The Biographical Portal (German: Biographie-Portal) is a free online index to biographical reference works in the German language area. Intended to facilitate access to reliable biographical information, it contains entries for more than 160,000 biographies of persons from all social backgrounds and nearly all periods of German, Austrian, Swiss, Slovenian and South-East European history.
The portal is a joint project of the
Bavarian State Library
The Bavarian State Library (german: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, abbreviated BSB, called ''Bibliotheca Regia Monacensis'' before 1919) in Munich is the central " Landesbibliothek", i. e. the state library of the Free State of Bavaria, the big ...
, the Historical Committee at the
Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the
Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the Foundation Historical Dictionary of Switzerland.
Slovenska Biografija is published by
Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( sl, Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti (SAZU)) is the national academy of Slovenia, which encompasses science and the arts and brings together the top Slovene researchers and artists as members ...
. The project is financed by the founding institutions
and access is free.
Index
The portal provides a common index to the following reference works:
*
Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB)
*
Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB)
*
Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815-1950 (ÖBL)
*
Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HLS),
* Slovenska Biografija
*
Rheinland-Pfälzische Personendatenbank
The Rheinland-Pfälzische Personendatenbank (People database of Rhineland-Palatinate, RPPD) is an internet database with short biographies of people who have lived or worked in Rhineland-Palatinate. It is being edited at four scientific libraries i ...
(RPPD)
*
Sächsische Biografie
''Sächsische Biografie'' (''SäBi)'' axon biographyis a biographical dictionary of noteworthy persons in the history of Saxony from the 10th century to the present. As of 2014 it contained entries for about 10,500 persons and about 1,250 biogra ...
(SäBi)
*
Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon
The ''Oesterreichisches Musiklexikon'Oesterreichisch'' with ''Oe'' is the spelling of the print and online output. is a five-volume music encyclopedia founded by the Austrian Academy of Sciences' Commission for Music Research. It was officiall ...
(OeML)
* Biographisches Lexikon zu Geschichte Südosteuropas (BioLexSOE)
The index can be searched using the following criteria:
*Surname and forename (including variant names and pseudonyms)
*Year of birth and/or death
*Profession
Most entries are in German. The Swiss lexicon also contains entries in French and Italian, and the Slovenska Biografija contains entries in Slovenian.
From the search results, users can access the full text of the biographies, either directly or via another site. An advantage of the common index is that it allows users to compare differences in biographical entries and supplement the information in one lexicon with that in others.
Further national and regional reference works are planned for future inclusion in the portal.
Temporal coverage
All entries are for deceased persons only.
The newer German and Swiss lexicons reach into the present, but the ÖBL is limited to the period 1815–1950. The last date covered in the ÖBL is December 31, 1950, and the last biography is that of
Karl Renner
Karl Renner (14 December 1870 – 31 December 1950) was an Austrian politician and jurist of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria. He is often referred to as the "Father of the Republic" because he led the first government of German ...
, first Chancellor of Austria, who died on that date.
References
{{reflist
External links
Biographie-PortalEnglish language home page
Datenbank-InfosystemApril 2020
as part of Biographie-Portal
Biographical Portal was extended by personalities of South-East European history Bavarian State Library, News 08/31/2017
Biographical dictionaries
Online person databases