Kas Eduard Ahrens oli eestlane?
Was Eduard Ahrens an Ethnic Estonian?

Summary/Abstract: The article sheds some light on the childhood and youth of the outstanding linguist Eduard Ahrens (1803–1863). The study has been inspired by an intriguing statement launched by Acad. Paul Ariste in the journal Keel ja Kirjandus in 1968 and repeated by Prof. Paul Alvre in 1993 to the effect that "there is documentary proof that Eduard Ahrens had a purely Estonian background". What archival documents do say is that his father Johann Hartwig Ahrens, who worked as a land surveyor at Paide county, came from Stralsund, Germany, while Eduard's mother was the youngest daughter of a Baltic-German family of Schneider. Evidently Eduard Ahrens identified himself as Estonian in order to underline his homeland.

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