August Ludwig von Schlözer
Encyclopedia
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
who laid foundations for the critical study of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n history.
Early career
August Ludwig von Schlözer was born at Gaggstatt (today Kirchberg an der JagstKirchberg an der Jagst
Kirchberg an der Jagst is a town in the district of Schwäbisch Hall, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the river Jagst, 11 km northwest of Crailsheim.The Second World War resistance member Friedrich Gustav Jaeger was born here....
), Württemberg
Württemberg
Württemberg , formerly known as Wirtemberg or Wurtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....
. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all were protestant clergymen. In 1751 he followed them and began his studies in theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
in University of Wittenberg, moving in 1754 to the increasingly famous University of Göttingen to study history. After his studies he went in 1755 as a tutor to Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, where he spent a year and a half as tutor in the family of the minister of the German congregation, and during 1756/1757 in Uppsala
Uppsala University
Uppsala University is a research university in Uppsala, Sweden, and is the oldest university in Scandinavia, founded in 1477. It consistently ranks among the best universities in Northern Europe in international rankings and is generally considered one of the most prestigious institutions of...
, studying Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
and Gothic
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
with the philologist Johan Ihre
Johan Ihre
Johan Ihre was a Swedish philologist and historical linguist.Ihre was born in Lund, son of the theologian Thomas Ihre and his spouse Brita Steuchia...
, then again in Stockholm as secretary of a German merchant. While in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
he wrote in Swedish an Essay on the General History of Trade and of Seafaring in the most Ancient Times (1758) on Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
ns, which together with a publication on Swedish history made him fairly well known. In 1759 he returned to Göttingen
Göttingen
Göttingen is a university town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Göttingen. The Leine river runs through the town. In 2006 the population was 129,686.-General information:...
, where he began the study of medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
.
In 1761 he went to St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
with Gerhardt Friedrich Müller
Gerhardt Friedrich Müller
Gerhard Friedrich Müller was a historian and pioneer ethnologist.-Biography:He was educated at Leipzig.In 1725, he was invited to St. Petersburg to co-found the Imperial Academy of Sciences...
, the Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n historiographer, as Müller's literary assistant and as tutor in his family. Here Schlözer learned Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
and devoted himself to the study of Russian history. In 1762 a quarrel with Müller placed him in a position of some difficulty from which he was delivered by an introduction to Count Rasumovski
Kirill Razumovsky
Count Kirill Grigorievich Razumovsky was a Ukrainian Registered Cossack from the Kozelets regiment in north-eastern Ukraine, who served as the last Hetman of Left- and Right-Bank Ukraine until 1764; Razumovsky was subsequently elected Hetman of the sovereign Zaporozhian Host in 1759, a position...
, who procured his appointment as adjunct to the Academy. In 1765 he was appointed by the Empress Catherine an ordinary member of the Academy and professor of Russian history. In 1767, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences or Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. The Academy is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization which acts to promote the sciences, primarily the natural sciences and mathematics.The Academy was founded on 2...
.
Return to Göttingen
In 1767 he left Russia on leave and did not return. He settled at Göttingen, where in 1764 he had been made professor extraordinarius, and doctor honoris causa in 1766, and in 1769 he was promoted to an ordinary professorship. Schlözer was acknowledged a brilliant professor who drew crowds of students, amongst whom were Arnold HeerenArnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren
Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren was a German historian.He was born at Arbergen, near Bremen. He studied philosophy, theology and history at the University of Göttingen, and then travelled in France, Italy and the Netherlands...
, Karl Friedrich Eichhorn
Karl Friedrich Eichhorn
Karl Friedrich Eichhorn was a German jurist.Eichhorn was born in Jena as the son of Johann Gottfried Eichhorn. He entered the University of Göttingen in 1797. In 1805 he obtained the professorship of law at Frankfurt , holding it till 1811, when he accepted the same chair at the new Friedrich...
and Johannes von Müller
Johannes von Müller
Johannes von Müller was a Swiss historian.-Biography:He was born at Schaffhausen, where his father was a clergyman and rector of the gymnasium. In his youth, his maternal grandfather, Johannes Schoop , roused in him an interest in the history of his country...
. Schlözer had broad interests. He translated a pedagogical piece by the Frenchman
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
De La Chalatois in 1771, as well as a travel book about Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
for children and an introductory work on world history (Vorbereitung zur Weltgeschichte für Kinder, 1779). Schlözer criticised harshly Johann Bernhard Basedow
Johann Bernhard Basedow
Johann Bernhard Basedow was a German educational reformer, teacher and writer. He founded the Philanthropinum, a short-lived but influential progressive school in Dessau, and was the author of "Elementarwerk", a popular illustrated textbook for children.-Early years:Basedow was born in Hamburg,...
, a then famous pedagogue, for his education approach using games and for his separation of girls and boys education.
Schlözer's activity was enormous, and he exercised great influence by his lectures as well as by his books, bringing historical study into touch with political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
generally, and using his vast erudition in an attempt to solve practical questions in the state and in society. Schlözer was interested in politics and statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
. He was a proponent of John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
and Montesquieu
Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu
Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu , generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment...
. Statistics were also important to him for their informational value for government. His exchange of ideas about the study of people and society with Adam F. Kollár
Adam František Kollár
Adam František Kollár − Adam Franz Kollár in older English sources, a Slovak lower nobleman, was a historian, ethnologist, and as Imperial-Royal Court Councilor and Chief Imperial-Royal Librarian, an influential advocate of Empress Maria Theresa's Enlightened and centralist policies...
in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
helped Kollár to clarify his own approach, incorporate and broaden some of Schlözer's views and eventually coin the term ethnology and provide its first definition in 1783.
Between 1776 and 1782 he had his own political periodical: A.L. Schlözer's Briefwechsel meist historischen und politischen Inhalts (10 vols.); continued between 1782 and 1793 with the name A.L. Schlözer's Staats-Anzeigen (18 vols.) by which he produced a strong impression. This periodical criticised the German government harshly, and was widely read with up to 4400 subscribers. It was first in German to publish the declaration of human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
in 1791. In 1793 the government prohibited the publication of the Staats-Anzeigen.
Schlözer was a versatile historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
giving lectures on a range of issues including Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
, the Dutch revolution, banks, the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
(already in 1790), luxury, and the history of Germans in Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
, while continuing publishing on Russian history. His Allgemeine nordische Geschichte (General northern history), 2 vols. (Halle, 1772) was long considered a reference work on Russian history. He translated the famous Nestor Chronicle to the year 980, 5 vols. (Göttingen, 1802–1809). 1769 he started lecturing on the general world history, a topic reserved to the most educated in that time. The growing knowledge of other continents and the past posed a challenge to historians. How to compress all this information in history books in an understandable way? And what are the criteria for selecting and sorting information? In other words, scholars sought fundamental threads in history. Hundreds of articles and books addressed this question in the second half of the 18th century, drawing famous intellectuals including Herder and Schiller. Schlözer contributed to these discussions and published his Vorstellung einer Universalgeschichte in 1772. He continued to improve this piece in the following decades, until finalising the Weltgeschichte nach ihren Haupttheilen im Auszug und Zusammenhange (Main elements of world history in excerpts and context), 2 vols (2nd ed., Göttingen, 1792–1801).
World History
The Weltgeschichte (World History) provides guidance for education. Parts of this piece appear unfinished and it sometimes has a halting style. Its ideas are sometime superseded or plain wrong. However, other ideas are fascinating, one of which is globally applied until today as we will see in the following. The Weltgeschichte is a fascinating work that offers insight in the state of science at that time. Schlözer tackled three challenges: the scope, the topic and the structure of a global history.Since Schlözer opposed a strictly European perspective, the scope was the entire mankind. Moreover, he included all classes of society and social and cultural developments. The development of glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
by the Phoenicia
Phoenicia
Phoenicia , was an ancient civilization in Canaan which covered most of the western, coastal part of the Fertile Crescent. Several major Phoenician cities were built on the coastline of the Mediterranean. It was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean from 1550...
ns and the introduction of potatoes in Europe were more important than the names of the Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
or German emperors.
The central topic was development and the influence of historical events on today. Schlözer identified five fundamental factors for development: "Die Lebensart bestimmt, Klima und Nahrungsart erschafft, der Herrscher zwingt, der Priester lehrt, und das Beispiel reisst fort". (Schlözer, Weltgeschichte I, 66) – "The life-style determines, climate and nutrition creates, the sovereign forces, the priest teaches, and the example inspires.".
Schlözer also developed a structure for a universal history
Universal history
Universal history is basic to the Western tradition of historiography, especially the Abrahamic wellspring of that tradition. Simply stated, universal history is the presentation of the history of humankind as a whole, as a coherent unit.-Ancient authors:...
, separating it in six epochs:
- Urwelt (primeval world) - from the creation to the Flood
- Dunkle Welt (dark world) - from the flood to MosesMosesMoses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
and the first written sources - Vorwelt (preworld) - up to the Persian Empire
- Alte Welt (old world) - up to the fall of the Roman EmpireRoman EmpireThe Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
in 476 A.D. - Mittelalter (Middle Ages) - up to the discovery of AmericaAmericasThe Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
by Christopher ColumbusChristopher ColumbusChristopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
in 1492 - Neue Welt (the new world) - up to the present
This classification was not new, except for setting the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
between 476 and 1492, which he as well as his colleague and rival in Göttingen Johann Christoph Gatterer
Johann Christoph Gatterer
Johann Christoph Gatterer was a German historian who was a native of Lichtenau, Bavaria. He was the father of cameralist Christoph Wilhelm Jacob Gatterer and poet Magdalena Philippine Engelhard ....
suggested roughly at the same time. These time borders for the Middle Ages are still accepted today.
Schlözer’s most important innovation, however, was his suggestion to count backwards from the birth of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
. An incentive for this was the growing disbelief of the biblical Creation and the then generally acknowledged creation date of 3987 BC. First speculations that the Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
and the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
were perhaps created tens of thousands of years ago emerged in the 18th century. Schlözer's suggestion offered room for further theories about the creation of the Earth. Schlözer mentioned in a footnote that he adopted this idea from foreign historians, but did not reveal them. Whoever they were, Schlözer was the one to introduce this novel chronology into the European history, an act of tremendous importance for it was the fundamental for all ancient history. According to the philosopher Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact...
, this new method enabled man to look back "into an indefinite past to which one can add at will and into which we can inquire further as it stretches ahead". August Ludwig von Schlözer was instrumental in abandoning Creation beliefs of our collective consciousness
Collective consciousness
Collective consciousness was a term coined by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim to refer to the shared beliefs and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society...
, more than anybody else.
In 1804 Schlözer was ennobled by the emperor Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia
Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....
and made a privy councillor. He retired from active work in 1805. He was much admired by the new Russian historiographer Nikolai Karamzin, while the professors Mikhail Kachenovsky and Mikhail Pogodin
Mikhail Pogodin
Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin was a Russian historian and journalist who, jointly with Nikolay Ustryalov, dominated the national historiography between the death of Nikolay Karamzin in 1826 and the rise of Sergey Solovyov in the 1850s. He is best remembered as a staunch proponent of the Normanist...
proclaimed themselves Schlozer's followers.
Family life
Schlözer, who in 1769 married Caroline Roederer, daughter of Johann Georg RoedererJohann Georg Roederer
Johann Georg Roederer was a German physician and obstetrician who was a native of Strasbourg. He was father-in-law to historian August Ludwig von Schlözer ....
(1726–1763), professor of medicine at Göttingen and body physician to the king of England, left five children. His daughter Dorothea, born on August 10, 1770, was one of the most beautiful and learned women of her time, and received in 1787 the degree of doctor. She was recognized as an authority on several subjects, especially on Russian coin
Coin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
age. After her marriage with Rodde, a burgomaster of Lübeck
Lübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
, she devoted herself to domestic duties. She died on July 12, 1825 (see Reuter, Dorothea Schlözer, Göttingen, 1887). Schlözer's son Christian (1774–1831) was a professor at Bonn, and published Anfangsgründe der Staatswirthschaft (1804–1806) and his father's Öffentliches und Privat-Leben aus Originalurkunden (1828). The youngest son, Karl von Schlözer, a merchant and Russian consul-general at Lübeck
Lübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
, was the father of Kurd von Schlözer
Kurd von Schlözer
Kurd von Schlözer ' was an imperial German historian, diplomat and German Ambassador to the United States from 1871 to 1882.-Family:...
(1822–1894), the historian and diplomatist, who in 1871 was appointed German ambassador to the United States and in 1882 to the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
, when he was instrumental in healing the breach between Germany and the papacy caused by the May Laws
May Laws
Temporary regulations regarding the Jews were proposed by minister of internal affairs Nikolai Ignatyev and enacted on May 15 , 1882, by Tsar Alexander III of Russia...
.
See also
- LiberalismLiberalismLiberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
- Contributions to liberal theoryContributions to liberal theoryIndividual contributors to classical liberalism and political liberalism are associated with philosophers of the Enlightenment. Liberalism as a specifically named ideology begins in the late 18th century as a movement towards self-government and away from aristocracy...
- History of the worldHistory of the worldThe history of the world or human history is the history of humanity from the earliest times to the present, in all places on Earth, beginning with the Paleolithic Era. It excludes non-human natural history and geological history, except insofar as the natural world substantially affects human lives...
- EthnographyEthnographyEthnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...