Raphael von Koeber

Raphael of Koeber ( born January 15, 1848 in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, † June 14, 1923 in Yokohama ) was a German - Russian philosopher and musician, who taught at the University of Tokyo.

Life

Koeber was born in Russia, the son of a German father and a Russian mother. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory and at the universities of Jena and Heidelberg, where he in 1880 Dr. phil. received his doctorate.

From 1893 he taught philosophy, Greek, Latin and German at the Philosophical Faculty of the Imperial University of Tōkyō, where he retired in 1914. His most famous student was the writer Natsume Soseki.

He taught from 1898 to 1909 and at the School of Music Tokyo, now part of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Supposedly he wrote the music for the 1901 opening of the Nihon Joshi Daigaku. In 1903 he accompanied the first opera, which was performed in Japan, on the piano.

Due to the outbreak of war in 1914 Koeber could not go as planned to return to Russia and stayed in the house of the Russian Consul-General Arthur C. Wilm, Yokohama. In 1923, he died in Yokohama. His grave is in the cemetery Zōshigaya in Tokyo, his tomb is regarded as a cultural asset.