CITATION — REFERENCE ENTRY
Establishing the 'Historical Dictionary of Switzerland': an authoritative new source for the historiography of science in Switzerland — Circumscribere
- Key
- neuenschwander-2018-hds
- Authors
- Neuenschwander, Erwin
- Issued
- 2018
- Type
- article-journal
- Container
- Circumscribere
- Volume
- 21
- Pages
- 96-117
Raw CSL JSON
{
"DOI": "10.23925/1980-7651.2018v21;p96-117",
"URL": "https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/bf0b/aebae48d7a16148230f3c100badc5c48afd9.pdf",
"page": "96-117",
"type": "article-journal",
"title": "Establishing the 'Historical Dictionary of Switzerland': an authoritative new source for the historiography of science in Switzerland",
"author": [
{
"given": "Erwin",
"family": "Neuenschwander"
}
],
"issued": {
"date-parts": [
[
2018
]
]
},
"volume": "21",
"container-title": "Circumscribere"
}
Claims
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The call for a new or updated Swiss historical dictionary began in the 1950s, but all initiatives stalled due to fears of high costs and a long undertaking. In 1982 the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences agreed to draw up a project proposal.
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The HDS covers the history of humankind in the geographical area of today's Switzerland from Palaeolithic times to the present. Non-Swiss events are included only where they had direct relevance to Swiss history.
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The HDS was designed as a scholarly lexicon of about 36,000 articles covering all Swiss history, with articles in four categories: biographies (35%), geographical entries (30%), families (10%), and thematic subjects (25%). 20% of line-space was reserved for images and diagrams.
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The HBLS served for decades as the main Swiss historical reference work. By the 1950s, calls for a new or updated edition were already being heard, as the scholarship it reflected had grown outdated.
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About 70% of the HDS articles were written in German; approximately 25% of the German edition were translated from French originals, and about 5% from Italian. Finding qualified translators for historical texts proved extremely difficult, and new terminology sometimes had to be invented.
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The first well-known comprehensive Swiss lexicon was the Allgemeines Helvetisches, Eydgenössisches, oder Schweitzerisches Lexicon, published in twenty volumes from 1747 to 1765 by Johann Jacob Leu (1689–1768), mayor of Zurich, funded by the author himself.
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The Romansh LIR edition is a two-volume partial edition covering selected content from the main dictionary and topics specific to Graubünden, also available online as e-LIR since 2004, with supplementary indexes in German and Italian.
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In 1997 the HDS Board of Trustees decided to prioritize the online publication (released in 1998) over the print edition, because two of the three publishing houses had withdrawn their commitment due to the spread of digital technology. Printing preparations began in 2000.
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The predecessor Historisch-Biographisches Lexikon der Schweiz (HBLS), published by Victor Attinger in Neuchâtel between 1921 and 1934, was a bilingual German-French work that served for decades as the main Swiss historical reference work.
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The print edition of the HDS comprised thirteen volumes published from 2002 to 2014, containing around 36,000 articles. Since the print run concluded, the encyclopedia has continued online only, with articles updated and expanded in line with new research.
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The first print volume was presented on October 31, 2002, simultaneously in German (Schwabe, Basel), French (Gilles Attinger, Hauterive), and Italian (Armando Dadò, Locarno). Subsequent volumes appeared approximately annually until the thirteenth and final volume completed the set in 2014.
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The HDS follows the lexicographic principle of 'relative completeness': the importance of a subject from the present point of view determines article length, but so does the current state of research on that subject. Lesser-known persons and themes receive proportionally more space than major figures.
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The HDS central editorial staff comprised approximately 30 people. More than 2,500 qualified historians wrote articles, and over 100 specialists translated them into the other languages. The total cost of the project reached approximately 100 million Swiss francs.
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The SAGW working group comprised Carl Pfaff (Professor of medieval studies, University of Fribourg), Alain Dubois (Professor of Swiss history, University of Lausanne), and Fritz Glarner (Head of the State Archives of Lucerne). They commissioned Marco Jorio to draft a feasibility study, completed 1985–1987. Both chambers of the Federal Parliament approved the project proposal in 1987 without opposition.
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