The Project
This project has at its core the discovery of 9 volumes of the private diary of celebrated Hellenist Karl Benedikt Hase (1780–1864), written in Ancient Greek. Hase is recognised as one of the foremost Greek scholars in the French academia of his time. Specialists of Late Antique and Byzantine history and literature applaud the outstanding value of his work as an editor and commentator. They have also, however, identified him as the perpetrator of a series of forgeries on documents of Byzantine history that have been a centre of discussion since the early 20th century. Historians of European Hellenism and Philhellenism have also highlighted Hase’s influence within the lively Greek networks of Paris in the wake of Europe’s New Humanist movement. He was a key player in the city’s extensive philhellenic networks on the eve of the Greek Revolution.
Hase’s Ancient Greek diary was known previously only from a series of short excerpts, but it has long been acknowledged as a document of extraordinary significance for the above-mentioned areas of historical and philological research (Ancient Greek philology, History of Classical and Byzantine Scholarship and the History of Philhellenism). This project will make the surviving text of the diary along with the existing excerpts available to scholarship for the first time in a digital edition. Building on this philological groundwork, the project will undertake a series of detailed studies designed to advance our knowledge in the three areas of scholarship that have already acknowledged their need of access to the document.
This project will make the surviving text of the diary along with the existing excerpts available to scholarship for the first time in a digital edition:
https://app.transkribus.org/sites/lagoos
KARL BENEDIKT HASE (1780–1864)
Karl Benedikt (Charles-Benoît) Hase was born in Bad Sulza, Thuringia but spent his working life in Paris after his arrival to the city on foot in 1801 (Hase 1894). Having established himself among scholars in the manuscript department at the Bibliothèque impériale (later the Biliothèque du Roi and Bibliothèque nationale de France) Hase was tutor to Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III) and his brother, before becoming Professor of Greek and Greek Palaeography at the city’s École des langues orientales vivantes in 1816 (Guigniaut 1877). As a bicultural Hellenist working in France in this period, Hase lived at a pivotal moment in the country’s history. He saw the rise and fall of Napoleonic France, the Bourbon Restoration, the Trois Glorieuses (the Second Revolution) and the birth of France’s Second Empire all first-hand.
A specialist of Late Antique and Byzantine literature, the history of Hase’s relationship with the Greek language was unusual in the context of his time. Instead of an exclusive attention to the Classical form of the language, Hase had already learned Modern Greek as a student in Jena. Indeed, he acquired his first academic job in Paris as a direct result of these Modern Greek skills. He thus emerged as a rare example of a ‘complete’ Hellenist, who was intimately acquainted with the language’s Classical, Byzantine and modern forms.
During his lifetime, Hase was honoured as a member of the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, the Akademien der Wissenschaften in Göttingen and Berlin-Brandenburg as well as the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. He also maintained extensive correspondence with a broad network of international figures including Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, a young Theodor Mommsen and archaeologist Désiré Raoul-Rochette. Karl Benedikt was, moreover, a prominent figure in the stimulating social life of Balzac’s 19th-century France, where he frequented the salons, restaurants and cafés of the intellectual elite.
Hase emerged as a rare example of a ‘complete’ Hellenist, who was intimately acquainted with the language’s Classical, Byzantine and modern forms.
THE DIARY
Presumed lost since shortly after his death, knowledge of Hase’s private diary was, until this project was granted, only possible through a manuscript of excerpts. These excerpts were first compiled by Hase’s younger colleague, Johann Friedrich Dübner (1802–1867), who had access to the entire text of the diary. After Dübner’s sudden death in 1867, the excerpts were committed to manuscript in their surviving form in 1913 by French archaeologist and religious historian Salomon Reinach. The excerpts record very brief snapshots for 51 years of Hase’s life from 1812 until 1863.
Followed the trail left by Ševčenko and Medvedev in their earlier articles on questions concerned with the diary and Hase’s forgeries, the nine surviving journal volumes at the heart this project were re-discovered at the Goethe-und-Schiller-Archiv, Weimar DE.
Αlongside detailed comments on his work, ideas, colleagues, and travel, Hase kept detailed records of his personal affairs.
The nine surviving diary volumes comprise 2252 pages in total. They record daily entries from ten years. Hase wrote almost exclusively in a form of Ancient Greek. At a rough average, Hase’s autograph entries in the nine volumes comprise 90 words of Ancient Greek per day. He frequently transposed words from other languages into the Greek alphabet and used very occasionally the Latin alphabet for names of people and places, as well as for fixed expressions and exclamations in German, Latin and French.
The diary volumes he used are standardized and remarkably homogeneous. Hase bought ready-made volumes for each year from stationers in Paris. He wrote predominantly in black ink, occasionally in pencil, and sporadically made small sketches of buildings, scenes and other objects as part of his diary entries. Alongside detailed comments on his work, ideas, colleagues, and travel, Hase kept detailed records of his personal affairs. These include everything from the food he ate, the restaurants and bars of 19th-century Paris which he frequented, his financial situation, his love affairs, his escapades into the Parisian nightlife, events in his dreams and his encounters with intellectual culture in France’s capital.
KEY DETAILS
Funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [Y 1519-G]
Hosted at the University of Innsbruck (2023–2029
PI: William M. Barton
CORE OUTPUT
A digital edition of the surviving text of Hase’s diaries: https://app.transkribus.org/sites/lagoos
A series of key studies on Hase’s work and life
Get in touch
The team is always keen to hear from researchers interested in collaborations and in the figure of Hase. Please feel free to drop us a line!
LAGOOS [λαγωoς] 