Gottfried Lengnich
Gottfried Lengnich (Polish Gotfryd Lengnich ) ( born December 4, 1689 Gdansk, † April 28, 1774 ) was a historian Danziger, a jurist and political theorist.
Life
Lengnich came from a merchant family. He attended the Academic Gymnasium Danzig and then studied from 1710, especially from scholars Nicholas Jerome Gundling dressed in Hall law, history and rhetoric. Here he could Gundling intervention, to work on the magazine New Hallische library.
After graduating, he returned to Danzig. First, without a job, he devoted himself to historical studies and published from 1718 the Polish Library Journal, which was discontinued a year later. Lengnich wanted to put on a critical and scientific basis of the history of his country. Danzig was, since 1466 the Crown of Poland assigned as part of Prussia royal share. He wrote in his book History of the Prussian land:
" By voluntarily surrender to the King of Poland, Prussia unterwarff a new master, without surrender of the old liberties ... The link with a foreign puple made in the Haubt pieces of bißherigen Constitution does not change ... the king .. had to conform to various regulations. From this it followed that the Poles and Prussia also accounted for under a king zweene particular States. "
The western Prussia was 1772/1793 of the Kingdom of Prussia.
1721 commissioned him to the City Council with the continuation of the Historia Rerum Prussicarum ( 1592) by Caspar contactor; the nine -volume history of the Prussian land appeared from 1722 to 1725 and is considered his major work. 1729 he was appointed professor of poetry, rhetoric, history and law to the Academic School Gdansk. He was also temporarily tutor to the future King Stanislaus Poniatowski. In 1738 he became an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, 1740 advisor of King Augustus III .. As Gdańsk Counsel, he tried in 1750 between the Polish court, the Council formed mainly from scholars of the city and the commercial opposition to convey, at the same time exploring and he systematized the traditional laws of the city.
1740 Lengnich wrote the book Polish history, which was printed in 1741 Dan (t ) tens. He dedicated it to men Stanislao Ciolek Poniatowski. Lengnich is considered one of the pioneers of enlightened historiography in Poland. Politically, he supported the autonomy aspirations of the middle class in Danzig and the Polish Prussia, which he. Gralath with Daniel and two other councilors Danziger legally and historically documented and studied Prussian country explicitly as his "Fatherland" Programmatically, he cited the publication of the first edition of the Polish Library, the town of Tannenberg. There was defeated in 1410 the army of the Teutonic Order in the Battle of Tannenberg (1410 ) the united Polish -Lithuanian forces, which later the detachment of the Prussian cities enabled by the Order.