Arthur Christensen

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Christensen, Arthur

Born Jan. 9, 1875, in Copenhagen; died there, Mar. 31, 1945. Danish Orientalist and authority on the history and literature of ancient and medieval Iran and the modern Iranian language.

Christensen graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1899, becoming a professor there in 1919. His most important works deal with the history of the Sassanid state and Zoroastrianism and with ancient Persian mythology and epics. He also wrote a book on Mazdakism, which he regarded as “one of the first communist movements.”

WORKS

L’Iran sous les Sassanides, 2nd. ed. Copenhagen, 1944.
Le Règne du roi Kawadh I et le communisme Mazdakite. Copenhagen, 1925.

REFERENCE

Barr, K. “A. Christensen.” In Oversight over Selskabets Virksomhed, juni 1945-maj 1946. Copenhagen, 1946. (Det Kgl Danske Videnskabernes Selskab.)

References in periodicals archive ?

Under the Sassanids, Zoroastrian Iran developed what the Danish historian, Arthur Christensen, has called "a magnificent edifice." Although not on a par with Greece or Rome, it had its centers of learning, including the famed university of Jundi Shapur, today's Ahwaz, where many Christian and Greek scientists came when Byzantium's policies discouraged learning.

Calling Iranians 'Descendants of the Magi' is actually a compliment

Samra Azarnouche ("Le sejour de Jam en Enfer") adds additional texts to the large dossier found in the fundamental study of the Iranian material by Arthur Christensen, Le premier homme et le premier roi dans l'histoire legendaire des Iraniens ([2.sup.emc] partie, Leiden 1934).

Yama/Yima: Variations indo-iraniennes sur la geste mythique / Variations on the Indo-Iranian Myth of Yama/Yima

Of the Danes, Edward Said mentions only Holger Pedersen, who was engaged in a dispute with Ernest Renan, but in fact a number of these Danish orientalists received international recognition, among others Rasmus Rask, Arthur Christensen, Johannes Ostrup, Johannes Pedersen, Frants Buhl.

A third was Arthur Christensen, the son of a postman.

Arthur Christensen, who specialized in Persian culture, described how his passion for the Orient was aroused by reading The Thousand and One Nights and Illustreret Familie-Journal, the most popular family magazine in Denmark, published since 1877.

Danish orientalism

Senior vice president of sales and marketing Arthur Christensen says that, although Safetex brought out a condom for women, its sales have been disappointing.

Condom sales rise about 4% at chains

Pourshariati's theories demystify our long-standing beliefs, shaped, primarily, by the Danish scholar Arthur Christensen's magnum opus seven decades ago, which portrayed the Sasanian polity as a highly centralized state in which the ruling monarch governed as the supreme figure of the Persian empire, with the help of an "orthodox" and dogmatic Zoroastrian clergy.