Hartmut Walravens (ed.): Herbert Muellers Forschungsreise nach China 1912– 1913. Aus den Akten und Korrespondenzen neu bearbeitet und durch historische Fotos ergänztOlivia Kraef-Leicht

ASIEN – Nr. 150/151 (2019) pp. 144–45

Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 2017. 219 S., 54 EUR

Recent research on German sinology in the 20th century (see Hartmut Walravens 2010, 2016; Mechthild Leutner 2013, 2014, 2016) has revealed and highlighted many hitherto unsung heroes of the craft. Even among these, the name Herbert Mueller (1885–1966), the subject-cumprotagonist of Hartmut Walravens’ new edited volume, does not necessarily ring a bell. Mueller’s many contributions to research on Chinese culture, his groundbreaking work as a curator for the East Asian collection of the Berlin Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde, and even his early exposé (1914) outlining the necessity and benefits of a German research institute in Beijing (an exposé, which was, among others, signed by Richard Wilhelm) are not part of German common sinological knowledge today. The often striking sinophilia, or even sinification of Mi Laoye, as he was called by the Chinese and his German and European friends alike, was evident in his broad activities and his interests in Chinese art and culture, his private life choices, and in much of his fiction (see “Der Päan auf Peking”, this edition). His eventual descent into (sinological) oblivion is mostly due to the tragic circumstances surrounding his life and career, which were upset and eroded by two world wars, a five-year groundless internment in the Landsberg penitentiary, and the loss of his Chinese family and private collection of books and art. Yet perhaps it was also his criticism of the state of German sinology in 1911 and 1919 respectively (Walravens 2017: 167), and his active, and disillusioned, retreat from this field, that contributed to this oblivion.