Friedrich Wilken (23 May 1777 in

Ratzeburg Ratzeburg (; Low German: ''Ratzborg'') is a town in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is surrounded by four lakes—the resulting isthmuses between the lakes form the access lanes to the town. Ratzeburg is the capital of the district Herzogtum Lau ...

– 24 December 1840 in

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 ...

) was a German

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

( orientalist), professor and

librarian A librarian is a person who works professionally in a library providing access to information, and sometimes social or technical programming, or instruction on information literacy to users. The role of the librarian has changed much over time, ...

. He was born 23 May 1777, at Ratzeburg, in the

duchy of Lauenburg The Duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg (german: Herzogtum Sachsen-Lauenburg, called ''Niedersachsen'' (Lower Saxony) between the 14th and 17th centuries), was a ''reichsfrei'' duchy that existed from 1296–1803 and again from 1814–1876 in the extreme sou ...

. He studied at Gottingen, at first theology, but afterwards, classic and Oriental philology and history. In 1798 he received the prize for an essay, ''De Bellorum Cruciatorum ex Abulfeda Historia;'' in 1805 he was appointed professor of history at

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

, and in 1807 director of the university library. In 1817 he was called to

as first librarian and professor in the university, and in 1819 he was made a member of the Academy of Sciences. He undertook a literary journey to Italy in 1826; in 1829 he went in behalf of the government to France and England, and in 1838 to

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

and

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 ...

. He died on 24 December 1840. His main work is the ''Geschichte der Kreuzzüge nach morgenländischen und abendländischehn Berichten'' (Leipzig, 1807-32, 7 volumes). He also wrote, ''Geschihte der Bildung, Beraubung und Vernichtunag der alten Heidelberger Büchersammlung'' ( Heidelberg, 1817): — ''Geschichte der königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin'' (Berlin, 1828).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilken, Friedrich 1777 births 1840 deaths Academic staff of Heidelberg University German librarians German orientalists German male non-fiction writers