August Ludwig von Schlözer

August Ludwig von Schlozer, also under the pseudonym of Johann Joseph Haigold writing and sometimes written Schlötzer (* July 5, 1735 Gaggstatt (county of Hohenlohe- Kirchberg, Kirchberg today at the Jagst); † September 9, 1809 in Göttingen ) was a German historian, constitutional lawyer, writer, publicist, philologist, teacher and statistician of the Enlightenment.

Life and work

Schlozer, son of the pastor Johann Georg Friedrich Schlozer († 1740), began in 1751 to study theology at the University of Wittenberg. The reputation of the famous orientalist Johann David Michaelis, following, he continued his studies in Göttingen. To deepen his understanding of the Bible, he studied geography and languages ​​of the East in preparation for a trip to Palestine. The project, which he intensely pursued long is indicative of the nature of his thinking: For a theoretical problem he sought through practical testing an in-depth knowledge. He was extremely talented, take strange productive; came near factual involvement and an unusual labor. He also studied medicine and political science. Three years as a tutor in Sweden enough for him to write in Swedish academic papers. His attempt at a general history of the act and seafaring in ancient times ( 1758), translated into German in 1761, is an example of his history, the life-world with economic and political factors connects to arrive at a more complete historical knowledge.

From 1761 to 1770 in Russia, first as a private tutor, then as an adjunct of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and teacher of Russian history, he took very quickly to the demands of his new surroundings and immersed himself in the sources on Russian history. From this employment his main work, the edition of the Old Russian Primary Chronicle (1802-1809), the exact knowledge and reflection was occupied by the historical method. Tsar Alexander I paid tribute to his contribution to the history of Russia through ennoblement. With his appointment as full professor in the Faculty of Arts of the University of Gottingen Schlozer had his destiny found. He first taught world history, after the death of Gottfried Achenwall also statistics, policy, recent political history and constitutional law. As a teacher, he fascinated his students, among them future politicians and officials such as Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg, through his teaching skill to disclose the presence importance of historical knowledge, his outspoken criticism of any magisterial caprice and his passionate political temperament.

In his mind, his history ( 1772) Schlozer writes the further development of humanity to the good governance of man. History and politics were related to each other in his understanding. In the context of the emerging bourgeois public sphere take the author and reader participate in a historical discourse, opened the Schlozer through explicit styling to the reader.

Fundamental to its constitutional and political ideas is his writing Stats Show ( 1804), which contains a metapolitics called reflection and a theory of statistics in addition to the general state law and the state constitution doctrine. His understanding of statistics, which he once defined as " stagnant history " in contrast to the as " continuous Statistics" -characterized story that had an influence on his famous companies: August Ludwig Schlozer correspondence mostly historical and political content (1778-1782) and State Advertisements ( 1782-1793 ). It seemed important to collect all the information that could describe and explain the situation in each country. As historian past worlds explored so acted, the statistician Schlozer as editor of its magazine with the goal of educating the present. His company has been extremely successful, his publicity was feared by those in power. In his article, but repeated judicial murder in Switzerland ( reprinted in the Stats Show), in which he criticized the witch trial of Anna Goeldi in 1782 in the Swiss Glarus, he coined the German word judicial murder.

Schlozer has stimulated public debate on the norms and values ​​of politics and of human society as a teacher, writer and publicist, and promoted the development of the bourgeois emancipation, a feat that he himself - tired and bitter at the end of his life - has criticized.

In 1769 he had the 16 -year-old Caroline Friederike Roederer, daughter of the anatomist Johann Georg Roederer married. The only surviving daughter from this marriage was Dorothea Schlozer ( 1770-1825 ). At the request of her father, she received instruction in mathematics, history, French, English, Dutch, Swedish, Italian, Latin, Spanish, Hebrew, and Greek, and was in 1787 in Göttingen as the first female candidate philosophical doctoral examination. It is one of the known as " Universitätsmamsellen " group Göttingen scholars daughters of the 18th century.

After her doctorate, she helped her father in the development of coin money and mining history of the Russian Empire of 1700-1789 (1791 ). 1792 she married the Lübeck merchant and later senator Matthew Roddenberry, whose house she made in the following years to a social center of the Hanseatic city. After he went bankrupt in 1810, the family moved to Göttingen.

Honors

• Schlozer was a member of many learned societies. In 1761 he became a member of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, 1762 Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, in 1769 the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and in the same year, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
• In 1782 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Innsbruck.
• 1803 Schlozer was charged by Russian Tsar Alexander I for his service to the Russian historiography with presentation of St. Vladimir 4th Class Order of the Russian nobility.
• In Kirchberg an der Jagst ( in the suburb of Gaggstatt ) first a road the primary, secondary and junior high school was named after Schlozer and 2010 renamed in August- Ludwig- Schlözer school.

Works (selection)

• August Ludwig Schlozer [ ... ] idea of his Universal History, Göttingen; Gotha 1772-1773 (Vol. 1 as digitized and full text in German Text Archive, Vol 2 as digitized and full text in German Text Archive )
• Oskold and you, Göttingen / Gotha in 1773 ( digitized )
• Ernst Ludwig, Duke of Braunschweig and Lüneburg, kaiserl. royal. and of the Holy Roman Empire Field Marshal, Göttingen 1787 ( digitized )
• Critical collections on the history of the Germans in Transylvania. Göttingen 1795 ( full text )
• Coin, money, and mining history of the Russian Empire, Göttingen 1797 ( digitized )
• De vita dei, Vitembergae ( digitized )