H: 聖徒傳記
Decennial ABC: H as in Hagiography
Who are greatest thinkers of history, according to Britannica?
A hagiography is a biographic text about a holy person, and typically the
term refers to the vita of a Christian saint in the middle ages. In the
modern context the term is polemic in nature, as nowadays famous people are
admired but usually not considered holy. Instructional texts, and
encyclopedias originated from schoolbooks, long presented historical persons
as models for good behaviour, or for the opposite. Those
black-white-descriptions did not have much room for differentiation, for a
critical approach, or for impartiality. The immaculateness of the person was
partially the reason for including her in the canon.
Eventually, some very positive descriptions had more base motives. Dennis de
Coetlogon (Universal history, 1740s) seemingly expected a reward when
praising for example the religious commitment of Edward Howard in the article
‘Heraldry’, or when Anthony Browne, Viscount of Montagu, in ‘Nobility’ is
called ‘that excellent nobleman’. [1]
A peticular problem in small linguistic communities: It is not always easy to
obtain reliable sources for a biography, or a neutral person to write about
some else. This seems to be the case with the article ”Cseh, Andreo’ in the
1934 Enciklopedio de Esperanto.
There we read that the Catholic priest Cseh, an Hungarian from Rumania, in
1920 elaborated his famous teaching method for Esperanto, and that later in
Sweden started his triumphant apostleshipthrough various countries. His
courses had such a success that the newspapers wrote about a renaissance of
Esperanto. [2]
The entry was signed by Julia Isbrücker, who together with her husband Jan
supported Cseh’s work. In later years, the adult children of the Isbrückers
suspected their mother of having an inappropriate relationship with Cseh…
Writing about oneself or about good friends meets a lot of resistance among
Wikipedians, although it is not definitely prohibited. In my duties as a
mentor at German Wikipedia, I once had a mentee writing about a professor of
law (professors are ‘relevant’ by definition). She asked me whether her
text was good, and I said it was fine. A minor thing: She wrote that the
person obtained his PhD and became a Dr. iur. As the person is a jurist, and
as this is the usual title in Germany for a law PhD, the expression ‘Dr. iur.
’ is superfluous and can be dropped. After some days, she replied: ‘I have
asked again, and Herr Professor said that he does not want that.’ (The poor
girl was obviously the assistant of the professor.)
No doubt that Wikipedia is sufficiently critical about Jimmy Wales; the
article about him was created in June 2003. But how did the Encyclopaedia
Britannica deal with ‘their’ people’? In the 1950s Britannica had a book
series ‘Great Books’, and its prospectus presented a number of small
portraits: Platon, Shakespeare, Freud and other great thinkers. I wondered,
who were the three men in the center of the picture, in the big portraits.
Indeed: the publishers of Encyclopaedia Britannica. [3]
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Previously: A as in Advertisement, …, G as in Google
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[1] Jeff Loveland: An Alternative encyclopedia? Dennis de Coetlogon’s
Universal history of arts and sciences (1745). Voltaire Foundation, Oxford
2010, p. 153.
[2] Enciklopedio de Esperanto, 1933/1934, s.v. ‘Cseh, Andreo’.
[3] Harvey Einbinder: The Myth of the Britannica. MacGibbon & Kee, London
1964 (reprint 1972), p. 337.
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