Rudolf Much was an Austrian philologist and historian who specialized in Germanic studies.
15 Facts About Rudolf Much
2.
Rudolf Much was born in Vienna, Austria on 7 September 1862.
3.
Rudolf Much was the son of the lawyer Dr Matthaus Much, who was a prehistorian.
4.
At an early age, Rudolf Much gained extensive knowledge of ancient history form his father.
5.
Since, 1904, Rudolf Much served as Associate Professor, and then Professor of Germanic Linguistic History and Antiquity at the University of Vienna.
6.
Rudolf Much declined to be the editor of the first edition of the Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, to which he was nevertheless one of the most important contributors.
7.
Rudolf Much retired from his Chair as Professor Emeritus in 1934, but continued to lecture at the University.
8.
Rudolf Much was particularly interested in Germanic linguistics, Germanic paganism, relationships between the Germanic peoples and Celts, the origins of Germanic peoples, and the origin of the ethnonym Germani.
9.
Rudolf Much believed the Germanic peoples had originated in Scandinavia, to where their ancestors had migrated at an unknown point in time from the Proto-Indo-European homeland.
10.
Rudolf Much was unsure of the location of the Proto-Indo-European homeland, but sympathized with theories suggesting a north-central European location.
11.
Rudolf Much believed Germani had originally been the name of one Germanic tribe, which had subsequently been applied by outsiders to the Germanic peoples as a whole.
12.
Rudolf Much's Die Germania des Tacitus, is considered the standard work on Germania by Tacitus, and continues to the basis for modern research on this book.
13.
Rudolf Much was in contact with the Pan-German movement of Georg Ritter von Schonerer, and was a member of the Deutsche Gemeinschaft.
14.
Rudolf Much never joined a political party, as he considered that incompatible with being a scholar.
15.
Rudolf Much opposed the politicization of scholarship, and for this reason, he protested vigorously against appointing Nazis to positions at the University of Vienna.