Alexander von Siebold

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Alexander George Gustav von Siebold (born August 16, 1846 in Leiderdorp ; † January 23, 1911 in Pegli ) was the eldest son of Philipp Franz von Siebold . He worked as a German translator and interpreter in Japan during the Bakumatsu and early Meiji periods.

biography

After his father was expelled from Japan in 1826, he settled in Leiden in the Netherlands . He married Helene von Gagern in 1845 and had three sons and two daughters. With the signing of the Japanese-Dutch trade agreement - one of the unequal treaties - Japan's policy of isolation ended in 1858 and von Siebold returned to Japan. As part of the Prussian East Asia expedition , the young Alexander traveled to Japan with his father from 1859–1861. They lived together in Nagasaki and Alexander was soon fluent in Japanese. When his father got the position of foreign advisor to the Tokugawa Shogunate , both traveled to Edo , today's Tokyo , where they lived with the Prussian consul. Edo was anything but safe at that time, Sonnō jōi Rōnin regularly attacked foreigners. After the British consulate was raided and burned down, father and son returned to Nagasaki. Soon after, Alexander got a job as an official interpreter for the Imperial Russian Navy in Nagasaki.

In 1862, Alexander was appointed official interpreter for the British Consulate in Edo, despite his youth (he was only 15 at the time) and the fact that English was not his first language. His father, however, was unable to find a new job and went back to the Netherlands. Much of the foreign affairs and negotiations with the Tokugawa shogunate were still conducted in Dutch, and when English became necessary, such as the negotiations on the Namamugi incident , Alexander received assistance from Ernest Satov .

Alexander supported the British consul Edward St. John Neale during the bombing of Kagoshima and was housed on the flagship HMS Euryalus during the conflict in August 1863 . He accompanied the European task force during the bombing of Shimonoseki and in the negotiations in 1864 about the opening of the port of Hyogo to foreign settlers and trade.

He continued his father's collecting and research activities in Japan and acquired Japanese cultural assets for many museums. A significant part of his collection is housed in the Museum of Five Continents in Munich.

He accompanied Tokugawa Akitake on his visit to the World's Fair in Paris in France in 1867 . Because of the Meiji Restoration , Tokugawa Akitake had to travel back to Japan, while Alexander von Siebold initially stayed in Europe and only returned to Japan in 1869, the year after, as an advisor for the Austro-Hungarian Empire . He was then ennobled by Franz Joseph I with the title of baron .

In August 1870 he resigned from the British Consulate. However, the new Meiji government found use for his talents and he was sent to London and then to Frankfurt to make preparations for Japanese students in these countries and to recruit foreign advisors from all disciplines for work in Japan. He also brokered Japan's participation in the Vienna World Exhibition of 1873. He returned to Japan in November 1872, but had to return to Europe in February 1873 to support Sano Tsunetami there until the end of 1874 .

In May 1875 he became the official interpreter for the Treasury. After his mother's death in 1877, he returned to the Netherlands to spend a six-month vacation. There he was commissioned to visit the World Exhibition in Paris in 1878 and to support business negotiations in Berlin. He returned to Japan in October 1881, but was sent back to Germany to assist Inoue Kaoru in Berlin in October 1881 in negotiations with the German government about treaty changes. The negotiations were lengthy and ultimately unsuccessful; he left Berlin in 1882, moved to Rome in 1884, returned to Japan in 1885 and moved to London in 1892 to assist Aoki Shūzō in the successful conclusion of the 1894 Anglo-Japanese Treaties on Trade and Transport. In 1896 he and his younger brother Heinrich gave “Nippon. Archive of Japan ”re-edited his father's work on his 100th birthday. In August 1910 he was awarded the Order of the Holy Treasure (2nd class). He died in Pegli on January 23, 1911 .

Publications

  • The Diaries , ed. by Vera Schmidt (= Acta Sieboldiana , Volume 7). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-447-04145-5 (diaries from 1866/1869 / 1877-1911).

literature

  • Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of baronial houses, 1919, p.913

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Siebold, Alexander von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Siebold, Alexander George Gustav von (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German translator and interpreter
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Unfortunatelydorp
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1911
Place of death Pegli