Friedrich David Gräter (1768 – 1830) was one of the founders of the field of

Scandinavian studies Scandinavian studies or ''Scandinavistics'' is an interdisciplinary academic field of area studies, mainly in the United States and Germany, that primarily focuses on the Scandinavian languages (also known as North Germanic languages) and cultura ...

and

Germanic philology Germanic philology is the philology, philological study of the Germanic languages, particularly from a Comparative method, comparative or historical perspective. The beginnings of research into the Germanic languages began in the 16th century, wi ...

in Germany. A native of

Schwäbisch Hall Schwäbisch Hall (; 'Swabian Hall'; from 1802 until 1934 and colloquially: ''Hall'') is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg located in the valley of the Kocher river, the longest tributary (together with its headwater Lein) of the N ...

, Gräter studied theology, philosophy, and philology in Halle and

Erlangen Erlangen (; , ) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 119,810 inhabitants (as of 30 September 2024), it is the smalle ...

. He worked as a gymnasium teacher of Greek and Hebrew in Schwäbisch Hall from 1804 as rector. He was a member of

Pegnesischer Blumenorden The (English: Pegnitz Flower Society; Latin: ; abbr. P.Bl.O.) is a German literary society that was founded in Nuremberg in 1644. It is the sole Baroque literary society that remains active today. The name derived from the river Pegnitz, which fl ...

from 1781 and member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences from 1792. He married Christiane Spittler in 1799. They had no children and divorced in 1803. In 1805, Gräter married Maria Elisabetha, née Hofmann, widowed Seiferheld und Haspel, with whom he had a daughter. In 1818, he became rector of the gymnasium at

Ulm Ulm () is the sixth-largest city of the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with around 129,000 inhabitants, it is Germany's 60th-largest city. Ulm is located on the eastern edges of the Swabian Jura mountain range, on the up ...

. He retired in 1826 and moved to

Schorndorf Schorndorf () is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, located approximately 26 km east of Stuttgart. Its train station is the terminus of the S2 line of the Stuttgart S-Bahn. The town is also sometimes referred to as ' (''The Daimler T ...

. Gräter was among the first scholars to systematically approach old German and Scandinavian philology in the 1780s and 1790s. He published an anthology of Old Norse poetry in 1789 (''Nordische Blumen''). He was the editor of the journals ''Bragur'' and ''Idunna und Hermode''. He bitterly criticized the Romanticist character of the early publications of the

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm, Wilhelm (1786–1859), were Germans, German academics who together collected and published folklore. The brothers are among the best-known storytellers of Oral tradit ...

. The enmity between Gräter and the Grimms contributed to a systematic suppression of Gräter's achievements in the earlier history of the field; in the opinion of Heinrichs (1986), the Grimms "all but succeeded in suppressing the founder of scholarly Nordic studies in Germany.""Es ist den Brüdern Grimm fast gelungen, den Begründer der wissenschaftlichen Nordistik in Deutschland totzuschweigen" Heinrichs (1986).

References

* Anne Heinrichs, "Die Brüder Grimm versus Friedrich David Gräter – ein fatales Zerwürfnis" in: ''Württembergisch Franken'' 70 (1986), 19–34. * Dieter Narr, "Friedrich David Gräter und sein Beitrag zur Volkskunde" in Narr (ed.), '' Studien zur Spätaufklärung im deutschen Südwesten'' (1979), 379–403. * I. Schwarz, ''Friedrich David Gräter'' (1935). * ''Friedrich David Gräter'' (''Württembergisch Franken'' 52), Schwäbisch Hall (1968). * Hans Dieter Haller, "Friedrich David Gräter (1768 bis 1830)", in: ''Pegasus auf dem Land – Schriftsteller in Hohenlohe'' (2006), 154–159. {{DEFAULTSORT:Grater, Friedrich David German philologists Germanists Germanic studies scholars 1768 births 1830 deaths People from Schwäbisch Hall