Walter Bruno Henning
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Walter Bruno Henning (August 26, 1908 – January 8, 1967) was a German scholar of
Middle Iranian The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian language ...
languages and literature, especially of the corpus discovered by the
Turpan Turpan () or Turfan ( zh, s=吐鲁番) is a prefecture-level city located in the east of the Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of Xinjiang, China. It has an area of and a population of 693,988 (2020). The historical center of the ...
expeditions of the early 20th century. __TOC__


Biography

Walter Henning was born in the ancient fortress town of Ragnit,
East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...
(now Neman, Russia), but grew up in
Köslin Koszalin (; ; , ) is a city in northwestern Poland, in Western Pomerania. It is located south of the Baltic Sea coast, and intersected by the river Dzierżęcinka. Koszalin is also a county-status city and capital of Koszalin County of West Pomera ...
in
Pomerania Pomerania ( ; ; ; ) is a historical region on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea in Central Europe, split between Poland and Germany. The central and eastern part belongs to the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, West Pomeranian, Pomeranian Voivod ...
on the
Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...
. Henning initially attended the
University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...
to study
mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
, and although he would soon choose to study
Iranian languages The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian langu ...
instead, he would maintain an interest in mathematics for the rest of his life. At Göttingen, Henning was—together with Paul Thieme, Walther Hinz, Kaj Barr and Hans Jakob Polotsky—among the last group of students of
Friedrich Carl Andreas Friedrich Carl Andreas (14 April 1846 in Batavia – 4 October 1930 in Göttingen) was an orientalist of German, Malay, and Armenian parentage (descendant of the Bagratuni royal family). He was the husband of psychoanalyst Lou Andreas-Sa ...
, chairman of the faculty for
Western Asia West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian ...
n languages (), acknowledged authority on Middle Iranian literature and guiding force behind the analysis of the Turfan manuscripts. In 1931, Henning received a Ph.D. ''summa cum laude'' for his study of the Middle Iranian verb as it appeared in the Turfan collection. In 1932, the
Prussian Academy of Sciences The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences () was an academy established in Berlin, Germany on 11 July 1700, four years after the Prussian Academy of Arts, or "Arts Academy," to which "Berlin Academy" may also refer. In the 18th century, when Frenc ...
appointed Henning editor of the Manichaean manuscripts of that collection, for which Henning shifted to Berlin. Between 1932 and 1936, Henning completed several studies that Andreas had begun, the results of which were published as the 3-volume ''Mitteliranische Manichaica aus Chinesisch-Türkestan''. Independently of Andreas' ''Nachlass'', Henning published ''Ein manichäisches Bet- und Beichtbuch'', the first major publication of the difficult
Sogdian language The Sogdian language was an Eastern Iranian language spoken mainly in the Central Asian region of Sogdia (capital: Samarkand; other chief cities: Panjakent, Fergana, Khujand, and Bukhara), located in modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhst ...
texts. In the same period, Henning also made several significant contributions to the understanding of the history of
Manichaeism Manichaeism (; in ; ) is an endangered former major world religion currently only practiced in China around Cao'an,R. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''. SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 found ...
. While in Berlin, Henning became engaged to marry Maria Polotzky, the sister of Hans Jakob Polotzky, his colleague from student days. Marriage between non-Jews and Jews was dangerous in
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
, so in 1936 he accepted an invitation to succeed Harold Walter Bailey as the Parsee Community's Lecturer in Iranian Studies at the School of Oriental Studies, London. With the permission of the Prussian Academy, Henning continued his research there using photographs of the Turfan manuscripts. He and Maria were married in 1937 in London. In 1939, shortly before the outbreak of
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, he was appointed Senior Lecturer at the School of Oriental Studies. In 1940, having not yet acquired British citizenship and with the threat of a German invasion looming, Henning was interned as an enemy alien on the
Isle of Man The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...
. It was there that he completed his ''Sogdica''. In poor health, he was released a year later, and spent the remainder of the war teaching and studying at
Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 250 graduate students. The c ...
, where the School of Oriental and African Studies (as the School of Oriental Studies was by then known) had been temporarily relocated. Shortly after the war, in 1946, Henning spent a year as visiting professor of
Indo-Iranian languages The Indo-Iranian languages (also known as Indo-Iranic languages or collectively the Aryan languages) constitute the largest branch of the Indo-European language family. They include over 300 languages, spoken by around 1.7 billion speakers ...
at
Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...
, in New York City. Upon his return, he was appointed Reader in Central-Asian Studies at the
University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...
, and shortly thereafter, Professor. In 1949, at the behest of the Parsi community's Rattanbai Katrak Foundation, he delivered his famous "Politician or Witch-Doctor?" series of lectures at
Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
. These lectures, which contributed to the dismissal of the respective theories of Henrik Samuel Nyberg and Ernst Herzfeld (both of whom had written books that misrepresented hypotheses as fact) and the eventual isolation of both, realigned the tone and direction of Iranian Studies towards scientific research, and away from extravagant speculation that had beset the field in the previous decades. In 1950, and at the invitation of the Iranian government, Henning spent several months doing field-work in Iran, where he was the first to make several tracings of Pahlavi rock-face inscriptions at (otherwise) inaccessible locations. His tracings and their translations were not published until after his death. In 1954, Henning was appointed the first Chairman of the Executive Council of the ''Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum'', and in the same year, a Fellow of the
British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...
. Henning spent early 1956 at the
Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...
in
Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...
, where he furthered his study of the
Khwarezmian language Khwārezmian (Khwarezmian: ; also transliterated Khwarazmian, Chorasmian, Khorezmian) is an extinct Eastern Iranian language closely related to Sogdian. The language was spoken in the area of Khwarezm (Chorasmia), centered in the lower Amu ...
. In 1958, Henning was appointed Head of the Department of Languages and Cultures of Near and Middle East at SOAS, University of London (he had been acting Head from the year before). He found the administrative duties irksome and the damp of English winters tiresome, so in September 1961 he accepted a position as Professor of Iranian Studies at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
. In 1967, Henning obtained a leave of absence to complete his dictionary of the
Khwarezmian language Khwārezmian (Khwarezmian: ; also transliterated Khwarazmian, Chorasmian, Khorezmian) is an extinct Eastern Iranian language closely related to Sogdian. The language was spoken in the area of Khwarezm (Chorasmia), centered in the lower Amu ...
, which he had been intermittently working on for 30 years. In December 1966, Henning fell and broke his leg. The accident precipitated
pulmonary edema Pulmonary edema (British English: oedema), also known as pulmonary congestion, is excessive fluid accumulation in the tissue or air spaces (usually alveoli) of the lungs. This leads to impaired gas exchange, most often leading to shortness ...
, from which he died on January 8, 1967. He was survived by his wife and daughter.


Contributions

Henning published over 70 articles in the course of his career. The majority were related to texts of the Middle Iranian era, in particular to Sogdian, but also in Bactrian, Khwarezmian, Parthian and
Middle Persian Middle Persian, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg ( Inscriptional Pahlavi script: , Manichaean script: , Avestan script: ) in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasania ...
. His interest in the history of Manichaeaism also led him to work on the
Uyghur language Uyghur or Uighur (; , , or , , ), formerly known as Turki or Eastern Turki, is a Turkic languages, Turkic language with 8 to 13 million speakers (), spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western ...
and Chinese. His identification of the trilingual inscriptions on the
Ka'ba-ye Zartosht Kaaba, Ka'ba-ye Zartosht (), also called the Kaaba or Cube of Zoroaster, is a rectangular stepped stone structure in the Naqsh-e Rustam compound beside Zangiabad, Fars, Zangiabad village in Marvdasht county in Fars province, Fars, Iran. The Naqs ...
as having been those of
Shapur I Shapur I (also spelled Shabuhr I; ) was the second Sasanian Empire, Sasanian King of Kings of Iran. The precise dating of his reign is disputed, but it is generally agreed that he ruled from 240 to 270, with his father Ardashir I as co-regent u ...
were a significant contribution to Sasanian history. Invaluable to the understanding of Middle Iranian are Henning's studies into the non-Iranian languages and scripts of the
Middle Indo-Aryan languages The Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Middle Indic languages, sometimes conflated with the Prakrits, which are a stage of Middle Indic) are a historical group of languages of the Indo-Aryan family. They are the descendants of Old Indo-Aryan (OI ...
,
Elamite Elamite, also known as Hatamtite and formerly as Scythic, Median, Amardian, Anshanian and Susian, is an extinct language that was spoken by the ancient Elamites. It was recorded in what is now southwestern Iran from 2600 BC to 330 BC. Elamite i ...
and
Imperial Aramaic Imperial Aramaic is a linguistic term, coined by modern Aramaic studies, scholars in order to designate a specific historical Variety (linguistics), variety of Aramaic language. The term is polysemic, with two distinctive meanings, wider (socioli ...
. Several works that were in progress when Henning died—including his Khwarezmian dictionary and his etymological dictionary of Middle Persian—remain unpublished.


Publications

* ''Zoroaster'' (London: Cumberlege, 1951). * ''Mitteliranisch'', in Spuler et al. ''Handbuch der Orientalistik'' I Bd. IV I, 1958 remains the authoritative guide to Middle Iranian languages and writing systems.


Sources

* . {{DEFAULTSORT:Henning, Walter Bruno 1908 births 1967 deaths People from Neman, Russia People from East Prussia German orientalists Iranologists Fellows of the British Academy Emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom University of Göttingen alumni Academics of SOAS University of London Fellows of Christ's College, Cambridge Columbia University faculty Academics of the University of London University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty People interned in the Isle of Man during World War II German emigrants to the United States German male non-fiction writers Zoroastrian studies scholars Linguists of Iranian languages 20th-century German translators Deaths from pulmonary edema