Karl August Varnhagen von Ense

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Karl Varnhagen von Ense 1839 (drawing by Samuel Friedrich Diez )
Signature Karl August Varnhagen from Ense.PNG

Karl August Varnhagen von Ense (born February 21, 1785 in Düsseldorf ; † October 10, 1858 in Berlin ) was a German chronicler of the period from Romanticism to the Revolution in 1848 and the subsequent decade of reaction , as well as a narrator , biographer , diary writer and diplomat .

Life

Karl Varnhagen von Ense 1822 (drawing by Wilhelm Hensel )

Karl August Varnhagen von Ense was born in 1785 as the son of the doctor Johann Jacob Varnhagen in Düsseldorf in the then Bergisch district. As a child he came into the vicinity of the French Revolution due to stays on the Rhine, in Strasbourg, in Brussels and in Hamburg . The father was inclined to politics. The son grew up away from his mother and sister for a while . As a 14-year-old, Varnhagen von Ense in Hamburg experienced the death of his father after a short illness. He studied at the Pépinière , the medical academy in Berlin, for three years, as well as in Halle and Tübingen. As a private tutor and court master as well as educator for families of the Jewish bourgeoisie, he got to know younger, but partly prominent contemporaries early on, such as Adelbert von Chamisso , Justinus Kerner , Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué , Ludwig Uhland and numerous other romantic poets . With some of them, Varnhagen von Ense founded the Nordsternbund and also involved his sister Rosa Maria in his anthologies ( Stories and Games , 1807; Chamisso -Varnhagen-von-Ense'scher Musenalmanach , 1804-1806).

Seracher Dichterkreis , Varnhagen von Ense far right

As an officer in Austrian and later in Russian service, he took part in the wars of liberation against Napoleon . For his services as an Imperial Russian captain in the Wars of Liberation, he was awarded by the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. on December 28, 1814 awarded the Order of Pour le Mérite . He later accompanied Hardenberg to the Congress of Vienna and Paris . In 1815 he was appointed to the Prussian ambassador in Karlsruhe , but in 1819, suspected of “ democratic inclinations”, he was recalled and settled in Berlin . In 1813, Varnhagen von Ense became a member of the Freemasons' Association , his mother lodge was the Masonic lodge at the golden ball in Hamburg .

On September 27, 1814, he and the 14 years older writer Rahel Levin married . After her death in 1833, the widower published a selection of letters and excerpts from the diary Rahel: A book of memory for her friends (1 volume in 1833, 3 volumes in 1834) and collected the 6,000 letters she had received as well as other letters from and to 9,000 people . Together with other autographs of his own or acquired through donations, exchanges or purchases , he created the Varnhagen collection . His niece Ludmilla Assing (1821–1880) became his universal heir and published the Varnhagen von Enses diaries and numerous other books in this collection. In her will she bequeathed the manuscripts, books and pictures to the Royal Library in Berlin, which she added to her inventory in spring 1881. During the Second World War the library was relocated to Silesia , which is why the manuscripts are now in the Biblioteka Jagiellońska , the library of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow , while the books and pictures are in the Berlin State Library .

Honorary grave of the Varnhagen von Ense couple in Berlin-Kreuzberg

The common grave of the Varnhagen von Ense couple is on the Trinity Cemetery I in Berlin-Kreuzberg . Although she died 25 years before her husband, Rahel Varnhagen was not buried here until nine years after him. Her coffin had previously been kept in a hall in the cemetery area in front of the Hallesches Tor. Two marble cushion stones with inscriptions on the ivy-covered grave mound serve as grave markers. Another marble slab with a quote from Rahel Varnhagen is attached standing. The burial site was restored in autumn 2007 by the State Office for Monument Preservation and the Varnhagen Society and provided with a resting bench.

By resolution of the Berlin Senate , the final resting place of the Varnhagen couple (grave location DV2-2-38 / 39) has been dedicated to Rahel Varnhagen as an honorary grave since 1956 by the State of Berlin . The dedication was extended in 2016 by the now usual period of twenty years.

Fonts

literature

  • Konrad Feilchenfeldt : Varnhagen von Ense as a historian . Erasmus bookstore publisher, Amsterdam 1971.
  • Joachim Kühn: Two letters from Varnhagen to Carlyle . In: Yearbook Der Bär von Berlin , ed. v. Association for the History of Berlin , 20th year, Berlin 1971.
  • Terry H. Pickett: The Unseasonable Democrat: KA Varnhagen von Ense (1780-1858). Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, Bonn 1985, ISBN 3-416-01883-4 . (Modern German Studies, Volume 14)
  • Werner Greiling: Varnhagen von Ense. Life path of a liberal. Political activity between diplomacy and revolution. Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-412-05692-8 .
  • Friedrich von Klocke : Karl August Varnhagen von Ense as a supervisor of the nobility . In: Westfälisches Adelsblatt , 5 (1928), pp. 242–248.
  • Ursula Wiedenmann: Karl August Varnhagen von Ense. An uncomfortable thing in the Biedermeier period . JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1994, ISBN 3-476-00983-1 .
  • Nikolaus Gatter: "Poison, downright poison for the ignorant public". The diaristic estate of Karl August Varnhagen von Ense and the polemic against Ludmilla Assing's editions (1860–1880). Aisthesis, Bielefeld 1996, ISBN 3-89528-149-2 .
  • Nikolaus Gatter (Ed.): When the story goes around a corner. Almanac of the Varnhagen Gesellschaft e. V., Volume 1. Berlin Verlag Arno Spitz, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-8305-0025-4 .
  • Nikolaus Gatter (ed.): Macaroni and spirit food . In: Almanach der Varnhagen Gesellschaft e. V. , Volume 2. Berliner Wissenschafts Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-8305-0296-6 .
  • Hazel Rosenstrauch : Varnhagen and the art of social life. A youth around 1800. Biographical essay. Das Arsenal, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-931109-50-X .
  • Nikolaus Gatter: “Life pictures , to populate the future.” From Rahel Levin's salon to the “Varnhagen Collection”. Varnhagen Gesellschaft e. V., Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-00-019894-6 .
  • Erich H. Fuchs, Antonie Magen (ed.): Karl August Varnhagen von Ense - Friedrich de La Motte Fouqué. Correspondence 1806-1834. Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2015, ISBN 978-3-8253-6423-6 .

Web links

Commons : Karl August Varnhagen von Ense  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Karl August Varnhagen von Ense  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gustav Lehmann: The knights of the order pour le merite . Volume II. Berlin 1913, p. 337 (No. 2260).
  2. ↑ Biblioteka Jagiellońska ( Memento of the original dated February 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bj.uj.edu.pl
  3. ^ Library Varnhagen in the State Library in Berlin; accessed on August 23, 2019
  4. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 228. Rahel Varnhagen von Ense . Short biography of Rahel Varnhagen and description of the tomb on the website of the “Foundation for Historical Cemeteries and Cemeteries in Berlin-Brandenburg”; accessed on April 6, 2019.
  5. ↑ Honorary graves of the State of Berlin (as of November 2018) . (PDF, 413 kB) Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection, p. 89; accessed on April 6, 2019. Recognition and further preservation of graves as honorary graves of the State of Berlin . (PDF, 205 kB). Berlin House of Representatives, printed matter 17/3105 of July 13, 2016, p. 1 and Annex 2, p. 16; accessed on April 6, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Varnhagen von Ense, Karl August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat and writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1785
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf
DATE OF DEATH October 10, 1858
Place of death Berlin