Reinhold Trautmann (16 January 1883 – 4 October 1951) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Slavist Slavic (American English) or Slavonic (British English) studies, also known as Slavistics, is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic peoples, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or Slavicist was ...

. He is best known for his translations of the works of Slavic literature, such as his 1931 translation of the

Primary Chronicle The ''Primary Chronicle'', shortened from the common ''Russian Primary Chronicle'' (, commonly transcribed ''Povest' vremennykh let'' (PVL), ), is a Rus' chronicle, chronicle of Kievan Rus' from about 850 to 1110. It is believed to have been or ...

into

. He also conducted research of Slavic languages spoken in Germany.

Biography

He was born in

Königsberg Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...

. Since 1910 he worked at the Universities in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

and (since 1948)

Jena Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...

. He became known for his work on

Balto-Slavic The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic languages, Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits ...

philology and Slavic folk poetry. In 1928-1931 he was a member of the German Democratic Party (since 1930 German State Party). Harry Waibel: ''Diener vieler Herren : Ehemalige NS-Funktionäre in der SBZ/DDR.'' Peter Lang, Frankfurt 2011 . 343 In November 1933 he was one of the signatories of the Commitment of the German professors to Adolf Hitler. In 1937 he became a member of the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

. In 1939 his treatise ''Die wendischen Ortsnamen Ostholsteins, Lübecks, Lauenburgs und Mecklenburgs '' ("The Slavic place names of East Holstein, Lübeck, Lauenburg and Mecklenburg") was banned for political reasons. From 1940 until his death he was a member of the Saxonian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig. After 1945 he supported the cultural orientation of the

Soviet occupation zone The Soviet occupation zone in Germany ( or , ; ) was an area of Germany that was occupied by the Soviet Union as a communist area, established as a result of the Potsdam Agreement on 2 August 1945. On 7 October 1949 the German Democratic Republ ...

and the

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

towards the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Works

* ''Die altpreußischen Sprachdenkmäler,'' 1910 * ''Baltisch-slavisches Wörterbuch'', Göttingen, 1923 * ''Slawisch-baltische Quellen und Forschungen'', 1927 * ''Wesen und Aufgaben der deutschen Slawistik'', 1927 (with H. Schmid) * ''Die Altrussische Nestorchronik in Übersetzung herausgegeben'', Markert & Peters, Leipzig 1931 * ''Die slawischen Völker und Sprachen'', Leipzig 1948 * ''Die elb- und ostseeslawischen Ortsnamen'', Berlin 1948-56

References

External links

Reinhold Trautmann, Professor catalog of the University of Leipzig
Linguists of Slavic languages Linguists from Germany 1883 births 1951 deaths Writers from Königsberg Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin 20th-century German linguists Nazi Party members Academic staff of the University of Jena {{Germany-linguist-stub

Biography

Works

References

Further reading

External links