Vries, Jan de
VRIES, JAN DE
VRIES, JAN DE (1890–1964), was a Dutch folklorist and historian of religions. Jan Pieter Marie Laurens de Vries was born in Amsterdam on February 11, 1890, and died in Utrecht on July 23, 1964. In 1926, de Vries was appointed to the chair for ancient Germanic linguistics and philology (comprising also Indo-European comparative grammar) at the University of Leiden. Among the numerous positions he held was the editorship of the fifth edition of Winkler Prins's Algemene Encyclopedie (General Encyclopedia; 16 vols, 1932–1938); this function occupied him for the entire period of publication. He established also a famous series of classical Dutch literary works, "Bibliotheek der Nederlandsche letteren" (1938–), sponsored by the Society for Dutch Literature and the Royal Flemish Academy of Language and Literature. Internationally famous as a Germanist, he became known in even wider circles as a folklorist. During the 1930s he pleaded fervently and often that the study of folklore (volkskunde ) be considered a separate discipline, after having already championed the subject in congresses of philologists. The interest in the creativity of the volk (from which during this part of his life he excluded the intelligentsia and the urban proletariat, a view evinced in Volk van Nederland, published in 1937, which was a work by various authors that de Vries organized and edited, and of which he wrote a major part) was no doubt in tune with some scholarly and general interest fostered all over Europe at the time.
Unlike most scholars, de Vries had a career and lived in a time of history in which one's true colors could not always be kept concealed. After World War II, he was dismissed from his position at the University of Leiden because of his stance and his acts during the war. Under German occupation (1940–1945) he had served as vice-chairman of the Kultuurkamer (the body whose approval was required for any artistic or literary production). In the summer of 1940, shortly after the German invasion, he wrote a pamphlet, Naar een betere toekomst (Toward a Better Future), that promulgated his antidemocratic views and hailed the newly opened way toward a world in which the individual would be subordinate to a more encompassing, national structure. He published with National Socialist publishers, worked for a National Socialist journal, and by the end of the war even became a "sympathizing member" of the Schutzstaffel (SS). Many of de Vries's readers, and especially his students, have observed a mystifying inner contradiction in him.
No doubt, there is a conflict that is at the same time an essential ingredient in his work. De Vries was not only an industrious scholar but a very critical mind, a man who despised the crowd, yet longed for a truly harmonious community, which he thought was reflected among ancient Germanic and Norse tribes. Solitary, romantic in his tastes, and of superb intelligence, he seemed blind to the vulgarity of Nazism, to which he committed himself with a fatalistic faithfulness, even seeing its impending defeat, and all the while incapable of realizing the harmony with people for which he longed. It is quite remarkable that de Vries's scholarly work does not show any feature of Nazi ideology or any of the kitsch it spawned. He pursued his scholarly goals unabated during, and also after, the war.
After his retirement in 1955 from a position as secondary schoolteacher in Dutch literature that he held for seven years, he wrote an impressive number of important books. Among them are his Kelten und Germanen (1960); Forschungsgeschichte der Mythologie (1961), in which his admiration for romantic impulses in history stands out clearly; and Nederlands etymologisch woordenboek (1963–1971). The best-known handbook of Germanic religion is the second edition of his Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte (2 vols., 1956–1957). De Vries is among the foremost scholars who recognized the importance of Georges Dumézil's work. Throughout his career, however, de Vries maintained his own originality and erudite, critical competence in details. For instance, he points out the lack of clear evidence in Germanic sources for the existence of secret men's societies, yet, with implicit as well as explicit criticism on theoretical models employed by others, he demonstrates various other specific expressions of socioreligious cohesiveness.
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Important works by de Vries that have been translated into English include Heldenlied en Heldensage (Utrecht, 1959), translated by B. J. Timmer as Heroic Song and Heroic Legend (London, 1963), and Godsdientsgeschiedenis in vogelvlucht, translated by me as The Study of Religion: A Historical Approach (New York, 1967) and later reissued as Perspectives in the History of Religions (Berkeley, Calif., 1977).
Other important untranslated works by de Vries include Altnordische Literaturgeschichte, 2 vols. (1941–1942; rev. ed., Berlin, 1964–1967), Het sprookje: Opstellen (Zutphen, Netherlands, 1929), Keltische Religion (Stuttgart, 1961), and Kleine Schriften (Berlin, 1965).
Further biographical information about de Vries can be found in my article "Jan de Vries (1890–1964)," History of Religions 5 (1965): 173–177, and in P. J. Meerten's article "Jan de Vries," Volkskunde 65 (1964): 97–113.
Kees W. Bolle (1987)