Berdzhih Grozniy Czech orientalist and linguist. Date of Birth: 06.05.1879 Country: Czech

1. Biography of Bedřich Hrozný
2. Education and Academic Achievements
3. Other Contributions and Academic Career

Biography of Bedřich Hrozný

Bedřich Hrozný (also known as Friedrich Hrozný) was a Czech orientalist and linguist. He was born on May 6, 1879, in Lysá nad Labem, Austria-Hungary (now the territory of the Czech Republic). Hrozný came from a family of evangelical pastors.

Education and Academic Achievements

At the gymnasium in Kolín, Hrozný studied the basics of ancient Hebrew and Arabic languages. Later, during his studies at the University of Vienna, he added Akkadian, Aramaic, Ethiopian, Sumerian, Sanskrit, and the cuneiform script of Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Persia to his repertoire. He further pursued oriental studies at the University of Berlin.

In 1906, while excavating the capital of the Hittite Empire in Hattusa (modern-day Boğazkale, Turkey), a German expedition discovered an archive of Hittite kings written in a local variant of Akkadian cuneiform but in an unknown language. In 1915-1916, Hrozný published works on deciphering the Hittite language and its grammar, proving its connection to the Indo-European languages.

Other Contributions and Academic Career

Hrozný attempted to decipher other scripts such as the Cretan script, biblical script, and proto-Indian script, but his decipherments were ultimately considered erroneous. His comparative-historical method was both his strength and weakness, as he underestimated other methods, such as logic-combinatorial analysis.

Hrozný delivered numerous successful lectures at various European universities and founded the journal "Archiv Orientální" (Eastern Archive) in 1929, which remains the main Czech journal on oriental studies to this day. Despite the opportunity to emigrate from occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, he chose to stay and was elected rector of Charles University in Prague. In 1940, he was offered a position in the Ministry of Education, which he declined.

During the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Hrozný served as the rector of Prague University. Despite the suspension of classes, he continued giving lectures outside of the university, publishing scientific works, and protecting students from arrest. One of his notable achievements was the creation of fonts for almost all known scripts of the world in the university printing house.

In 1944, Hrozný suffered a heart attack and subsequently retired from teaching. However, he continued working on his life's major work, a comprehensive history of the ancient East, which was published in 1949. On November 12, 1952, he was elected a member of the newly established Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Exactly one month later, on December 12, 1952, Academician Bedřich Hrozný passed away.