Adam František Kollár de Keresztén (,Constant von Wurzbach, Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich... Zwölfter Theil. 1864. p. 324. ; 1718–1783) was a Slovak jurist, Imperial-Royal Court Councillor and Chief Imperial-Royal Librarian, a member of Natio Hungarica in the Kingdom of Hungary, a historian, ethnologist, an influential advocate of Empress Maria Theresa's Enlightened and centralist policies. His advancement of Maria Theresa's status in the Kingdom of Hungary as its apostolic ruler in 1772 was used as an argument in support of the subsequent Habsburg annexations of Galicia and Dalmatia. Kollár is also credited with coining the term ethnology and providing its first definition in 1783. Some authors see him as one of the earliest pro-Slovak, pro-Slavic, and pan-Slavic activists in the Habsburg monarchy.
Life
Dates Kollár was born to the family of a lower nobleman probably during the week before the recorded date of his baptism on Sunday, 17 April 1718,Ján Tibenský, Slovenský Sokrates. Život a dielo Adama Františka Kollára. 1983. in Terchová, now in Slovakia, then Tyerhova in the Kingdom of Hungary. Sources often give the date of his baptism as his birth date.For instance: Štefan Valentovič, et al. Slovenský biografický slovník, III zväzok K-L. 1989. Some earlier sources give the day of his birth as 15 April, and the oldest Austrian biographies had the year 1723.Ignaz Franz von Mosel, Geschichte der Kaiserliche und Königliche Hofbibliothek zu Wien. 1835. His ancestor Ladislaus (Ladislav) Kollár was ennobled in 1593.Constant von Wurzbach, Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich... Zwölfter Theil. 1864. Adam F. Kollár died on 10 July 1783 in Vienna, then the capital of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and the Habsburg monarchy.Štefan Valentovič, et al. Slovenský biografický slovník, III zväzok K-L. 1989. Sources also give other dates for his death, the 13th, and 15th of the same month.
While Kollár is likely to have used František as his middle name when he spoke in his native Slovak, he used the Latin Franciscus (also Adamo Francisco) or the German Franz as his middle name in all of his works, which were published only in the two languages. The version František did not begin to appear as his middle name in Slovak and Czech publications until later in the 20th century. Hungarian texts use Ferenc. English texts have traditionally used Franz; the more modern practice is František.
Education Kollár's parents moved to Banská Bystrica (Besztercebánya) where he attended a Jesuit middle school. He later used the town's Latin name (Neosolium) as an appendix to his own name in some of his Latin publications − Pannonius Neosoliensis ("Pannonian of Besztercebánya"). He continued his education in a preparatory high school (gymnázium) in another mining town, Banská Štiavnica (Selmecbánya), graduated in the university town of Trnava (Nagyszombat) and joined the Society of Jesus. He attended the Jesuit College at Vienna (University of Vienna), taught at a Jesuit preparatory high school at Liptovský Svätý Mikuláš (Liptószentmiklós, now Liptovský Mikuláš) and then returned to Vienna to continue his studies.
His interest in languages showed from early on. His high school student report card graded his native Slovak and Latin as good, his German as above average. He began his studies of theology at the University of Vienna with two years of Hebrew and the Middle Eastern languages.Andor Csizmadia, Adam Franz Kollár und die ungarische rechtshistorische Forschung. 1982. He left the Society of Jesus upon graduation. Languages that Adam František Kollár spoke were Czech, Serbian, Polish, Rusin, Russian, Slovenian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Turkish, Chinese, Persian, Arabic, Italian, Romanian, French, Dutch, English, Spanish and Mixtec.
Jesuit Slovak middle school, Banská Bystrica -1734 − Jesuit middle and high school, Banská Štiavnica 1734–1736 − Jesuit high school, Trnava 1736–1740 − Jesuit noviciate, Trnava 1740–1743 − Jesuit College (University of Vienna) 1744–1748 − Theology, University of Vienna
Employment
Adam F. Kollár began his career at the Imperial-Royal Library in 1748 as a scribe and eventually became its chief librarian and Councilor at the Court of the Habsburgs. Most of his appointments were readily approved by Empress Maria Theresa, with whom he curried favor, whose policies he underpinned with his scholarship and who became his only child's godmother.
1743–1744 − Professor, Jesuit high school, Liptovský Svätý Mikuláš 1748–1749 − Scribe, Imperial-Royal Library, Vienna 1748–1751 − Lecturer in Classical Greek, University of Vienna 1749–1758 − Second Custodian, Imperial-Royal Library, Vienna 1758–1772 − First Custodian, Imperial-Royal Library, Vienna 1772–1774 − Acting Chief Librarian, Imperial-Royal Library, Vienna 1774–1774 − member, Imperial-Royal Court Study Commission (board of education and culture) 1774–1783 − Chief Librarian, Imperial-Royal Library, Vienna 1774- − Dean, Faculty or Arts, University of Vienna 1774–1783 − Councilor at the Court of the Habsburgs
Significance
Ethnology
With his training in Turkish, Persian, and the classical languages, Adam F. Kollár was able to edit and publish or republish numerous manuscripts and earlier volumes from the collections of the Imperial-Royal Library. His annotated editions of texts in the languages of the Middle East area became particularly respected. As Kollár says in the introduction, he rediscovered the Turkish and Arabic fonts used by Mesgnien-Meninski in 1680 and employed them to reissue Mesgnien-Meninski's Turkish grammar. Kollár added transcriptions, texts of various treaties with the Ottoman Empire, translated it to Latin and added Arabic and Persian versions.
Kollár's editorial work with manuscripts from various cultures and languages, in addition to his familiarity with the linguistic and cultural diversity of his native Kingdom of Hungary,Gheorghiţă Geană, "Discovering the whole of humankind: the genesis of anthropology through the Hegelian looking-glass." In: Han F. Vermeulen and Arturo Alvarez Roldán, eds. Fieldwork and Footnotes: Studies in the History of European Anthropology. 1995. made him an early student of ethnology and the scholar who actually coined and defined the term in ...The unadjusted spelling of the title: Historiae ivrisqve pvblici Regni Vngariae amoenitates. ("Amenities of the History and Constitutional Law of the Kingdom of Hungary.") published in 1783.Zmago Šmitek and Božidar Jezernik, "The anthropological tradition in Slovenia." In: Han F. Vermeulen and Arturo Alvarez Roldán, eds. Fieldwork and Footnotes: Studies in the History of European Anthropology. 1995. Unlike a later, more general definition by Alexandre César de Chavannes from 1787 (sometimes mistaken for a first occurrence of the conceptFor instance: Francois Gresle, et al. Dictionnaire des sciences humaines. 1990.) who saw it as "the history of peoples progressing towards civilization",Justin Stagl, A History of Curiosity: The Theory of Travel, 1550–1800. 1995. Kollár coined and defined ethnologia as: the science of nations and peoples, or, that study of learned men in which they inquire into the origins, languages, customs, and institutions of various nations, and finally into the fatherland and ancient seats, in order to be able better to judge the nations and peoples in their own times."notitia gentium populorumque, sive est id doctorum hominum studium, quo in variarum gentium origines, idiomata, mores, atque instituta, ac denique patriam vetustasque sedes eo consilio inquirunt, ut de gentibus populisque sui aevi rectius judicium ferre possint." − A. F. Kollár, 1783. Adam F. Kollár, writing in the multilingual, multiethnic Habsburg Monarchy, extended the circumscribed views of August Ludwig von Schlözer, the two had commented on each other's work, to peoples (populis) and ethnic groups−nations (gens).Han F. Vermeulen, "The German Invention of Völkerkunde: Ethnological Discourse in Europe and Asia, 1740–1798." In: Sara Eigen and Mark Larrimore, eds. The German Invention of Race. 2006. Kollár's word was rapidly adopted by Central European academics. It was taken up in 1787 by the German historian Johann Ernst Fabri at the University of Göttingen and by Chavannes at the Academy of Lausanne. It began to appear in French by the 1820s and in English by the 1830s.Thomas Barfield, The Dictionary of Anthropology. 1997
Politics
Adam F. Kollár was closely associated with the centralist policies of Empress Maria Theresa. Some of his publications were commissioned by her Court, although not marked as such, many others espoused its policies.Olwen H. Hufton, Europe: Privilege and Protest, 1730–1789. 1980. As a native of the Kingdom of Hungary, the Habsburg province that resisted centralization the most, he knew its situation. He devoted his 1764 work (On the Origins and Perpetual Use of the Legislative Powers of the Apostolic Kings of Hungary in Matters Ecclesiastical) to argue for the supremacy of the Habsburgs' rule over the Roman Catholic hierarchy, over the traditional legislative powers of the Kingdom's Diet and, indirectly, over the privileges of its nobility. Kollár supported his and the Habsburgs' position with a copious body of references to the Kingdom's history,Ernst Wangermann, The Austrian Achievement 1700–1800. 1973. his from 1762 already contained a large part of the documentation. Among other things, Kollár proposed that the tax-free status of the Kingdom's nobility be abolished. brought about the most explosive event in Kollár's political life. The book caused outrage during the 1764–1765 Diet attended by Maria Theresa and did nothing to reinforce her position. She launched damage control with a ban on further distribution of Kollár's book in the Kingdom of Hungary that included a recall of the sold copies, he was given a hint by the Habsburgs to write an apology, which he did half-heartedly in the form of a defense, and the Vatican put the book on its index librorum prohibitorum where it stayed for the next two centuries.
The tensions between the Habsburgs and the Kingdom of Hungary remained largely unresolved during Kollár's lifetime and his stance brought him the wrath of his fellow noblemen in the province, but he did not relent.Horst Haselsteiner, "Cooperation and Confrontation between Rulers and the Noble Estates, 1711–1790." In: Peter F. Sugar, et al., eds. A History of Hungary. 1990. He lived in Vienna, the capital of all of the Habsburg Monarchy, where his views were not merely au courant among its denizens, but actually radiated from the center of power. The publication of Kollár's (1764) was in line and perhaps coordinated with the Habsburgs' goals and he more than retained his status of Maria Theresa's favorite and influential academic partisan. He wrote in favor of the Habsburgs' Enlightened policies, opposed serfdom and advocated religious freedom in the whole monarchy. Maria Theresa turned to him with requests for a large number of position papers relevant to her policy. His arguments in Published anonymously and often misattributed to another author. published in Latin and German in 1772 were called on by the Habsburgs to support their subsequent annexations of Galicia and Dalmatia.Joachim Bahlcke, Ungarischer Episkopat und österreichische Monarchie: Von einer Partnerschaft zur Konfrontation (1686–1790). 2005.
Nationalism