Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer: Encyclopedia II - Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer - Biography

Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer - Biography

Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer - Early years

Fallmerayer was born, the son of a poor peasant, at Pairdorf, near Brixen in Tirol. In 1809 he absconded from the cathedral choir school at Brixen and made his way to Salzburg, where he supported himself by private teaching while he studied theology, the Semitic languages, and history. After a year's study he sought to assure to himself the peace and quiet necessary for a student's life by entering the abbey of Kremsmünster, but difficulties put in his way by the Bavarian officials prevented the accomplishment of this intention.

Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer - Education

At the University of Landshut, to which he removed in 1812, he first applied himself to jurisprudence, but soon devoted his attention exclusively to history and philology. His immediate necessities were provided for by a rich patron. During the Napoleonic Wars he joined the Bavarian infantry as a subaltern in 1813, fought at Hanau (30 October 1813), and served throughout the campaign in France. He remained in the army of occupation on the banks of the Rhine until the battle of Waterloo, when he spent six months at Orleans as adjutant to General von Spreti. Two years of garrison life at Lindau on Lake Constance after the peace were spent in the study of modern Greek, Persian and Turkish.

Resigning his commission in 1818, he was successively engaged as teacher in the gymnasium at Augsburg and in the progymnasium and lyceum at Landshut. In 1827 he won the gold medal offered by the University of Copenhagen with his Geschichte des Kaisertums von Trapezunt, based on patient investigation of Greek and oriental manuscripts at Venice and Vienna. The strictures on priestcraft contained in the preface to this book gave offence to the authorities, and his position was not improved by the liberal views expressed in his history of medieval Greece, Geschichte der Halbinsel Morea während des Mittelalters (Stuttgart, 1830–1836, 2 pts.) which expressed his theory that the Greek population had been unalterably diluted by Slavic invasions. He supported this theory largely with analysis of toponyms in the Peleponnese and the Chronicle of Monemvasia.

Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer - Travels

The three years from 1831 to 1834 he spent in travel with the Russian Count Alexander Ivanovich Ostermann-Tolstoy, visiting Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Cyprus, Rhodes, Constantinople, Greece and Naples. On his return he was elected in 1835 a member of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, but he soon after left the country again on account of political troubles, and spent the greater part of the next four years in travel, spending the winter of 1839–1840 with Count Tolstoy at Geneva. He visited Constantinople, Trebizond, Athos, Macedonia, Thessaly and Greece during 1840–1841; and after some years residence in Munich he returned in 1847 to the East, and travelled in Palestine, Syria and Asia Minor.

Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer - Late years

The Bavarian authorities continued to regard him with suspicion, and university students were forbidden to attend the public lectures he delivered in Munich. His friendly relations with the crown prince Maximilian were dashed by the reaction following upon the Revolutions of 1848. At that period, he was appointed professor of history in the Munich University, and made a member of the Frankfurt Parliament, the liberal national congress at Frankfurt am Main. He there joined the left or opposition party, and in the following year he accompanied the rump-parliament to Stuttgart, a course of action which led to his expulsion from his Munish professorship. During the winter of 1849–1850 he was an exile in Switzerland, but the amnesty of April 1850 enabled him to return to Munich, where he died in 1861.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Biography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki