Georg Jacob

Georg Jacob (born 26 May 1862 in Königsberg i. Pr.; died 4 July 1937) was a scholar of Islamic studies and an Orientalist. He founded Turkology as a modern academic discipline in Germany.

Life

Jacob studied Arabic geography at the Universität Greifswald, achieving his Habilitation in 1892. In 1896 he became an Extraordinary Professor at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Erlangen,[1] and in 1888-90 he was assistant librarian at the Royal Library in Berlin.[2] In 1911 he was made Chair of Oriental Studies at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel,[1] succeeding Georg Hoffmann. As (ordinarius) for 'Semitic and Islamic Philology' at the University, Jacob was the first German professor to have a chair incorporating Islamic studies, reflecting a tentative institutional willingness to allow the field of Semitic language study to expand to include the Islamic world, including the non-Semitic, Turkic-speaking world.[3] In Kiel, Jacob 'was director of the Oriental institute at the university [...], which consisted of one room serving as his office, as classroom and as library. Luckily the room had a high cieling, thus ample wall space was available for the book shelves'.[4] 1922-23 saw him serving as Rector of the University,[5] and he was the honorand of a Festschrift in 1932.[6]

Though beginning with research on Arabic history and literature, Jacob turned his attention progressively towards Persian and Turkish studies, especially the latter. His work was characterised by its wide-ranging, internationalist outlook, and 'the customs and institutions of the common people'.[7] Jacob is perhaps most noted for his research on the history of shadow-puppetry,[8] influencing the later work of Paul Kahle. Among his students was Hans Ellenberg. Jacob was rare in the German academy of his day for specialising in Ottoman-Turkish studies,[9] and was the first translator and editor of modern Turkish literature in the German-speaking world, founding the Türkische Bibliothek series published by Mayer & Müller in Berlin.

Major works

Biographical sources

External links

References

  1. 1 2 Gerd Taube (1995)
  2. ↑ Ursula Wokoeck, German Orientalism: The Study of the Middle East and Islam from 1800 to 1945 (London: Routledge, 2009), p. 132.
  3. ↑ Ursula Wokoeck, German Orientalism: The Study of the Middle East and Islam from 1800 to 1945 (London: Routledge, 2009), p. 165-66.
  4. ↑ Ursula Wokoeck, German Orientalism: The Study of the Middle East and Islam from 1800 to 1945 (London: Routledge, 2009), p. 64.
  5. ↑ Rektoratsreden (HKM)
  6. ↑ Festschrift Georg Jacob, zum siebzigsten Geburtsdag, 26. Mai, 1932, gewidment von Freunden und Schülern, ed. by Theodor Menzel (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1932).
  7. ↑ Charles C. Torrey, review of Festschrift Georg Jacob by Theodor Menzel and The Macdonald Presentation Volume, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 54 (1934), 89-91 (p. 89), DOI: 10.2307/594329; http://www.jstor.org/stable/594329.
  8. ↑ Charles C. Torrey, review of Festschrift Georg Jacob by Theodor Menzel and The Macdonald Presentation Volume, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 54 (1934), 89-91 (p. 89), DOI: 10.2307/594329; http://www.jstor.org/stable/594329.
  9. ↑ Ursula Wokoeck, German Orientalism: The Study of the Middle East and Islam from 1800 to 1945 (London: Routledge, 2009), p. 166.
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