Dictionary of Literary Influences

Bergson, Henri Louis

Printed Sources

Bergman, Ingmar. Laterna Magica (Paris: Gallimard, 1987).

Bergman, Ingmar. With Stig Björkman, Torsten Manns, Jonas Sima (eds.). Bergman on Bergman [1970] (London: Secker & Warburg, 1973). By far the best book about Bergman’s literary influences.

Bergom-Larsson, Maria. Ingmar Bergman and Society, Barrie Selman (trans.), (London: Tantivy Press; South Brunswick, N.J.: A. S. Barnes, with the Swedish Film Institute and the Swedish Institute, 1978).

Gervais, Marc. Ingmar Bergman: Magician and Prophet (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999).

Jones, G. William. Talking with Ingmar Bergman (Dallas: SMU Press, 1983).

Steene, Birgitta. Ingmar Bergman: A Guide to References and Resources (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1987).

Yves Laberge

BERGSON, HENRI LOUIS (1859–1941)

Henri Bergson was born in Paris, France, the second oldest of seven children of immigrant Jews, Kate Levison from London, England, and Michael Bergson, a musician from Warsaw, Poland. After graduating from the Lycée Condorcet in 1878, he enrolled in the École Normale Supérieure, receiving his baccalaureate in philosophy in 1881 and his D.Litt. in 1889 with a Latin dissertation on Aristotle. He taught philosophy at the Angers Lycée from 1881 to 1883; the Blaise Pascal Lycée, Clermont-Ferrand, from 1883 to 1888; the Collège Rollin, Paris, from 1888 to 1889; Lycée Henri Quatre, Paris, from 1889 to 1897; the École Normale Supérieure from 1897 to 1900; and the Collège de France from 1900 until his retirement in 1921. He was elected to the Académie Française in 1914, the same year that the Vatican placed his works in the Index of Prohibited Books. In 1927 he won the Nobel Prize for literature. He nearly converted to Roman Catholicism in the late 1930s, but refused to break solidarity with the oppressed Jews of Europe. He died of pneumonia caught while standing in line in the winter to register as a Jew in occupied France.

At Condorcet he studied classics, showed an aptitude for mathematics, and read Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevski, Jules Lachelier, Farkas Bolyai, Blaise Pascal, George Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, and Jules Tannéry. His puzzlement over the paradoxes of Zeno of Elea first pushed him toward philosophy. At first he was a disciple of Herbert Spencer and admired Charles Darwin and John Stuart Mill, but gradually came under the sway of German Romantics such as Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling and Novalis. This led him to study Plotinus, Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Charles Renouvier, Jean Gaspard Félix Lacher RavaissonMollien, Jaime Luciano Balmès, Antoine Augustin Cournot, Alfred Jules Émile Fouillée, Marie Jean Guyau, Hippolyte Adolphe Taine, and Joseph Ernest Renan at the École Normale Supérieure, where among his teachers were Léon Ollé-Laprune and Émile Boutroux and among his classmates was Jean Léon Jaurès. His earliest publications concerned Pascal (1878), James Sully (1883), and Lucretius (1883).

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Berlin, Irving

In psychology Bergson was inspired by Paracelsus, Franz Anton Mesmer, Charles Richet, Jean Martin Charcot, Claude Bernard, Eduard von Hartmann, Rudolf Hermann Lotze, James Ward, William James, Maine de Biran, Théodule Armand Ribot, Auguste Penjon, Joseph René Léopold Delboeuf, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Bergson and Marcel Proust knew each other from a young age and strongly impressed each other. Bergson married Proust’s cousin, Louise Neuberger, in 1892. It is also said that Bergson and Claude Debussy enjoyed mutual influence. In any case, Bergson’s philosophical concept of durée (the continuity of consciousness) suggests the gentle flow of impressionistic music. Pierre Paul Royer-Collard and Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon, influenced Bergson’s political thought. Émile Durkheim and Bergson steadfastly opposed each other’s sociological views all their lives.

Archives

Bergson’s letters, papers, and memorabilia are dispersed in repositories throughout France. Significant collections are at the Fonds Bergson de la Bibliothèque Doucet, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Académie Française, and the various institutions where he studied or taught.

Printed Sources

Antliff, Mark. Inventing Bergson: Cultural Politics and the Parisian Avant-Garde (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993).

Chevalier, Jacques. Henri Bergson, Lilian A. Clare (trans.), (New York: AMS Press, 1969). Gunter, Pete Addison Y. Henri Bergson: A Bibliography (Bowling Green, Ohio: Philosophy

Documentation Center, 1986).

Hude, Henri. Bergson (Paris: Éditions Univérsitaires, 1989).

Kolakowski, Leszek. Bergson (South Bend, Ind.: St. Augustine’s Press, 2000). Lacey, Alan Robert. Bergson (London: Routledge, 1993).

Moore, Francis Charles Timothy. Bergson: Thinking Backwards (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Mullarkey, John. Bergson and Philosophy (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000).

Scharfstein, Ben-Ami. Roots of Bergson’s Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943).

Soulez, Philippe. Bergson: Biographie (Paris: Flammarion, 1997).

Eric v.d. Luft

BERLIN, IRVING (1888–1989)

Israel Baline (Berlin’s name at birth) was born in Mohilev, Russia, on May 11, 1888. His father, Moses, was a cantor in a local synagogue. At age five, the family immigrated to the United States, taking up residence on the Lower East Side in New York City. “Izzy” attended public school as well as religious instruction. Occasionally, Izzy sang in the synagogue with his father. In his biography As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin, Laurence Bergreen illustrates Moses Berlin’s influence on his son, quoting Berlin: “‘I suppose it was singing in shul that gave me my musical background,’ he recalled. ‘It was in my blood’” (Bergreen 1996, 12).

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At the age of 14, Izzy quit school and left home. Residing in Lower East Side lodging houses, Izzy earned money singing in Bowery saloons. He entertained his customers by composing and performing parodies of popular songs. Collaborating with pianist Mike Nicholson, Berlin wrote his first song, “Marie from Sunny Italy” in 1907. In 1911, Berlin served as both composer and lyricist for his first major hit, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” Within three years, Berlin formed his own music publishing company, Irving Berlin, Inc.

Berlin describes the joy of reading in his song “Lazy,” published in 1924. In Irving Berlin: American Troubadour, Edward Jablonski mentions Berlin’s extraordinary library at his 130 East End Avenue residence. Jablonski states: “Berlin was especially proud of his collection of rare first editions and often compared his acquisitions with those of another avid collector, Jerome Kern” ( Jablonski 1999, 154).

According to Berlin biographer Philip Furia, Berlin had developed an interest in the poetry of the eighteenth-century British satirist Alexander Pope. Furia compares “Pope’s ability to compress his observations on politics, manners, and art within the confines of ten syllables” to “Berlin’s devotion to the restrictions of the thirty-two bar chorus” (Furia 1998, 96).

Berlin was a member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of playwrights, artists, journalists, critics, and actors. The Round Table provided an intellectually stimulating social environment for Berlin. Among the group’s original members were Berlin’s biographer and theater critic Alexander Woollcott, Deems Taylor, George S. Kaufman, Robert Benchley, Harold Ross, Heywood Broun, and Robert E. Sherwood.

Berlin’s rise to fame was unlike the average songwriter or playwright, who often produced one hit followed by years of misses. He contributed countless hits as a songwriter, a composer of music for the Broadway stage, and as a film score composer for several major Hollywood musicals. Despite Berlin’s lack of a formal education, he dedicated himself to self-improvement. Laurence Bergreen presents Berlin’s intentions toward self-study: “‘I never had a chance for much schooling,’ he now explained with endearing candor, ‘so I couldn’t read the good books I wished to because I had to look up too many of the big words. I’m taking time now to look those words up. I’m trying to get at least a bowing acquaintance with the world’s best literature, and some knowledge of history, and all of the famous dead people’ ” (Bergreen 1996, 115).

Archives

Irving Berlin Archive, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Printed Sources

Bergreen, Laurence. As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin [1990] (New York: Da Capo Press, 1996).

Freedland, Michael. Irving Berlin [1974] (New York: A Scarborough Book–Stein and Day Publishers, 1978).

Furia, Philip. Irving Berlin: A Life in Song (New York: Schirmer Books, 1998).

Hamm, Charles. Irving Berlin: Songs from the Melting Pot: The Formative Years, 1907–1914

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

Jablonski, Edward. Irving Berlin: American Troubador (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999).

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Bernstein, Leonard

Kimball, Robert, and Linda Emmet (eds.). The Complete Lyrics of Irving Berlin (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001).

Marianne Wilson

BERNSTEIN, LEONARD (1918–1990)

Leonard Bernstein was born on August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. His mother, Jennie (née Resnick), and his father, Sam, were Russian immigrants. As a young child, “Lenny” enjoyed listening to all types of music. While attending services at Temple Mishkan Tefila with his family, Lenny gained an appreciation for the music of his Jewish heritage. When he was 10, Aunt Clara gave her piano to his family. Shortly thereafter, Lenny began studying piano with Frieda Karp, making outstanding progress.

In 1929, Bernstein graduated from William Lloyd Garrison Grammar School. He continued his education at the Boston Latin School for the next six years. In 1935, Bernstein attended Harvard University, majoring in music. In addition to his piano studies with Heinrich Gebhard, Bernstein “studied English literature, and claimed to have read all the plays of Shakespeare . . . ” (Burton 1994, 35). He wrote music criticism for Modern Music and the Harvard Advocate. Upon his graduation from Harvard in 1939, Bernstein enrolled at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, studying conducting with Fritz Reiner. During the summer of 1940, Bernstein was a conducting student of Serge Koussevitzky at the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood. While Bernstein was working as the assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 1943, guest conductor Bruno Walter unexpectedly became ill. Bernstein made his dramatic debut, filling in for Walter on November 14, 1943.

From a young age, Bernstein observed his father’s dedicated reading of the Talmud. Bernstein’s collection of writings, entitled Findings, contains an essay (dated February 11, 1935) that he wrote while attending Boston Latin School. Referring to his father, Sam, Bernstein states, “his life’s textbook is the Talmud.” He further states that his father uses the Talmud as his guide to both “business ethics and economic construction” and “moral and social ethics” (Bernstein 1982, 13). Bernstein was exposed to literature and poetry while attending both Boston Latin and Harvard University. In Leonard Bernstein, author Humphrey Burton illustrates Bernstein’s reading assignments at Boston Latin: “A scribbled list of titles on the opposite page of his 1934–1935 exercise book gives a hint of the breadth of Leonard’s required reading in his final year: The Story of Philosophy, The Mind in the Making, Why Men Fight, Roads to Freedom, The Arts and The Meaning of Liberal Education” (Burton 1994, 28). In his preface to Bernstein Remembered, violinist Isaac Stern recalls Lenny’s “incredible mind, insatiable in its lust for knowledge, devouring volumes of poetry, history, biography, and philosophy, reveling in the power and beauty of ideas, driven to share his wonder at these human treasures with all who were around him—most particularly young people” (Stern 1991, 7). He later adds, “Russian novels, French poems, Shakespeare, the Bible, the written history of man’s mind, were his roaming fields . . . ” (7). In his book Conversations about Bernstein, William Westbrook Burton asks the composer Lukas Foss: “How important do you think a literary stimulus was to his composition?” Within his reply, Foss

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Bethmann Hollweg, Theobald von

states, “I would say Lenny was the most well-read composer I have ever met; for example, he knew a large amount of poetry from memory” (Burton 1995, 12).

Many of Bernstein’s compositions reveal his love of poetry and literature. The Age of Anxiety, Symphony No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra (1949) was inspired by W. H. Auden’s poetry. Bernstein’s Candide (1956; book by Lillian Hellman) is a comic operetta based on Voltaire’s satire. The musical West Side Story (1957; book by Arthur Laurents) is a twentieth-century interpretation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Bernstein’s songs and choral works feature numerous twentieth-century poets as well as lyrics written by Bernstein. Other works by Bernstein were inspired by biblical or liturgical texts. His Jeremiah, Symphony No. 1 (1942), was based upon material from the Old Testament. The Kaddish, Symphony No. 3 for Orchestra, Boys’ Choir, Speaker, and Soprano Solo (1963), has a religious text written by Bernstein. Mass, A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers, uses text from the Roman Mass as well as additional lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and Leonard Bernstein.

Archives

The Leonard Bernstein Archive, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Printed Sources

Bernstein, Leonard. Findings (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982).

———.The Infinite Variety of Music (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962).

———.The Joy of Music (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1954).

———.The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976).

Burton, Humphrey. Leonard Bernstein (New York: Doubleday, 1994).

Burton, William Westbrook (ed.). Conversations about Bernstein (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

Gottlieb, Jack (ed.). Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, newly rev. and expanded ed. (New York: Anchor Books–Doubleday, 1992).

Gradenwitz, Peter. Leonard Bernstein: The Infinite Variety of a Musician (Leamington Spa, U.K.: Oswald Wolff Books–Berg Publishers, 1987).

Peyser, Joan. Bernstein: A Biography (New York: Beech Tree Books–William Morrow, 1987). Secrest, Meryle. Leonard Bernstein: A Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994).

Stern, Isaac. Preface. Bernstein Remembered, Jane Fluegel (ed.), (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1991).

Marianne Wilson

BETHMANN HOLLWEG, THEOBALD VON (1856–1921)

Born in Hohenfinow, Brandenburg, Bethmann was educated at the elite school Schulpforta and at the universities of Strassburg, Leipzig, and Berlin, where he studied law. A Protestant from a family risen to patent nobility two generations earlier, he became Prussian minister of the interior in 1905 and Imperial state secretary of the interior in 1907. In 1909 he succeeded chancellor Bernhard von Bülow. Bethmann favored modest reform bringing about comprehensive insurance and association laws, and greater autonomy for Alsace-Lorraine. His attempt to modernize Prussia’s electoral system failed because of conservative resistance. Without solid

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support in the Reichstag, he was forced to look for changing majorities. His negotiations with the British over reduction of naval armaments remained unsuccessful because of the opposition by Admiral von Tirpitz backed by emperor William II. After the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian successor to the throne, Bethmann gave a “blank check” to the Austrian government for measures against Serbia. He took the calculated risk of Russia going into action in favor of Serbia, thus setting in motion the alliances and general staff planning culminating in a war among the great powers. Although he would have preferred a negotiated peace, Bethmann made critical concessions to nationalist–expansionist feeling and to military demands. In 1916 his room for maneuver was further diminished by the political influence of the new military leadership under Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Bethmann resisted unrestricted submarine warfare to keep the United States neutral. But he angered the conservatives by taking up again the idea of electoral reform. He had to resign during the debates on the peace resolution passed by the Reichstag in July 1917.

Bethmann’s education exposed him to the study of the classical authors of antiquity, in which he excelled. He was enamored of the correspondence with his younger schoolmate Wolfgang von Oettingen revolving around their poetry. Still in retirement the former chancellor expressed to his Germanist friend how much he valued his letters and poetry. Bethmann extensively read and idealized Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and wrote in 1877: “Wilhelm Meister, just reread, spooks around in my head, so much so that I want to cry” ( Jarausch 1973, 434).

Young Bethmann’s idealism was challenged by the stress on struggle he discovered in the works of Charles Darwin and David Friedrich Strauss. The chancellor’s emphasis on the Hegelian primacy of the state and on evolutionary political devel- opment—that he explicated with reference to an article by his friend, the historian Karl Lamprecht, in 1910—might be attributed to those influences. More obvious is the indebtedness of the chancellor’s rhetoric to the leading apologist of the liberalized monarchical bureaucratic state, Rudolf von Gneist, who had been his teacher in Leipzig.

During World War I Bethmann’s person and political program were subject to heavy criticism in the press. He made broad use of censorship, confiscating among others Pan-German leader Heinrich Class’s annexationist brochure and the volumes of the volkish publicist Hans von Liebig.

In retirement Bethmann participated in the debate over German war guilt by writing his Betrachtungen zum Weltkriege but also by encouraging publications by Admirals von Müller and von Pohl as well as the recollections of Gottlieb von Jagow (former foreign secretary), Otto Hammann (former foreign office press chief ), and Karl Helfferich (former vice chancellor); the latter Bethmann found disappointing.

Archives

Bundesarchiv, Berlin: Bethmann’s personal papers were destroyed during World War II, but the federal archives hold the documents of the imperial chancellery and various other pertinent public records and personal papers.

Printed Sources

Bethmann Hollweg, Theobald von. Betrachtungen zum Weltkriege, 2 vols. (Berlin: Hobbing, 1921–22).

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Bloch, Marc

———. Kriegsreden, Friedrich Thimme (ed.), (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1919). Fischer, Fritz. Griff nach der Weltmacht. Die Kriegszielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschland

1914/18 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1964).

Jarausch, Konrad. The Enigmatic Chancellor: Bethmann Hollweg and the Hubris of Imperial Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973).

Vietsch, Eberhard von. Bethmann Hollweg. Staatsmann zwischen Macht und Ethos (Boppard: Harald Boldt Verlag, 1969).

Alexander Sedlmaier

BLOCH, MARC (1886–1944)

Marc Bloch was born in Lyon, France, where his father, Gustave, a renowned historian of Roman antiquities, was lecturing at the University. In 1888 Gustave Bloch was appointed to the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Here, Marc attended the elite lycée Louis-le-Grand. In 1904 he was admitted at the École Normale Supérieure. After passing the agrégation in 1908, he spent one year in Berlin and Leipzig, studying principally economic history. In 1909 he was granted a fellowship permitting him to concentrate on his doctoral thesis. This work was interrupted by World War I, most of which Bloch spent in the trenches. In 1919 he was integrated into the newly established French University of Strasbourg, where he was appointed as lecturer in medieval history. Having published his thesis Rois et serfs (1920), Bloch was promoted to the position of associate professor in 1921, becoming a full professor in 1927. In the meantime he had published his magistral work Les rois thaumaturges (1924). In 1931 followed Les caractères originaux de l’histoire rurale française, in 1939 and 1940 the great twovolume synthesis La société féodale. After two failed attempts to secure an academic position in Paris, he finally succeeded in 1936, being nominated at the Sorbonne. At the outbreak of war he volunteered, notwithstanding his age. Because of his Jewish origin he was removed from his academic positions and joined the Résistance. In March 1944 he was arrested by the Gestapo and executed at Saint- Didier-de-Formans on June 16. Posthumously were published L’étrange défaite, an astute analysis of the French defeat in 1940, and Apologie pour l’histoire, Bloch’s methodological ref lections on history, which have been received as the author’s professional testament.

Marc Bloch is one of the most influential historians of the twentieth century, even though his fame suffered a partial eclipse until the 1970s and 1980s, when he was rediscovered by the “nouvelle histoire” as one of its ancestors. Les rois thaumaturges were a pioneering example of historical anthropology; in Les caractères originaux Bloch investigated in the perspective of “longue durée” the rural landscape of France, and in La société féodale he explored an entire civilization in an attempt of “histoire totale.” Furthermore, Bloch advocated interdisciplinarity and campaigned for comparative history. Essential to Bloch’s fame is the fact that he was, along with Lucien Febvre (1878–1956), the cofounder of the Annales journal.

Marc Bloch was a prolific reader, which makes it difficult to single out particular literary influences. Still, among the authors having marked Bloch is Numa-Denis Fustel de Coulanges whose republicanism may have filtered to Bloch through his father, who had been Fustel’s student (David 1997, 102–7). Another source of influence may have been the so-called “French geographical school of Paul Vidal de la

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Bohr, Niels Henrik David

Blache.” Its impact, however, was recently minimized in favor of the thriving German “Landesgeschichte” and German economic history (Toubert 1988, 9, 16–24). Indeed, Bloch’s familiarity with German historical writing is illustrated by about 500 reviews of German books and articles, including eight substantial review articles for the Revue historique between 1928 and 1938 (Schöttler 1999, 55). As to Émile Durkheim’s influence on Bloch, it is not easy to evaluate. It has been claimed that Durkheimian sociology was seminal for Bloch’s thinking (Rhodes 1978, 46–51). Indeed, Les rois thaumaturges are built upon concepts such as “collective opinion” or “collective representations,” and Jacques Le Goff perceives Durkheim’s shadow looming behind Bloch (Le Goff 1983, xxxv). Yet Durkheim is not particularly referred to in this book. On the other hand, Bloch does occasionally speak of Durkheim, for instance in his Apologie. There he acknowledges the methodological rigor of the Durkheimian school, but criticizes its schematism. Bloch reproved positivist historiography for its lack of imagination, though in his own oeuvre he always valued its craftsmanship.

Archives

The Bloch papers are in the archives Nationales, Paris (fonds Marc Bloch, AB XIX). Consultation requires special authorization. The edition of the Bloch–Febvre correspondence is planned in three volumes, the first of which was published in 1994: Müller, Bertrand (ed.). Marc Bloch, Lucien Febvre et les Annales d’Histoire Économique et Sociale: Correspondance I 1928–1933 (Paris: Fayard, 1994). Private and other public archival collections are listed in Fink, 355–58.

Printed Sources

David, Jean-Michel. “Marc Bloch et Gustave Bloch, l’Histoire et l’étude de la cité, l’héritage de Fustel de Coulanges.” In Marc Bloch, l’historien et la cité, Pierre Deyon, Jean-Claude Richez et Léon Strauss (eds.), (Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires, 1997).

Dumoulin, Olivier. Marc Bloch (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2000).

Fink, Carole. Marc Bloch: A Life in History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989). Gasnault-Beis, Marie-Claude. “Bibliographie [des oeuvres de Marc Bloch].” In Marc Bloch,

Mélanges historiques II (Paris: École Pratique des Hautes Études, 1963).

Le Goff, Jacques. “Préface.” In Marc Bloch, Les rois thaumaturges (Paris: Gallimard, 1983). Rhodes, R. Colbert. “Emile Durkheim and the Historical Thought of Marc Bloch,” Theory

and Society 5, 1 ( January 1978), 45–73.

Schöttler, Peter. “Marc Bloch und Deutschland.” In Peter Schöttler (ed.), Marc Bloch: Historiker und Widerstandskämpfer (Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 1999).

Toubert, Pierre. “Préface.” In Marc Bloch, Les caractères originaux de l’histoire rurale française

(Paris: Armand Colin, 1988).

Georg Modestin

BOHR, NIELS HENRIK DAVID (1885–1962)

Niels Bohr was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, the son of Christian Bohr, professor of physiology at Copenhagen University. His mother was Ellen (Adler) Bohr. According to Bohr, his father greatly influenced his revolutionary and original studies in physics. Bohr matriculated in 1891 at the Gammelholm Grammar School. In 1903, he entered Copenhagen University, where he studied under Professor C. Christiansen, an original and erudite physicist in his own right. Bohr

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Bohr, Neils Henrik David

received his master’s degree in physics in 1909 and his doctorate in 1911. He briefly studied at Cambridge under J. J. Thompson before moving to Victoria University in Manchester to work under Ernest Rutherford.

In 1911, Rutherford had proposed an atomic model which described the hydrogen atom as a small heavy nucleus surrounded by an electron with a fixed circular orbit, an arrangement completely at odds with the laws of classical physics. Bohr’s genius was to propose that an electron might orbit the nucleus without emitting energy. The two of them formed a close working relationship which resulted in Bohr producing his theory of the hydrogen atom in 1913 at the age of 27.

After lectureships at Copenhagen University (1913–14) and Victoria University (1914–16), and appointment as professor of theoretical physics at Copenhagen University (1916–20), Bohr was appointed as head of the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Copenhagen University, a post held until his death in 1962. In 1922, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics. In 1965 the organization which he had headed for more than four decades was renamed the Niels Bohr Institute.

Bohr was strongly influenced by the ideas, lectures, and writings of Max Planck. By introducing conceptions borrowed from Planck’s Quantum Theory, Bohr succeeded in working out and presenting a picture of atomic structure that, with later improvements (mainly as a result of Werner K. Heisenberg’s ideas in 1925), still serves as an explanation of the physical and chemical properties of the elements. In September 1927 Bohr espoused his principle of complementarity, which gave a physical interpretation of Heisenberg’s uncertainty relations.

During Sunday dinners and at parties, Bohr would often read poetry, including his favorite, Goethe’s “Zueignung.” He greatly admired Goethe’s works, especially his poems and dramas. Bohr also had extensive knowledge of the Danish classics, and could quote from the Icelandic “Eddas” at length.

In 1938 Otto Frisch, who had worked closely with Bohr in Copenhagen, introduced Bohr to Lise Meitner. Meitner explained her theory of uranium fission to Bohr, hypothesizing that by splitting the nucleus of the atom, it was possible to create the explosive and destructive power of many thousands of pounds of dynamite. At a conference held in Washington in January 1939, Bohr explained the possibility of creating nuclear weapons based partially on Meitner’s ideas. After some work with Enrico Fermi, Bohr showed that only the radioisotope uranium-235 would undergo fission with slow neutron decay.

Bohr continued with his research after Denmark was invaded by the German Army. With help from the British Secret Service, Bohr and his family escaped to Sweden in 1943. After moving to the United States he joined Robert Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, Enrico Fermi, and many others as part of the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. After the Second World War Bohr returned to Denmark where he argued for strict controls on the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

Archives

Niels Bohr Institute Blegdamsvej 17 DK—2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.

American Institute of Physics, Center for History of Physics, Niels Bohr Library, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, Maryland 20740-3843, U.S.A.

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Bojaxhiu, Agnes Gonxja

Printed Sources

Aaserud, Finn. Redirecting Science: Niels Bohr, Philanthropy, and the Rise of Nuclear Physics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

Blædel, Niels. Harmoni og enhed (Harmony and Unity: the Life of Niels Bohr) (New York: Springer Verlag, 1988).

Favrholdt, David. Niels Bohr’s Philosophical Background (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1992). Pais, Abraham. A Tale of Two Continents, A Physicist’s Life in a Turbulent World (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1997).

Peter E. Carr

BOJAXHIU, AGNES GONXJA (1910–1997)

Mother Teresa of Calcutta was born Agnes Bojaxhiu to a prosperous Albanian merchant family in Skopje, Serbia. She was the youngest of three children. The death of her father in 1919 reduced the family to economic hardship but engendered in young Agnes an appreciation of nonmaterial virtues. By age 12, Agnes had determined that she wanted to become a Catholic nun, and for the following six years, she, her family, and her church leaders tested the strength of her vocational commitment. In 1928, Agnes left Skopje to join the Sisters of Loreto, a missionary order based in Dublin, Ireland, but conducting missionary efforts in Calcutta, India, where the young nun was soon sent. Agnes assumed the name Sister Mary Teresa, reflecting her affinity for St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the French Carmelite nun whose best-selling autobiographical Story of a Soul recounted her devotional path of humble simplicity. After nearly twenty years of teaching in Calcutta, Sister Teresa was overcome with a desire to serve God by administering to the poorest of the poor in India, an inspiration she had described as “a call within a call.” Soon afterward, Sister Teresa embarked on a unique mission to minister to society’s most needy, hungry, diseased, and outcast members. She was granted Indian citizenship in 1949 and, one year later, her missionary work among India’s poorest people was given the papal stamp of approval when Pope Pius XII approved the foundation of her Order of the Missionaries of Charity. Leading the order she founded over the course of 50 years, what began as a personal vocation to minister to the poor aided by a few of her former students from Calcutta evolved into a worldwide network of shelters, dispensaries, and homes for the sick and dying. In appreciation for the sizable effects of her order’s small works of mercy, Mother Teresa was honored with the Nobel Prize for peace in 1979. By the time of her death in 1997, the Missionaries of Charity boasted more than 4,000 sisters in some 130 countries.

In keeping with her adherence to devotional simplicity, Mother Teresa’s literary influences are themselves simple, though some embody foundational precepts of the Catholic faith. Her missionary vocation was shaped early on from reading letters and reports of Indian missionary work published in the periodical Catholic Missions during the 1920s, and some of her own letters from abroad were afterward published in the journal’s pages. Mother Teresa’s own work and writings were heavily influenced by the New Testament, especially chapter 25, verse 35 of St. Matthew’s Gospel, which admonishes Christians to recognize Christ in all those in need. “For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and

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