Karl Krumbacher

Who was Karl Krumbacher?

Karl Krumbacher was a German scholar who was an expert on Byzantine Greek language, literature, history and culture. He was one of the principal founders of Byzantine Studies as an independent academic discipline in modern universities.

Krumbacher was born at Kürnach im Allgäu in the Kingdom of Bavaria. He studied Classical Philology and Indo-European linguistics at the Universities of Munich and Leipzig. In 1879 he passed the State Exam and was thereafter active as a school teacher until 1891. In 1883 he gain his doctorate and in 1885 his Habilitation in Medieval and Modern Greek philology. From 1897 he was professor of Medieval and Modern Greek Language and Literature at the University of Munich and held the newly created Chair of Byzantine Studies, the first professorial chair in this subject in the world. Krumbacher founded the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, the oldest academic journal of Byzantine Studies, and the Byzantinisches Archiv. His collaborator at the time was Božidar Prokić, the renowned Belgrade Byzantinist. He died in Munich in 1909. His successor as Professor of Byzantine Studies was August Heisenberg.