Christoph Hartknoch was a Prussian

Prussia (region)

Prussia is a historical region in Central Europe extending from the south-eastern coast of the Baltic Sea to the Masurian Lake District. It is now divided between Poland, Russia, and Lithuania...

 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...

 and educator.

Biography

Hartknoch was born in Jablonken (Jabłonka) near Ortelsburg (Szczytno)

Szczytno

Szczytno is a town in north-eastern Poland with 27,970 inhabitants . Previously part of the Olsztyn Voivodeship, Szczytno was assigned to the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship in 1999. It is the seat of Szczytno County....

 in the Duchy of Prussia. His father, Stephan Hartknoch of Lyck (Ełk), is recorded to have been married for 100 years and to have lived to the age of 130. In 1650 the family moved to Passenheim (Pasym)

Pasym

Pasym is a small town in Szczytno County, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland, with 2,522 inhabitants .-History:A small settlement named Heinrichswalde was first mentioned in 1381...

 and there witnessed the brutality and horrors of the Polish Tatar attacks, fighting for the Kingdom of Poland, in southern Prussia. His life was saved by his teacher, who shoved him out the window. Numerous villages in the region were destroyed, but Hartknoch made it to the ducal capital of Königsberg

Königsberg

Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

 (Królewiec).

In Königsberg Hartknoch started studying theology at a Protestant

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

 institute. Soon after his parents died and he had to take on jobs. He became a private teacher in Kowno (Kaunas)

Kaunas

Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...

 and then a rector in the Protestant school in Wilno (Vilnius)

Vilnius

Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...

. He soon returned to Königsberg where books and records interested him in history.

In 1679 Hartknoch published a book about Prussian history, first in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 and then in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 (Alt- und Neues Preussen), as well as Preussische Kirchen-Historia, a history of the church in Prussia. The works are accompanied by descriptions and illustrations of people, history, and culture, as well as copper etching illustrations of towns. He received ethnographical information from the priest Matthäus Prätorius

Matthäus Prätorius

Matthäus Prätorius was a Protestant pastor, later a Roman Catholic priest, a historian and ethnographer....

.

Hartknoch's work in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Kaunas, and Vilnius awoke his interest in their history. He wrote a comprehensive work on the Commonwealth spanning 300 years, the first of its kind.

In 1677 the mostly Protestant city Toruń

Torun

Toruń is an ancient city in northern Poland, on the Vistula River. Its population is more than 205,934 as of June 2009. Toruń is one of the oldest cities in Poland. The medieval old town of Toruń is the birthplace of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus....

 (Thorn) invited Hartknoch to become director at its gymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

, where he worked for ten years. Wearied through years of Tatar attacks and resulting poverty, Hartknoch died and was buried there in 1687 at the age of 43.

Hartknoch's extensive scientific body of works contributed greatly to knowledge of Prussia, Pomerania

Pomerania

Pomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...

, Samogitia

Samogitia

Samogitia is one of the five ethnographic regions of Lithuania. It is located in northwestern Lithuania. Its largest city is Šiauliai/Šiaulē. The region has a long and distinct cultural history, reflected in the existence of the Samogitian dialect...

, Courland

Courland

Courland is one of the historical and cultural regions of Latvia. The regions of Semigallia and Selonia are sometimes considered as part of Courland.- Geography and climate :...

, and Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

.

Nicolaus Copernicus portrait

In his book covering the history of Prussia, Hartknoch features an illustration of Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance astronomer and the first person to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric cosmology which displaced the Earth from the center of the universe....

. Hartknoch wrote: Von den Städten und Schlössern. Der berühmte Mathematicus Nicolaus Copernicus (About the cities and castles. The famous mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus). The book was written later in Hartknoch's life, when he was director at the Gymnasium of Thorn.

Work

• Respublica Polonica duobus libris illustrata. Frankfurt
  Frankfurt
  Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
  
  , Leipzig
  Leipzig
  Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
  
  , 1678
• Selectae dissertationes historicae de variis rebus Prussicis. 1679
• Altes und Neues Preussen (literally 'Old and New Prussia'). Frankfurt, Königsberg, 1684
• Preussische Kirchen-Historia (History of the Prussian Church). Frankfurt, Danzig, 1686