Alfred von Kremer


Alfred von Kremer was an Austrian orientalist and politician.

Life

Alfred Kremer first studied Philosophy in Vienna, then Jurisprudence. He self-taught Modern Greek, Arabic, Hebrew and Persian and travelled with a scholarship from the Academy of Sciences to Syria and Egypt.
On return he received the professorship of vernacular Arabic at the Vienna Polytechnic, a post he surrendered in May 1852 to return to Egypt as the first interpreter of the Austrian Consulate.
He received the vice-consulate, consul in Cairo, the consulate in Galaţi, in Beirut, and became ministerial advisor to the consular ministry in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs appointed to Vienna, where he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences.
From May 1876 he lived in Cairo as a member of the Egyptian Government Debt Commission and returned to the Viennese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the spring of 1880. A few months later he was appointed Austrian Minister of Commerce, an appointment he held until mid-February 1881.

Works

Kremer's writings are mostly geographic and ethnographic in nature, especially theBeiträge zur Geographie des nördlichen Syriens, Vienna 1852.Mittelsyrien und Damaskus, Vienna 1853.Topographie von Damaskus, Vienna 1855.Ägypten. Forschungen über Land und Volk, Leipzig 1863.Über die südarabische Sage, Leipzig 1866. Leipzig 1868Kulturgeschichtliche Streifzüge auf dem Gebiet des Islams. Leipzig 1873
In wider circles he became known especially with the publication of .
Among the Arabic texts he published were:Beschreibung Afrikas aus dem 12. Jahrhundert ;Beschreibung Afrikas aus dem 12. Jahrhundert ;Himjarische Kasideh as well as a German adaptation of theDiwans des AbuNuwas ;Beiträge zur arabischen Lexikographie ;Über meine Sammlung orientalischer Handschriften .
He opposed the Slavic and clerical tendencies in Austria's internal politics in the treatise Die Nationalitätsidee und der Staat .

Literature