No: von Hermann Bohner. German Treatise on NOH Japanese Theater Masked Drama

Description: No: von Hermann Bohner. German Treatise on NOH Japanese Theater Masked Drama NO [NOH] EINFÜHRUNG by Hermann Bohner Tokyo, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens / Leipzig, Kommissionsverlag Otto Harrassowitz, 1959. First Edition. Hardcover. Blue silk with gilt spine title, in publisher’s slipcase, tall octavo, xxxvi + 499 pages. In German. A scholarly treatise on the traditional Japanese masked drama with dance and song that evolved from Shinto rites. Hermann Bohner ( Japanese transcription:ヘルマンボーナー, Heruman Bōnā ; * December 8, 1884 in Abokobi ( Gold Coast ); † June 24, 1963 in Kobe , Japan) was trained as a theologian. He worked for 41 years in Osaka (Japan ) as a lecturer / professor for the German language. His translations of classical Japanese source literature and the Noh theater are philologically first class, but little known in Germany. Life Hermann Bohner, who, like so many of the important sinologists and Japanologists from the second half of the 19th century, comes from a missionary family, was born on December 8, 1884 in Abokobi (Gold Coast) - the second son. He spent a total of 41 years in Osaka as a language teacher and translator of Japanese historical sources. He died after a brief serious illness on June 24, 1963 in Kobe , where he is buried in the foreigner cemetery on Futatabiyama. Family and education His family came from the northernmost tip of the then Bavarian Rhine Palatinate , from Feil near Ebernburg . The father (Philipp) Heinrich (1842–1905) was a trained shoemaker - therefore often called "God's shoemaker" at the time. From 1863 he worked for the Basel Evangelical Mission Society on the Gold Coast, was ordained in 1875 and was heavily involved in the fight against slavery. In 1886 Heinrich Bohner moved to Cameroon , the new protected area of the German Empire. There he headed the mission as praeses for twelve years, for which he set up over 100 outstations and schools. The missionary's ten children from his marriage to Johanna Krieg [2] (1853–1935) grew up with relatives “at home”. After the first years of school in the boys' house of the Mission in Basel, Hermann Bohner went to high school in Speyer ; then, from 1903, a theological course (also history, philosophy) in Tübingen and Halle. This was completed in 1907 by the theological service examination before the Palatinate consistory . Further studies took Hermann Bohner to Strasbourg (from June 9, 1912) and Erlangen. In 1913 he got a job as a teacher in the Haubinda Landerziehungsheim from Hermann Lietz , a position that influenced him deeply. Tsingtao and prisoner of war (1914–1922) Out of admiration for Richard Wilhelm (known as the translator of the I-Ging ), Hermann Bohner started working as a teacher for the General Evangelical-Protestant Mission Association at the German-Chinese seminar in Kiautschou (today: Qingdao ) from the summer of 1914 , after he was still at the beginning of the year in Erlangen for Dr. phil. had received a doctorate. With the start of the war - one month after his arrival - he was deployed as a simple soldier (Marine 6th Company, III Marine Battalion). For this, the following awards were then "submitted" on the German side: "1;" Iron Cross 2nd class on October 25, 1920, 2; Colonial badge on March 22, 1922, 3; Cross of honor for combatants from the front on January 14, 1936. After the fall of Tsingtao, Hermann Bohner got caught on November 14th. in captivity. First he was in the Matsuyama camp (Gef.-Nr. 2794, hometown: Mannheim), from April 1917 in the Bandō prisoner of war camp . In the camp he learned Japanese by self-study. He gave lectures on art and German literature, which are documented in the camp magazine "Die Baracke". He was released around New Year 1920. Teaching activity in Japan (from 1922/23) After a stay with the Hunziker family, who were also missionaries, in Tokyo, Hermann Bohner took over provisional management of the institution in Tsingtao in 1920 until Richard Wilhelm's successor arrived. Around this time followed the call (April 1, 1922) to the newly founded Ōsaka Gaikokugo Gakkō (founded in December 1921; today: Osaka University of Foreign Studies) as a German teacher (" Lektor ", in higher classes also for history, literature and Greek). In the summer of 1923 he married Hanna Blumhardt (1883–1971), daughter of Christoph Blumhardt and sister-in-law Richard Wilhelm. No children emerged from this connection. Coming from the Wandervogel movement , Bohner had been an avid hiker since his school days. He spent most of his summer vacations in Karuizawa , where the Germans living in Japan met informally to exchange experiences even before the First World War. The Ministry of Education ( Mombu-shō ) appointed Hermann Bohner as an imperial official in 1925. He held his position (since 1951 as a professor) for 41 years until his death - only interrupted by two short vacations in Germany in 1929 and 1937. He could no longer take a planned trip in 1963. At times Bohner was also a lecturer at the Naniwa High School ( Naniwa kōtō gakkō ) and from 1941 at the Gaiji Technical School ( Gaiji semmon gakkō ); from 1960 to 1963 part-time at the University's Tanki Daigaku. On April 1, 1951, he was officially appointed professor by his university. In 1941 he was given a professorship by the German government. An evacuation from his apartment (in the district of Himematsu ) during the war does not seem to have taken place. Nothing is known about the situation in the immediate post-war period. Unlike many other Germans, Bohner was not interned. Nor was he affected by the deportation order issued by the American military government in 1947, which sent back all Germans who had arrived in Japan after 1933. Hermann Bohner died of a painful nerve problem in the summer of 1963. His widow returned to Germany, where she died in 1971. From the obituary, written by Wilhelm Gundert : “Left to his own devices, with no outside order, without any remuneration, Hermann Bohner has expanded and deepened our knowledge of Japan for forty years to an extent that probably only very few others from previous generations. Who thanked him for that? It was certainly a satisfaction for him, through the mediation of the German ambassador in Tōkyō , to give a lecture to Prince Takamatsu, the brother of the emperor, and to give him his Shōtoku-Work to be able to hand over, like his Nō writings later in the fifties. But it must be troubling him that his works, which had appeared in Japan, were nowhere near receiving the attention they deserved at home. ... In Hermann Bohner stands a lonely figure in front of our proper science who may give us a lot to think about. In all his research, he was always concerned with the center. In "Japanology" for him that was the Logos of Japan." “That alone was the meaning and value of Japanology for him; for the sake of this value he sacrificed his free time and his best energies free of charge for forty years. He was open to people of all kinds and their needs. Whenever someone turned to him for advice and help, Japanese, Germans, Swiss, Americans, Swedes, Danes, he stepped in. ... All the more bitter for him was the fate that led him to the East Asian studies at our universities a closer relationship could not be found. At the height of his life he, like every foreigner in the Far East, was asked to decide whether it was not time to return to his homeland and to serve it with what has been achieved in the foreign country and people. With his great knowledge and very rare understanding of the Japanese soul, he could have adorned any university in Germany. But this turning point unfortunately fell in the ominous thirties, and if, in view of the prevailing conscience, he preferred to wait, it can only be credited to him. After 1945, however, he was already too old to pursue an academic career at home, while at home East Asian research was simultaneously exploring new developments. In relation to her he could only remain what he was;the Japanese researcher in his original form, if you may say so, that is, the pioneer far out in the field ... That is why what he has left behind in the way of writings is a precious legacy of our Japanese studies. Then the purity of his striving, the magnitude of his achievement and last but not least the breadth and depth of his vision will remain in our science in gratefully honoring memory. " The alleged “distress of conscience” with regard to National Socialism does not seem to have existed. After all, Bohner “appropriated” the work Zen words in the tea room to the Nazi propagandist Graf Dürckheim , wrote it for the magazine The XXth Century financed by the Berlin Foreign Office , and in 1942 composed a book of fairy tales for German children in the East on behalf of the German embassy. A reflection on his part does not seem to have taken place. Although he calls the Second World War an “abysmal fall”, at the same time he mentions Dürckheim positively in the foreword to his “Japan Pictures” in 1954. Overall, however, he was probably an apolitical person. The Japanese film Baruto no Gakuen (theatrical release June 17, 2006) tells “the story of extraordinary international understanding between the 'simple marines' Hermann Bohner and the camp commandant Toyohisa Matsue ”. It mainly deals with the history of the first performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Services Hermann Bohner considered it the main task of Japanese Studies to “make source material accessible through translation.” This was mostly done through publications in the various series of the OAG and - for smaller writings - in the Monumenta Nipponica . In many cases he has co-financed the publications himself through grants for printing costs. His first translation was Westgraf and Lu Shang in 1923 . The first significant historical work the Nihon Ryōiki as legends from the early days of Japanese Buddhism . His translation of the Jinnō-Shōtō-Ki 1935 (神皇正統記) udT "Book of the True God-Emperor Rule Line" was particularly successful . H. awarded. This was followed by the Jōgū-Sōtoku-Hō-ō Teisetsu , a total of 22 works on the Prince Regent Shōtoku Taishi ; the monk and sect founder Kōbō-Daishi. The Gunsho ruijū usually served as a template for the historical source translations. In the 1930s (co-) published several textbooks for German. Treatises, translations and presentations from various scientific fields mostly appeared in the Monumenta Nipponica . He also translated Japanese dramas and stories from the present (1913–1940), among others. by Okamoto Kidō (岡本綺堂), Yamamoto Yūzō (山本有三), Mushakoji (Shittoku) Saneatsu and Sasaki Kuni. For his cultural merits he was given Japanese "high orders" of the 5th (December 22, 1938; this is the kun-gotō, which every imperial official in the sōnin-kan category was entitled to after 13 years of service) and 4th grade awarded (March 20, 1958). The FRG expressed its appreciation for "special merits" on December 10, 1954. Later he turned to the Nō theater. The attempt at a general overview of the Nō has remained unfinished. Outstanding are the works 16 Bu Sesamis and The individual Nō . Further parts appeared until 1960. He was also unable to publish the planned series of “Japan Pictures” in a compiled form; only parts exist in mimeographed form. CONDITION: Very Good- Book in Fair slipcase. (Stains on spine. Front board has bumped and lightly creased upper fore-corner, as do some of the text pages. Light soil on fore-edge of text block. Contents are tight and clean. The slipcase has a missing 1.5 inch section near top pf spine, wear and tears along some edges.) Check our other auctions and store listings for additional unusual items Check our other auctions and store listings for additional unusual items Listing and template services provided by inkFrog

Price: 100 USD

Location: NJ

End Time: 2025-01-27T20:30:14.000Z

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