Claus Schönig
{{Short description|German Turkologist (1955-2019)}}
{{Infobox academic
| birth_date = {{birth date|1955|10|23}}
| death_date = {{death date and age|2019|06|23|1955|10|23}}
| death_place = Weisenau
| birth_place = Mainz
| alma_mater = University of Mainz
| doctoral_advisor = Johannes Benzing
| workplaces = Free University of Berlin
| thesis_title = Hilfsverben im Tatarischen
| thesis_year = 1984
}}
Claus Schönig (October 23, 1955 – June 23, 2019) was a German Turkologist.{{Cite journal |last=Cwiklinski |first=Sebastian |date=2019 |title=Claus Schönig (23 October 1955–23 June 2019) |url=https://akjournals.com/doi/10.1556/062.2019.72.4.6 |journal=Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae |language=en |volume=72 |issue=4 |pages=473–475 |doi=10.1556/062.2019.72.4.6 |issn=0001-6446}} His interests included the historical linguistics of the Turkic languages, Altaistics, and Turko-Mongolic relations.{{Cite web |title=Academy of Europe: Schönig Claus |url=https://www.ae-info.org/ae/Member/Sch%C3%B6nig_Claus |access-date=2023-02-17 |website=www.ae-info.org}}
Career
Schönig was born in the Weisenau district of Mainz in 1955.{{Cite journal |last=Erdal |first=Marcel |date=2019 |title=In Memorian Claus Schönig (1955-2019) |journal=Turkic Languages |volume=23 |issue=2 |pages=149–152|doi=10.13173/TL/2019/2/149 }} He studied under Johannes Benzing from 1974 to 1981 at the University of Mainz, where he studied Turkology, Islamic Studies, and Islamic philology. Other faculty who influenced his work at the time were Lars Johanson, Hans-Jürgen Kornrumpf and Ahmed Temir.{{Cite journal |last=Ragagnin |first=Elisabetta |date=2020-04-21 |title=Farewell to Claus Schönig |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/jeal/1/2/article-p237_1.xml |journal=International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=237–248 |doi=10.1163/25898833-12340015 |issn=2589-8825|hdl=10278/3725586 |hdl-access=free }} His 1984 dissertation focused on auxiliary verbs in Tatar. In 1995 he obtained a German Habilitation at the Free University of Berlin with a dissertation on finite predications and text structure in the Baburnama.
Schönig held academic positions at a variety of institutions, including the University of Mainz, Goethe University Frankfurt, the University of Duisburg-Essen, and the University of Giessen. From 1993 to 1996 and from 2001 to 2007 he served as the director of the Orient-Institut Istanbul. From 2007 until 2019, he held the appointed position of Turkology at the Free University of Berlin as the successor of Barbara Kellner-Heinkele. During this time he served as the director of the university's Institute for Turkology.
Awards and honors
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schonig, Claus}}
Category:Academic staff of the Free University of Berlin