Linguistics

The research project „Network of knowledge“, which is being financed since 2012 by the Austrian Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF), is currently working on the analysis and digital publication of the papers the linguist Hugo Schuchardt (1842-1927) left behind. This project follows a series of preliminary projects involving the same subject.

Schuchardt, who was born in Gotha, lectured from 1876 to 1900 Romance Philology at the Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz and continued his scientific work in the capital of Styria well after his retirement. His papers are preserved at the University Library Graz. These comprise, besides manuscripts and notes, more than 14.000 letters and bear testimony to the central role played by the scholar in the establishment of Linguistics as an academic discipline. Schuchardt’s correspondence is of particular significance for the Styrian cultural and scientific landscape, since it established connections between the latter and Schuchardt’s worldwide net of correspondents, which was maintained by the outstanding scholar in order to obtain information about different areas of interest. „La ville des Grâces aux rives de l'Amour", as Schuchardt cherishingly portrayed Graz, became one of the key places for the development of modern Humanities and Linguistics mostly due to Schuchardt’s presence.

The materials annotated and edited within the project (and successively published in the Hugo Schuchardt Archive) will be entirely integrated in the repository “Steirisches Wissenschaftserbe”.