Colleagues:
The following is published in October 2003:
Julius Pokorny, 1887-1970: Germans, Celts and Nationalism, by
Pol O Dochartaigh (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003), 188pp.
ISBN 1-85182-769-2. Price: 45 euro.
Julius Pokorny is one of the most enigmatic figures in the
history of Celtic Studies. Born in Prague in 1887, he studied in
Vienna and in 1920 became the third Professor of Celtic
Philology at Berlin University. He became a propagandist for
the Gaelic League, making a fiery speech in Dublin in 1910, and
for the Irish Republican cause in Germany, as well as being a
staunch German nationalist. He translated Pearse and Ó
Conaire into German, and is a character in Joyce’s Ulysses as
well as in poems by Myles na Gopaleen and Osborn Bergin.
In 1935 he lost his Berlin post because of Jewish ancestry, but
he survived in Nazi Germany until 1943, when he fled to
neutral Switzerland. The Swiss admitted him as a refugee
because he held an Irish visa, issued in Berlin on de Valera’s
instructions at the request of Douglas Hyde. He lived out the
rest of his days in Zurich, during which he re-established, with
help from de Valera, the famed Zeitschrift für celtische
Philologie. He maintained a life-long commitment to Celtic
Studies and had a profound influence on young Irish scholars
over almost half a century.
This book looks critically at Pokorny’s life in the context of the
European cities in which he lived and the cultural and political
movements in which he became involved. German
involvement in Celtic Studies is investigated for its motivation,
and Ireland’s attitude to such Germans, especially during the
Third Reich, is also scrutinised. The book seeks to explore the
motivation behind Pokorny’s involvement with Celtic
scholarship and politics, while always offering a clear context
for his beliefs. It is the only full-length study of the life and
works of a man who was arguably the most important Celtic
scholar on the European mainland from the 1920s until his
death in 1970.
Pól Ó Dochartaigh was born in Belfast and studied in Cardiff,
Kiel and Nottingham. He has researched extensively on
contemporary German-Jewish literature and history, post-
1945 Germany and German-Irish cultural relations. He has
written The Portrayal of Jews in GDR Prose Fiction
(Amsterdam 1997), Germany since 1945 (Basingstoke 2003)
and edited Jews in German Literature since 1945: German-
Jewish Literature? (Amsterdam 2000). He is currently Senior
Lecturer in German at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, Co.
Derry.
See Website at: www.four-courts-press.ie
Dr Pol O Dochartaigh
Senior Lecturer in German
School of Languages and Literature
Faculty of Arts
University of Ulster
Coleraine
Co. Derry
BT52 1SA
Tel: +44 (0)28 - 7032 4548
Fax: +44 (0)28 - 7032 4962
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://www.arts.ulster.ac.uk/langlit/german/odochartaigh.htm
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