DÖBRENTEI, GABOR [Gabriel] (1786-1851), Hungarian philologist and antiquary, was born at Nagyszöllös in 1786. He completed his studies at the universities of Wittenberg and Leipzig, and was afterwards engaged as a tutor in Transylvania. At this period he originated and edited the Erdélyi Muzeum, which, notwithstanding its important influence on the development of the Magyar language and literature, soon failed for want of support. In 1820 Döbrentei settled at Pest, and there he spent the rest of his life. He held various official posts, but continued zealously to pursue the studies for which he had early shown a strong preference. His great work is the Ancient Monuments of the Magyar Language (Régi Magyar Nyelvemlékek), the editing of which was entrusted to him by the Hungarian Academy. The first volume was published in 1838 and the fifth was in course of preparation at the time of his death. Döbrentei was one of the twenty-two scholars appointed in 1825 to plan and organize, under the presidency of Count Teleki, the Hungarian Academy. In addition to his great work he wrote many valuable papers on historical and philological subjects, and many biographical notices of eminent Hungarians. These appeared in the Hungarian translation of Brockhaus’s Conversations-Lexikon. He translated into Hungarian Macbeth and other plays of Shakespeare, Sterne’s letters from Yorick to Eliza (1828), several of Schiller’s tragedies, and Molière’s Avare, and wrote several original poems. Döbrentei does not appear to have taken any part in the revolutionary movement of 1848. He died at his country house, near Pest, on the 28th of March 1851.
DOBRITCH, or Hajiolupazarjik, the principal town in the Bulgarian Dobrudja. Pop. (1901) 13,436. The town is noted for its panaïr or great fair, chiefly for horses and cattle, held annually in the summer, which formerly attracted a large concourse from all parts of eastern Europe, but has declined in importance.
DOBRIZHOFFER, MARTIN (1717-1791), Austrian Roman Catholic missionary, was born at Gratz, in Styria. He joined the Society of Jesus in 1736, and in 1749 proceeded to Paraguay, where for eighteen years he worked devotedly first among the Guaranis, and then among the Abipones. Returning to Europe on the expulsion of the Jesuits from South America, he settled at Vienna, obtained the friendship of Maria Theresa, survived the extinction of his order, composed the history of his mission, and died on the 17th of July 1791. The lively if rather garrulous book on which his title to remembrance rests, appeared at Vienna in 1784, in the author’s own Latin, and in a German translation by Professor Krail of the university of Pest. Of its contents some idea may be obtained from its extended title:—Historia de Abiponibus, Equestri Bellicosaque Paraguariae Natione, locupletata Copiosis Barbararum Gentium, Urbium, Fluminum, Ferarum, Amphibiorum, Insectorum, Serpentium praecipuorum, Piscium, Avium, Arborum, Plantarum aliarumque ejusdem Provinciae Proprietatum Observationibus. In 1822 there appeared in London an anonymous translation sometimes ascribed to Southey, but really the work of Sara Coleridge, who had undertaken the task to defray the college expenses of one of her brothers. A delicate compliment was paid to the translator by Southey in the third canto of his Tale of Paraguay, the story of which was derived from the pages of Dobrizhoffer’s narrative:—
| “And if he could in Merlin’s glass have seen By whom his tomes to speak our tongue were taught, The old man would have felt as pleased, I ween, As when he won the ear of that great Empress Queen.” |
DOBROWSKY, JOSEPH (1753-1829), Hungarian philologist, was born of Bohemian parentage at Gjermet, near Raab, in Hungary. He received his first education in the German school at Bischofteinitz, made his first acquaintance with Bohemian at the Deutschbrod gymnasium, studied for some time under the Jesuits at Klattau, and then proceeded to the university of Prague. In 1772 he was admitted among the Jesuits at Brünn; but on the dissolution of the order in 1773 he returned to Prague to study theology. After holding for some time the office of tutor in the family of Count Nostitz, he obtained an appointment first as vice-rector, and then as rector, in the general seminary at Hradisch; but in 1790 he lost his post through the abolition of the seminaries throughout Austria, and returned as a guest to the house of the count. In 1792 he was commissioned by the Bohemian Academy of Sciences to visit Stockholm, Abo, Petersburg and Moscow in search of the manuscripts which had been scattered by the Thirty Years’ War; and on his return he accompanied Count Nostitz to Switzerland and Italy. His reason began to give way in 1795, and in 1801 he had to be confined in a lunatic asylum; but by 1803 he had completely recovered. The rest of his life was mainly spent either in Prague or at the country seats of his friends Counts Nostitz and Czernin; but his death took place at Brünn, whither he had gone in 1828 to make investigations in the library. While his fame rests chiefly on his labours in Slavonic philology his botanical studies are not without value in the history of the science.
The following is a list of his more important works, Fragmentum Pragense evangelii S. Marci, vulgo autographi (1778); a periodical for Bohemian and Moravian Literature (1780-1787); Scriptores rerum Bohemicarum (2 vols., 1783); Geschichte der böhm. Sprache und ältern Literatur (1792); Die Bildsamkeit der slaw. Sprache (1799); a Deutsch-böhm. Wörterbuch compiled in collaboration with Leschka-Puchmayer and Hanka (1802-1821); Entwurf eines Pflanzensystems nach Zahlen und Verhältnissen (1802); Glagolitica (1807); Lehrgebäude der böhm. Sprache (1809); Institutiones linguae slavicae dialecti veteris (1822); Entwurf zu einem allgemeinen Etymologikon der slaw. Sprachen (1813); Slowanka zur Kenntniss der slaw. Literatur (1814); and a critical edition of Jordanes, De rebus Geticis, for Pertz’s Monumenta Germaniae historica. See Palacky, J. Dobrowskys Leben und gelehrtes Wirken (1833).