Matthias Bel | |
|---|---|
 Matthias Bel | |
| Born | 22 March 1684 |
| Died | 29 August 1749 (aged 65) |
| Citizenship | Hungarian |
| Occupation(s) | Lutheran priest, writer, historian, geographer, alchemist |
| Spouse | Susanna Hermann |
Matthias Bel or Matthias Bél (German: Matthias Bel; Hungarian: Bél Mátyás; Slovak: Matej Bel; Latin: Matthias Belius; 22–24 March(?),[a] 1684 – 29 August 1749) was a Lutheran pastor and polymath from the Kingdom of Hungary. Bel was active in the fields of pedagogy, philosophy, philology, history, and theoretical theology; he was the founder of Hungarian geographic science and a pioneer of descriptive ethnography and economy. A leading figure in pietism. He is also known as the Great Ornament of Hungary (Magnum decus Hungariae).
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Transcription
(Music) One of the great things about science is that when scientists make a discovery, it's not always in a prescribed manner, as in, only in a laboratory under strict settings, with white lab coats and all sorts of neat science gizmos that go, "Beep!" In reality, the events and people involved in some of the major scientific discoveries are as weird and varied as they get. My case in point: The Weird History of the Cell Theory. There are three parts to the cell theory. One: All organisms are composed of one or more cells. Two: The cell is the basic unit of structure and organization in organisms. And three: All cells come from preexisting cells. To be honest, this all sounds incredibly boring until you dig a little deeper into how the world of microscopic organisms and this theory came to be. It all started in the early 1600s, in the Netherlands, where a spectacle maker name Zacharias Jansen is said to have come up with the first compound microscope, along with the first telescope. Both claims are often disputed, as apparently he wasn't the only bored guy with a ton of glass lenses to play with at the time. Despite this, the microscope soon became a hot item that every naturalist or scientist at the time wanted to play with, making it much like the iPad of its day. One such person was a fellow Dutchman by the name of Anton van Leeuwenhoek, who heard about these microscope doohickies, and instead of going out and buying one, he decided to make his own. And it was a strange little contraption indeed, as it looked more like a tiny paddle the size of a sunglass lens. If he had stuck two together, it probably would have made a wicked set of sunglasses ... that you couldn't see much out of. Any-who, once Leeuwenhoek had his microscope ready, he went to town, looking at anything and everything he could with them, including the gunk on his teeth. Yes, you heard right. He actually discovered bacteria by looking at dental scrapings, which, when you keep in mind that people didn't brush their teeth much, if at all, back then, he must have had a lovely bunch of bacteria to look at. When he wrote about his discovery, he didn't call them bacteria, as we know them today. But he called them animalcules, because they looked like little animals to him. While Leeuwenhoek was staring at his teeth gunk, he was also sending letters to a scientific colleague in England, by the name of Robert Hooke. Hooke was a guy who really loved all aspects of science, so he dabbled in a little bit of everything, including physics, chemistry and biology. Thus it is Hooke who we can thank for the term "the cell," as he was looking at a piece of cork under his microscope, and the little chambers he saw reminded him of cells, or the rooms monks slept in in their monasteries. Think college dorm rooms, but without the TV's, computers and really annoying roommates. Hooke was something of an under-appreciated scientist of his day, something he brought upon himself, as he made the mistake of locking horns with one of the most famous scientists ever, Sir Isaac Newton. Remember when I said Hooke dabbled in many different fields? Well, after Newton published a groundbreaking book on how planets move due to gravity, Hooke made the claim that Newton had been inspired by Hooke's work in physics. Newton, to say the least, did not like that, which sparked a tense relationship between the two that lasted even after Hooke died, as quite a bit of Hooke's research, as well as his only portrait, was "misplaced," due to Newton. Much of it was rediscovered, thankfully, after Newton's time, but not his portrait, as sadly no one knows what Robert Hooke looked like. Fast-forward to the 1800s, where two German scientists discovered something that today we might find rather obvious, but helped tie together what we now know as the cell theory. The first scientist was Matthias Schleiden, a botanist who liked to study plants under a microscope. From his years of studying different plant species, it finally dawned on him that every single plant he had looked at were all made of cells. At the same time, on the other end of Germany, was Theodor Schwann, a scientist who not only studied slides of animal cells under the microscope, and got a special type of nerve cell named after him, but also invented rebreathers for firefighters and had a kickin' pair of sideburns. After studying animal cells for a while, he too came to the conclusion that all animals were made of cells. Immediately, he reached out via snail mail, as Twitter had yet to be invented, to other scientists working in the same field, met with Schleiden, who got back to him, and the two started working on the beginnings of the cell theory. A bone of contention arose between them as for the last part of the cell theory, that cells come from preexisting cells. Schleiden didn't exactly subscribe to that thought, as he swore cells came from free cell formation, where they just kind of spontaneously crystalized into existence. That's when another scientist, named Rudolph Virchow, stepped in with research showing that cells did come from other cells, research that was actually -- hmm, how to put it? -- borrowed without permission from a Jewish scientist by the name of Robert Remak, which led to two more feuding scientists. Thus, from teeth gunk to torquing off Newton, crystallization to Schwann cells, the cell theory came to be an important part of biology today. Some things we know about science today may seem boring, but how we came to know them is incredibly fascinating. So if something bores you, dig deeper. It's probably got a really weird story behind it somewhere.
Origin, life
Matthias Bel was born in Ocsova, Kingdom of Hungary (now Očová, Slovakia)[2] to Matthias (Matej) Bel Funtík[3] or Bel-Funtík,[4] a Slovak wealthy peasant[5] and butcher.[3][6] Little is known about his mother Elisabeth born Czesnek (Hungarian: Erzsébet Cseszneky, Slovak: Alžbeta Česneková) except she was very religious.[b]
He described himself as "lingua Slavus, natione Hungarus, eruditione Germanus" ("by language a Slav/Slovak,[c] by nation a Hungarian, by erudition a German").[7][8][9] In 1710, he married an ethnic German woman from Hungary, Susanna Hermann, and the couple had eight children together.
Bel attended schools in Losonc (now Lučenec), Kálnó (today Kalinovo) and Alsósztregova (today Dolná Strehová), and then grammar schools in Besztercebánya (today Banská Bystrica), Pressburg (Pozsony, today's Bratislava), and briefly in Veszprém and in the Calvinist college of Pápa. Between 1704 and 1706, he studied theology, philosophy, and medicine at the University of Halle and he was appointed rector at the school of Klosterbergen near Magdeburg after that. Later, returning to the Kingdom of Hungary, became an assistant rector and became afterwards the rector at the Lutheran grammar school in Besztercebánya (Banská Bystrica), where he was also simultaneously a pastor. As a Rákóczi-sympathisant, he was almost executed by General Sigbert Heister. Between 1714 and 1719, he was the rector of the Lutheran grammar school and then also a pastor of the German Lutheran church in Pressburg. He published his articles in the Latin language newspaper Nova Posoniensia, the first regular periodical in Hungary.[d] In 1735 Bel drew up a proposal for the creation of a scientific academy, to be based in Pressburg.[11]
Bel spoke Slovak, Hungarian, and German, and his works had been published mostly in Latin, which were steeped in the Hungarian national consciousness as had been manifested for instance in his writing, the Notitia Hungariae novae historico geographica, which is an extolment of the Hungarian history, influenced by his deep affection for the Hungarian language.[12][13]
Bel died on 29 August 1749. He was buried in Pressburg, the cemetery has now disappeared.
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Work
Religious literature
Bel was a translator, editor, publisher and distributor of several religious works. His long-term goal was to publish the Bible in a language intelligible to the community he served (that is, Biblical Czech used as a Church and literal language by Slovak Lutherans).[14][15][16] In the preface for The New Testament (Halle, 1709), he emphasized that the Bible was already translated, but it is barely available among common people and even among preachers. Bel then participated on the re-edition of Bible of Kralice (Halle, 1722) during which he was responsible especially for the correction of Calvinisms.[e] He also participated on publication of the Hungarian Bible (Leipzig, 1714) and of New Testament (Leipzig, 1717) and was the author of the preface for reprint of Sébastien Castellion's Latin New Testament (Leipzig, 1724 and 1735).[14]
He translated and published several influencing works like The Compendium of Christian Revelation (Johann Anastasius Freylinghausen, Hungarian translation), True Christianity (Johann Arndt, Czech translation supposed mainly for Slovaks), The Garden of Paradise (Johann Arndt, Hungarian and Czech translations).[14]
Pedagogy
As a teacher Bel wrote books, introduced natural science lessons, and emphasized the importance of using visual aid and experimental education. His methods spread and had a modernizing effect on the education system of the entirety of Hungary.
Linguistics
As a philologist, Bel was the first to study the Hungarian runes and also contributed to the evolution of the Hungarian literary language. He revised and republished Gáspár Károli's Bible-translation. He wrote Hungarian, Latin and German grammars – in the latter he also reviewed the German communities and dialects in Hungary. His work as a translator and editor in the field of religious work is also copious.
One of his notable writings is the Institutiones linguae Germanicae (Rules of the German grammar) written in Latin for Hungarians, of which special edition was published in Halle in 1730 for Hungarian students studying in Germany.[17] He also wrote a popular book, "Der ungarische Sprachmeister" (Hungarian language master), on Hungarian grammar for Germans.[17] He mistakenly suspected that the Hungarian language was relative of the Hebrew one.[17] In the one work of him whose name is "Literatura Hunno-Scythica" published in 1718, Bél endeavoured to prove that there existed, at one time, a Hun-Scythian alphabet, of which he thought that that must have been known to the Székelys.[18]
In the introduction of Grammatica Slavico–Bohemica by Pavel Doležal, he commends biblical Czech as a language that positively influences cultivation of Slovak[19]
History and geography
A pioneer of collaborative research in the history of the Kingdom of Hungary, Bel undertook a comprehensive historical and geographic examination of the territory in his well-known Notitia Hungariae Novae Historico Geographiaca. His work about the counties of Hungary was aided by many – while others accused him of espionage. The chancery entrusted Sámuel Mikoviny to supplement his work with detailed maps. The Notitia's complete edition could not be achieved during Bél's lifetime. Only eleven county descriptions were issued in print: Szepes County's description was published in Bél's Notitia project introduction, the Prodromus, the other ten county descriptions – namely Pozsony County, Turóc County, Zólyom County, Liptó County, Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County, Nógrád County, Bars County, Nyitra County, Hont County, Moson County – were published in five volumes of the Notitia. The remaining 37 county descriptions along with the Jász-Kun districts' description were left in manuscripts due to the revising county authorities' negligence or hostility, and the problems with the printery. These manuscripts have been scattered to several archives or collections. In his works, he notes greatness of the Slavic people, also mentioning many positive characteristics of Slovaks, as well as their autochthony in the Kingdom of Hungary.
Honours and awards
Bel's works met with recognition and respect beyond the Kingdom: he was a member of a number of learned societies abroad (e.g., Prussian Royal Academy (Berlin), Royal Society of London,[20] Societas eruditorum incognitorum in terris Austriacis (Olomouc), Jena, Saint Petersburg). He was elevated to noble rank by Charles VI of Austria, and received a golden medallion with his (Bel's) own portrait from Pope Clement XII.
Legacy
Recently Hungarian historians and philologists began to publish a critical edition of the county descriptions remained in manuscripts, based on the results of a comprehensive research made by the Hungarian historian Gergely Tóth. Calculating the length of the descriptions, they find it achievable to publish all the descriptions left in manuscript in 10 volumes. The first volume, which contains the descriptions of Árva and Trencsén counties, has already been published.
Matej Bel University (Univerzita Mateja Bela) in Banská Bystrica is named after him, as well as elementary schools in Očová (Základná škola s materskou školou Mateja Bela Funtíka) and in Šamorín (Základná škola Mateja Bela). Encyclopaedia Beliana is also named in his honor.
Publications
- Forma sacrorum verborum (Halle, 1707)
- Compendium (1713)
- Invitatio ad symbola conferenda dum historia linguae hungaricae libri II...edere parat... (Berolini, 1713)
- Grammatica Latina (Leutschoviae, 1717)
- Rhetorices veteris et novae praecepta (Lipsiae, 1717)
- Institutiones linguac germanicae et slavicae in Hungaria ortu (Leutschoviae, 1718)
- De vetera literatura hunnoscythica exercitatio (Lipsiae, 1718)
- Christophori Cellarii latinitatis probatae et exercitae liber memorialis naturali ordine dispositus (Norimbergae, 1719)
- Flos medicinae scholae Salernitanae (Posonii, 1721)
- Hungariae antiquae et novae prodromus (Norinbergae, 1723)
- Preces christianae (Lipsiae, 1728)
- Die Gatt suchende Seele (1729)
- Der ungarische Sprachmeister. (Pressburg, 1729)
- Adparatus ad historiam Hungariae. Decades II. (Posonii, 1735–46)
- Notitia Hungariae novae historico-geographica. Partis I. Tom. I–IV. Partis II. Tom. V. Viennae, (1735–42)
- Compendium Hungariae geographicum (Posonii, 1753)
- Kurze und zuverlässige Nachricht von dem Zustande der protestantischen Kirche in Ungarn
- Compendiolum regnorum Slavoniae, Croatiae, Dalmatiae, Gallicae et Lodomeriae. Posonii et Cassoviae (1777)
- Miscellanea Berolinensia (1734)
Notes
- ^ Bel mentioned two, resp. three different dates of his birth (the third indirectly). The date of birth was not recorded to the mid-19th century, but only the date of baptism, which usually took place in a day or two later.[1]
- ^ A hypothesis about her Hungarian or even noble origin (House of Cseszneky) has been prevailing in the Hungarian historiography from the end the 18th century. Tibenský points out that such hypothesis is not substantiated by any contemporary documents. The opinions of Slovak authors are more diverse. According to Jóna, she was maybe (asi) Hungarian and a lower nobleman. Horváth suggests that she was most likely a commoner somewhere from the Nógrád County, from where Slovak students with the name "Czesnek" are also reliably documented. According to Tibenský, it is most likely that she was a local commoner somewhere from the Vígľaš landlordship since Očovians were mostly serfs with no right to move and they close marriages between themselves or with women from the region.
- ^ The Latin term Slavus is polysemantic and can be translated as a Slovak or as a Slav depending on the context. The quote is from Doležal's Grammatica Slavico-Bohemica - an integrated Slovak-Czech Grammar in which the cultural Slovak language (cultiorum Slavorum in Hungaria) is compared to Czech (dialectum Bohemorum).
- ^ Bel is sometimes incorrectly mentioned an editor or even a publisher of the newspaper. The newspaper was published by Jean Paul Royer, the editors were F. W. Beer and M. Marth.[10]
- ^ Bel's Czech was non-intentionally Slovakized. He also felt that his Czech is not good enough for the translation, so he asked a Slovak linguist Daniel Krman to Bohemize his texts. Regardless of his intention to write in Czech, he introduced Slovakisms also to his Latin-German-Hungarian-Czech dictionary (svokor, žiak, etc).
References
- ^ Horváth 1987, p. 47.
- ^ Stiftungen, Franckesche (January 1, 2003). Die Hungarica-Sammlung der Franckeschen Stiftungen zu Halle (in German). Verlag der Franckeschen Stiftungen Halle im Max Niemeyer Verlag. ISBN 9783484841079.
- ^ a b "Pamätná izba Mateja Bela" (in Slovak). Archived from the original on September 24, 2012. Retrieved January 9, 2013.
- ^ Lorad, E. (1957). Umelecko-historické pamätné kostoly na Slovensku (in Czech). Spolok sv. Vojtecha.
- ^ Šišulák, Stanislav (2007). "Matej Bel – slovenský polyhistor" [Matej Bel - Slovak polymath] (in Slovak). quark.sk. Archived from the original on February 16, 2011.
- ^ Kriegleder, Wynfrid; Seidler, Andrea; Tancer, Jozef (January 1, 2002). Deutsche Sprache und Kultur im Raum Pressburg (in German). Edition Lumière. ISBN 9783934686076.
- ^ Rainer, Rudolf; Ulreich, Eduard (1988). Karpatendeutsches biographisches Lexikon, Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Karpatendeutschen aus der Slowakei (1 ed.). Stuttgart. p. 368. ISBN 3-927096-00-8.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Weston Evans, Robert John (2006). Austria, Hungary, and the Habsburgs:Essays on Central Europe. Oxford University Press. pp. 139–140. ISBN 0-19-928144-0.
- ^ Metzl, Andreas. "Z histórie evanjelických karpatských Nemcov" (PDF). Evanjelická bohoslovecká fakulta. Evanjelická bohoslovecká fakulta Univerzity Komenského v Bratislave. Retrieved July 3, 2019.
- ^ Tibenský 1984, p. 44.
- ^ "Bratislava History | BratislavaGuide.com". www.bratislavaguide.com. Retrieved March 28, 2024.
- ^ Petro, Peter (1995). A History of Slovak Literature. Montréal: McGill-Queen's Press.
- ^ CABADAJ, Peter. Matej Bel. Knižnica (Martin: Slovenská národná knižnica), 2005, roč. 6, čís. 10, s. 51-54. Dostupné online [cit. 2017-01-26]. ISSN 1335-7026.
- ^ a b c Kollárová 2003.
- ^ Piaček, Jozef; Kravčík, Miloš (1999). "Bibličtina" [Biblical language]. FILIT: Open Philosophical Encyclopedia Version 3.0 (in Slovak). Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- ^ Ďurovič, Ľubomír (1995). O slovenčine a slovensku. Bratislava: VEDA. p. 222. ISBN 80-224-0806-9.
- ^ a b c A Magyar Irodalom Története II. (History of Hungarian literature) (in Hungarian). Hungarian Academy of Sciences. 1964. ISBN 963-05-1641-1.
- ^ Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1889). Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Cambridge University Press for the Royal Asiatic Society. p. 607. Retrieved June 1, 2009.
- ^ CABADAJ, Peter. Matej Bel. Knižnica Martin: Slovenská národná knižnica), 2005, roč. 6, čís. 10, s. 51-54. Dostupné online [cit. 2017-01-26]. ISSN 1335-7026.
- ^ "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society. Retrieved December 12, 2010.[permanent dead link]
Bibliography
- Tibenský, Ján (1984). Matej Bel, život a dielo (in Slovak). Bratislava: Osvetový ústav.
- Horváth, Pavol (1987). "Pôvod Mateja Bela". In Tibenský, Ján (ed.). Matej Bel. Doba život dielo (in Slovak). Bratislava: Veda vydavateľstvo Slovenskej akadémie vied.
- Kollárová, Ivona (2003). "Matej Bel - vydavateľ náboženskej literatúry". Historický časopis (in Slovak) (2). Bratislava: Slovak Accadeic Press. ISSN 0018-2575.
External links
- Bel, Matthias (Bél Mátyás): Notitia Hungariae novae historico-geographica... Comitatuum ineditorum Tomus II. in quo continentur... Comitatus Soproniensis, Castriferrei, Szaladiensis et Veszprimiensis. Ed. Gregorius Tóth. Textum recensuerunt notisque instruxerunt: Bernadett Benei (et al.) Budapestini, 2012. (Prefaces, samples from the text edition) (pdf)
- Matthias Bel: Notitia Hungariae novae historico geographica... Comitatuum ineditorum tomus primus, in quo continentur... Comitatus Arvensis et Trentsiniensis. Edd. Gregorius Tóth, Ladislaus Glück, Zoltanus Gőzsy. Budapestini, 2011. (The introduction in Hungarian and in English can be read on this link)
- BME Irányítástechnika és Informatika Tanszék (in Hungarian)
- Jószerencsét! (in Hungarian)
- Magyar Protestáns Panteon (in Hungarian)
- Catalogus manuscriptorum Matthiae Bél, quae in bibliotheca Lycei Evangelici Posoniensis asservantur
- Tóth, Gergely: Discipuli Posonienses Matthiae Belii. Lymbus 2007. 179–208.
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This page was last edited on 28 March 2024, at 15:31