Eduard Erkes

August Eduard Erkes (23 July 1891 – 2 April 1958) was a German sinologist and ethnologist.

Biography Eduard Erkes was born in Genoa to a German family that resided in Italy. His father Heinrich Erkes was a merchant and member of the German Social Democratic Party who later became an Icelandic scholar. Eduard spent his childhood in Cologne. After graduating from high school in 1910, he accompanied his father on a three-month geographical research expedition to Iceland. He then studied geology, geography, history and German studies at the University of Bonn. In 1911 he moved to Leipzig, where he devoted himself to sinology, general linguistics, cultural history and ethnology. In 1913 he received his doctorate in Leipzig under August Conrady with a thesis on The Calling Back of the Soul (Chao-hun) by Sung Yüh (a poet from the Warring States Period in the 3rd century BC).

From 1912 he worked as a volunteer and from 1913 to 1921 as a research assistant at the Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig . In 1916 he married the graphic artist Anna-Babette Conrady (1894–1986), daughter of his academic teacher. The following year he completed his habilitation at the University of Leipzig was appointed private lecturer in Chinese. He was professionally connected to the Leipzig School of Sinology, which emerged from the tradition of Georg von der Gabelentz and Erkes's teacher and father-in-law August Conrady. In 1919, Erkes joined the SPD and became an atheist. The two were accused of “political unreliability”. Due to the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, the Saxon Ministry for National Education withdrew his venia legendi. From 1933 to 1943 Erkes worked as a private scholar in Leipzig. In the last two years of the war he was drafted into service as a bookstore assistant at the Harrassowitz Verlag. At the invitation of the Chinese government, he undertook another study trip to the People's Republic of China in 1954–1955.

Erkes was buried in the Leipzig Südfriedhof.

Works Gelber Fluß und Große Mauer. Reise durch Chinas Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1958 Geschichte Chinas von den Anfängen bis zum Eindringen des ausländischen Kapitals. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1956, ²1957 Neue Beiträge zur Geschichte des Choukönigs Yu. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1954 Die Entwicklung der chinesischen Gesellschaft von der Urzeit bis zur Gegenwart. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1953 Das Problem der Sklaverei in China. Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1952 Der schamanistische Ursprung des chinesischen Ahnenkults. Sinologica 2, 1950 Die Geschichte Chinas. Berlin, Volk und Wissen, 1948 China und Europa. Kontrast und Ausgleich zweier Weltkulturen. Leipzig, Volk und Buch, 1947 Gestaltwandel der Götter in China. Forschungen und Fortschritte 21–23, 1947 Mystik und Schamanismus, Artibus Asiae 8, 1945 Das Schwein im alten China. Monumenta Serica 1, Henri Vetch, 1942 The God of Death in Ancient China. T’oung Pao 25, 1939 Zur Sage von Shun, T’oung Pao 34, 1939 Arthur Waley’s Laotse-übersetzung. Hadl, 1935 Zur ältesten Geschichte des Siegels in China. Gutenberg, 1934 Spuren chinesischer Wertschöpfungsmythen. T’oung Pao 28, 1931 Die Götterwelt des alten China. Der Weltkreis 5/6, 1930 Der Totemismus bei den Chinesen und ihren Stammverwandten. Weule Festschrift, Leipzig 1929 Chinesisch-Amerikanische Mythen Parallelen. T’oung Pao 24, 1926 Wie Gott erschaffen wurde. Jena, Urania-Verlags-Gesellschaft, 1925 Buch und Buchdruck in China. Gutenberg-Festschrift, 1925 Chinesische Literatur. Breslau, Ferdinand Hirt, 1922 Chinesen. Leipzig, Dürr & Weber, 1920 China. Gotha, F. A. Perthes, 1919 Das Weltbild des Huai-nan-tze. Berlin, Oesterheld, 1918 Japan und die Japaner. Leipzig, Veit, 1915 Altchinesische Beschwörungsgedichte. Das "Zurückrufen der Seele" (Chao-Hun) des Sung Yüh. Leipzig, 1914