein Leben zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik. C.H. Beck, 2008. ISBN 978-3-406-56937-1.

Further reading

External links