Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall
Encyclopedia
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n orientalist
Oriental studies
Oriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...
.
Born Joseph Hammer in Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
, Styria
Styria (state)
Styria is a state or Bundesland, located in the southeast of Austria. In area it is the second largest of the nine Austrian federated states, covering 16,401 km². It borders Slovenia as well as the other Austrian states of Upper Austria, Lower Austria, Salzburg, Burgenland, and Carinthia. ...
, he received his early education mainly in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. Entering the diplomatic service in 1796, he was appointed in 1799 to a position in the Austrian embassy in Constantinople
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, and in this capacity he took part in the expedition under Admiral William Sidney Smith
Sidney Smith (admiral)
Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith, KCB, GCTE was a British naval officer. Serving in the American and French revolutionary wars, he later rose to the rank of admiral....
and General John Hely-Hutchinson
John Hely-Hutchinson, 2nd Earl of Donoughmore
General John Hely-Hutchinson, 2nd Earl of Donoughmore GCB was an Anglo-Irish politician, hereditary peer and soldier.-Background:He was the son of John Hely-Hutchinson and the Baroness Donoughmore...
against France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. In 1807 he returned home from the East, after which he was made a privy council
Privy council
A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the monarch's closest advisors to give confidential advice on...
lor. In 1835, upon inheriting the estates of the Countess Purgstall, he acquired the title Freiherr
Freiherr
The German titles Freiherr and Freifrau and Freiin are titles of nobility, used preceding a person's given name or, after 1919, before the surname...
.
For fifty years Hammer-Purgstall wrote prolifically on the most diverse subjects and published numerous texts and translations of Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
and Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
authors. By traversing so large a field, he lay himself open to the criticism of specialists, and he was severely handled by Friedrich Christian Diez
Friedrich Christian Diez
Friedrich Christian Diez , German philologist, was born at Gießen, in Hessen-Darmstadt.He was educated first at the gymnasium and then at the university of his native town and Göttingen...
(1794-1876), who, in his Unfug und Betrug (1815), devoted to him nearly 600 pages of abuse. He also came into friendly conflict on the subject of the origin of The Thousand and One Nights with his younger English contemporary Edward William Lane
Edward William Lane
Edward William Lane was a British Orientalist, translator and lexicographer....
.
Hammer-Purgstall's principle work is his Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches (10 vols., 1827-1835). Among his other works are
- Constantinopolis und der Bosporos (1822)
- Sur les origines russes (St Petersburg, 1825)
- an English language translation (1834) of the first two volumes of Evliya CelebiEvliya ÇelebiEvliya Çelebi was an Ottoman traveler who journeyed through the territory of the Ottoman Empire and neighboring lands over a period of forty years.- Life :...
's travelogue SeyahatnameSeyahatnameSeyâhatnâme is a Persian term, also used in Ottoman Turkish, which means "book of travels", denoting a literary form and tradition whose examples can be found throughout centuries in the Middle Ages around the Islamic world, starting with the Arab travellers of the Umayyad period.An outstanding... - Geschichte der osmanischen Dichtkunst (1836)
- Geschichte der Goldenen Horde in Kiptschak (1840)
- Geschichte der Chane der Krim (1856)
- an unfinished Litteraturgeschichte der Araber (1850-1856)
- a four volume biography of Melchior Cardinal KhleslMelchior KleslMelchior Klesl was an Austrian statesman and cardinal of the Roman Catholic church during the time of the Counter-Reformation...
titled Khlesls, des Cardinals Leben. Mit der Sammlung von Khlesls Briefen und anderen Urkunden (4 vols., 1847-1851).
Hammer-Purgstall supported the foundation of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
Austrian Academy of Sciences
The Austrian Academy of Sciences is a legal entity under the special protection of the Federal Republic of Austria. According to the statutes of the Academy its mission is to promote the sciences and humanities in every respect and in every field, particularly in fundamental research...
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and became the Academy's first president (1847-1849). The Austrian Oriental Society, founded in 1959 to foster cultural relations with the Near East, is formally named 'Österreichische Orient-Gesellschaft Hammer-Purgstall' in recognition of Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall's accomplishments.
He died in Vienna in 1856.