Friedrich Hirth, Ph.D. (16 April 1845 in
Gräfentonna,
Saxe-Gotha
Saxe-Gotha (german: Sachsen-Gotha) was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the Wettin dynasty in the former Landgraviate of Thuringia. The ducal residence was erected at Gotha.
History
The duchy was established in 1640, when ...
– 10 January 1927 in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
) was a
German-American
German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...
sinologist
Sinology, or Chinese studies, is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of China primarily through Chinese philosophy, language, literature, culture and history and often refers to Western scholarship. Its origin "may be traced to the ex ...
.
Biography
He was educated at the universities of
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
,
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
, and
Greifswald
Greifswald (), officially the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald (german: Universitäts- und Hansestadt Greifswald, Low German: ''Griepswoold'') is the fourth-largest city in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostoc ...
(Ph.D., 1869). He was in the
Chinese Maritime Customs Service
The Chinese Maritime Customs Service was a Chinese governmental tax collection agency and information service from its founding in 1854 until it split in 1949 into services operating in the Republic of China on Taiwan, and in the People's Republ ...
from 1870 to 1897. In 1902, Professor Hirth was appointed to the professorship of Chinese in
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
(
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
).
Prior to World War II, a collection of Chinese manuscripts and printed books made by him was in the
Royal Library at Berlin
The Berlin State Library (german: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; officially abbreviated as ''SBB'', colloquially ''Stabi'') is a universal library in Berlin, Germany and a property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. It is one of the larg ...
, and another of
porcelain
Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainl ...
s of considerable historical importance in the
Gotha Museum; most of the Hirth collection from the
Staatsbibliothek in Berlin is now in
Kraków
Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
.
As an investigator he conducted researches in
Chinese literature by imitation of the methods of classical
philology
Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...
.
Works
* Translates and annotates a merchant log dealing with the Superintendent of Customs or "
Hoppo
Hoppo or Administrator of the Canton Customs ( zh, t=粵海關部, s=粤海关部, p=Yuèhǎi Guānbù), was the Qing dynasty official at Guangzhou (Canton) given responsibility by the emperor for controlling shipping, collecting tariffs, and ma ...
".
* ''China and the Roman Orient: Researches into their Ancient and Mediœval Relations as Represented in Old Chinese Records'' (188
https://books.google.com/books?id=dk4uAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=using+this+route+first+appears+old+history+from+record+seems+road+considered+ancient+gate+pass+jiu+tangshu&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwikkbSrmOnKAhWFyT4KHfT1BL0Q6AEIKzAC#v=onepage&q&f=false]
''Ancient Porcelain: A Study in Chinese Mediœval Industry and Trade'' (1888)
* ''Text-Book of Documentary Chinese'' (two volumes, 1885–88)
*
''Hsin-kuan wên-chien-lu: text book of documentary Chinese, with a vocabulary for the special use of the Chinese customs service'' (1885)
*
''新關文件錄'' (1909)
''Notes on the Chinese documentary style'' (1888)
''Notes on the Chinese documentary style'' (1888)
* ''Chinesische Studien'', volume i (1890)
''Index of the Characters in Dr. Hirth's "Text Book of Documentary Chinese," Arranged by Their Radicals: With a List Giving Their Tones'' (1892)
''Ueber fremde Einflüsse in der chinesischen Kunst'' (1896)
''Scraps from a Collector's Note-book, Being Notes on Some Chinese Painters of the Present Dynasty, with Appendices on Some Old Masters and Art Historians'' (1905)
''Syllabary of Chinese sounds'' (1907)
*
''Research in China ...: pt. 1. Descriptive topography and geology''
by Bailey Willis, Eliot Blackwelder
Eliot Blackwelder (June 4, 1880 – January 14, 1969) was an American geologist who from 1922 to 1945 was head of the Stanford University department of geology. He served as president of the Geological Society of America in 1940 and of the Seismo ...
, and R.H. Sargent. pt. 2. Petrography and zoology, by Eliot Blackwelder. Syllabary of Chinese sounds, by Friedrich Hirth'' (1907)
*
''Chinese metallic mirrors: with notes on some ancient specimens of the Musée Guimet, Paris'' (1907)
''Research in China ...: pt. 1. Descriptive topography and geology, by Bailey Willis, Eliot Blackwelder, and R.H. Sargent. pt. 2. Petrography and zoology, by Eliot Blackwelder. Syllabary of Chinese sounds, by Friedrich Hirth'' (1907)
''Research in China ...: Systematic geology, by Bailey Willis'' (1907)
* ''The Ancient History of China to the End of the Chou Dynasty'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 1908
1911 edition
*
''CHAU JU-KUA: His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade in the twelfth and thirteenth Centuries, entitled Chu-fan-chï, Translated from the Chinese and Annotated by FRIEDRICH HIRTH and W. W. ROCKHILL'', (1911)
with W. W. Rockhill
''Research in China ...'' (1913)
* ''The Story of Chang K'ie'n, China's Pioneer in Western Asia'' (1917)
''Native sources for the history of Chinese pictorial art'' (1917)
See also
*
Zhao Rugua Zhao Rukuo (; 1170–1231), also read as Zhao Rugua, or misread as Zhao Rushi, was a Chinese historian and politician during the Song dynasty. He wrote a two-volume book titled ''Zhu Fan Zhi''. The book deals with the world known to the Chinese in t ...
Notes
References
*
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hirth, Friedrich
Columbia University faculty
Columbia University librarians
Leipzig University alumni
Humboldt University of Berlin alumni
University of Greifswald alumni
German sinologists
German emigrants to the United States
1845 births
1927 deaths
German male non-fiction writers