Friedrich Braun or Fyodor Aleksandrovich Braun (20 July 1862 – 14 June 1942) was a
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
n-
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
scholar who provided philological and mythological backing for the
Normanist theory
Anti-Normanism is a movement of historical revisionism in opposition to the mainstream narrative of the Viking Age in Eastern Europe, and concerns the origin of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and their historic predecessor, Kievan Rus'. At the centr ...
.
Braun came to study Scandinavian and Germanic epics on the advice of
Alexander Veselovsky
Alexander Nikolayevich Veselovsky (russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Весело́вский) ( in Moscow – in St. Petersburg) was a leading Russian literary theorist who laid the groundwork for comparative literary studi ...
. He graduated from
St. Petersburg University
Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter t ...
in 1885 (with a gold medal for his thesis on ''
Beowulf
''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The ...
'') and was a lecturer at the
Bestuzhev Courses
The Bestuzhev Courses (russian: Бестужевские курсы) in Saint Petersburg were the largest and most prominent women's higher education institution in Imperial Russia.
The institute opened its doors in 1878. It was named after Konst ...
. He was appointed dean of the university's department of history and philology in 1905. His major writings, including an 1899 monograph on the relations between the
Goths
The Goths ( got, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰, translit=''Gutþiuda''; la, Gothi, grc-gre, Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe ...
and Ancient
Slavs
Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, main ...
, concern the history of Germanic peoples in Eastern Europe.
In 1920 Professor Braun was sent on a business trip to Germany, where he decided to remain.
He joined the staff of the
Leipzig University
Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December ...
in 1922 and published a paper in support of the
Japhetic theory
In linguistics, the Japhetic theory of Soviet Union, Soviet linguist Nicholas Marr, Nikolay Yakovlevich Marr (1864–1934) postulated that the Kartvelian languages of the Caucasus area are related to the Semitic languages of the Middle East. ...
.
He retired from teaching 10 years later.
[Dictionary of Russian emigres](_blank)
/ref> Elena Rydzevskaya and Viktor Zhirmunsky
The name Victor or Viktor may refer to:
* Victor (name), including a list of people with the given name, mononym, or surname
Arts and entertainment
Film
* ''Victor'' (1951 film), a French drama film
* ''Victor'' (1993 film), a French shor ...
were among his disciples.
In 1933 Braun signed the ''''.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Braun, Fyodor
Germanists
Philologists from the Russian Empire
German philologists
Germanic studies scholars
Mythographers
1862 births
1942 deaths
Saint Petersburg State University alumni
Academic staff of Saint Petersburg State University
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Germany