Aleksander Brückner | |
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| Born | (1856-01-29)29 January 1856 |
| Died | 24 May 1939(1939-05-24) (aged 83) Berlin, Germany |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Occupation(s) | Scholar ofSlavic languages and literatures (Slavistics),philologist,lexicographer andhistorian of literature |
Aleksander Brückner (Polish pronunciation:[alɛkˈsandɛrˈbryknɛr]; 29 January 1856 – 24 May 1939) was a Polish scholar ofSlavic languages and literature (Slavistics),philologist,lexicographer, andhistorian of literature. He is among the most notable Slavicists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the first to prepare complete monographs on the history of thePolish language andculture. He published more than 1,500 titles and discovered the oldest extant prose text in Polish (theHoly Cross Sermons).
Brückner was born inBrzeżany (Berezhany) inGalicia,Austrian Empire, to an Austro-Polish family who had moved there fromStryj three generations earlier. He studied at the German Gymnasium inLwów (Lemberg) under Omelian Ohonovsky, inVienna underFranz Miklosich, and inBerlin underVatroslav Jagić. Brückner first taught at Lwów (Lwów University). In 1876 he received adoctorate at the University of Vienna and in 1878 hishabilitation for a study on Slavic settlements aroundMagdeburg (Die slawischen Aussiedlungen in der Altmark und im Magdeburgischen). In 1881 he received a professorship at the Berlin University, where he long held (1881–1924) the chair in Slavic Philology. He received funds for travel and studies from his University and he resided in Berlin continuously for 58 years until his death. He was a member of many learned societies, including thePolish Academy of Learning inKraków, theSaint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, theShevchenko Scientific Society in Lemberg, and theBulgarian Academy of Sciences, as well as academies inPrague andBelgrade.
Brückner wrote extensively in bothPolish andGerman on the history of theSlavic languages and literature, folklore, ancient Slavic andBaltic mythology, and the history of Polish and Russian literature. His most important works include a history of the Polish language (Lemberg, 1906), several histories of Polish literature in Polish and German, a history of Russian literature, anetymological dictionary of the Polish language (Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego, 1927), works on Slavic and Baltic mythology, an encyclopedia of Old Poland, and a 4-volume history of Polish culture (Kraków, 1930–46). Brückner was a specialist on the older periods of Polish and Slavic culture and was the discoverer, interpreter, and publisher of the oldest known manuscript in Polish, theHoly Cross Sermons. He had an incomparable knowledge of medieval Polish literature, which he knew from the original manuscripts, and was an expert on Renaissance and early modern Polish literature.
In general, Brückner tried to raise the prestige of old Slavic culture both in the eyes of the Germans among whom he worked and in the eyes of the Poles with whom he sympathized. He was critical of the Russian autocracy and the centralized Russian state of his time, including the Russian liberals (Kadets) who supported a centralized state and opposed either federalism or national autonomy for the non-Russian peoples of the Russian Empire. During theFirst World War, he favored theCentral Powers but opposed theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk, which he believed was largely directed against a resurgent Poland, and made deep concessions to theUkrainians in his native eastern Galicia. It was, however, scholarship, not politics, which always remained his main concern.
On the most central questions of Slavic scholarship, he believed that in ancient times the Slavic and Baltic languages had a common ancestor and he always stressed this common Balto-Slavic bond. He placed the original homeland of the Slavs farther west than most Slavists, on the territory of today's Poland. He believed that the apostles of the Slavs,Cyril and Methodius, had originated the idea of their mission on their own, and he played down the invitation fromMoravia; finally, in a polemic with theUkrainian historianMykhailo Hrushevsky, he took a Normanist position on the origins of theRus', stressing the linguistic and historical evidence for a Scandinavian connection.
In 1924, he retired from the university and spent most of his time writing moved up for better chronology. After he died in Berlin, his final book, a short German-languagesynthesis[clarify] history of Polish culture, went unpublished.
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