Karl August Boettiger

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Karl August Böttiger, painting by Johann Friedrich August Tischbein , 1795, Gleimhaus Halberstadt
Böttiger, 1826. The text reads: “The investigator of antiquity is a Janus head, / looking backwards and forwards. Be there for the present world / the pre-world. Where it doesn't sound like a bell. / Dresden / March 17th / 1826 / Karl August Böttiger "
Karl August Böttiger, before 1835

Karl August Böttiger (born June 8, 1760 in Reichenbach im Vogtland , † November 17, 1835 in Dresden ) was a German philologist , archaeologist , educator and writer who was one of the influential personalities of Goethe's time in Weimar . He published on philological, archaeological, literary and political topics and often provoked controversies and scandals.

Live and act

Karl August Böttiger, painting by Gerhard von Kügelgen , around 1812, Tartu University Library

Karl August Böttiger received his training in Schulpforta from 1772 . In 1778 he began to study philology with August Wilhelm Ernesti in Leipzig . In 1781 he had to finish his studies because the family ran into financial difficulties due to a factory fire. He held various positions as Hofmeister and passed his master’s examination at the Wittenberg University in August 1784 . In September he was appointed rector of the Guben Lyceum.

In 1786 Böttiger married Karoline Eleonore Adler, the daughter of a lodge brother; her son Karl Wilhelm was born in 1790.

From 1790 to 1791 Böttiger headed the grammar school in Bautzen . In 1791 he came to Weimar on the mediation of Johann Gottfried Herder as director of the Wilhelm-Ernst-Gymnasium there . In Weimar he found access to all relevant circles. There was a lifelong friendship with Christoph Martin Wieland in particular , but also with Goethe's duo friend Karl Ludwig von Knebel , Goethe's housemates Johann Heinrich Meyer and Friederike Sophie Eleonore von Schardt, née. von Bernstorff (1755–1819, sister-in-law Charlotte von Steins ), he remained connected with Weimar even after his departure in 1804. Together with Johann Heinrich Meyer, he published several works on archaeological topics.

In Weimar Böttiger came more and more into conflict with Goethe , whom he had previously advised frequently. Goethe, for example, had given Böttiger his verse epic Hermann and Dorothea for review before publication. On the occasion of the performance of August Wilhelm Schlegel's Ion at the Weimar Court Theater in the winter of 1801/1802, the conflict broke out openly. Goethe prevented an ironic review written by Böttiger from being published in the Journal des Luxus und der Moden . Thereupon this appeared in August von Kotzebue's newspaper Der Freimüthige .

In 1804 Böttiger left Weimar and went to Dresden as director of the Silberpagen , where he had influential friends. In 1814 he became director of studies at the Knight's Academy and chief inspector of the Museum of Antiquities and the collection of Mengs plaster casts . From 1806 Böttiger held public lectures on antiquity in his apartment in the Coselschen Palais . In the Dresdner Abend-Zeitung Böttiger wrote the theater reviews for the Dresden theater, until Ludwig Tieck , an opponent of Böttiger, took over this section . Böttiger belonged to the Dresdner Liederkreis and is considered one of the main characters of the Dresden Biedermeier. Ludwig Tieck addressed Böttiger's work in the novella The Scarecrow ; In his 1797 satirical comedy Puss in Boots, he caricatured him with the character of "Bötticher" as a theater critic.

In 1783 he was a member of the Dresden Lodge Zum Golden Apfel . There he celebrated his 50th "mason jubilee" in 1831. In Weimar, Karl August Böttiger was initiated into the Freemasons' union . His box was the Amalia , in which Johann Wolfgang von Goethe worked.

Böttiger was a member of various German and international academies. In 1831 he became a correspondant and in 1833 Associé étranger of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres in Paris.

Böttiger's grave is in the Eliasfriedhof in Dresden in field B 15-2. His son, the historian Karl Wilhelm Böttiger, managed his scientific estate. In 1855 he bequeathed the extensive correspondence to the Royal Library of Dresden .

Honors

Medal Karl August Böttiger 1830
Medal Karl August Böttiger 1835

Two medals were dedicated to Karl August Böttiger. The first was donated to him in 1830 on his 70th birthday. On the reverse, it shows a man who, like Oedipus, has to solve the riddle of the Sphinx. The accompanying legend "Skilfully combining the new old with the new" is intended to summarize Böttiger's work, which consequently faced scientific difficulties like an Oedipus. The second medal was created after his death. As the legend on the reverse sums it up, it honors his achievements as a teacher and scientist. In addition, the picture shows an owl, attribute of the goddess Athena , a scroll and a laurel branch. This piece was made by the medalist Anton Friedrich König .

plant

After his studies, Böttiger had mainly written smaller publications on education, so he began to publish more and more philological and archaeological works in Weimar: About the robbery of Cassandra on an old vessel of baked earth (1794), About the ornamentation of gymnastic exercise areas with works of art in the ancient tastes (1795) and on the ugliness and fatherland of ancient onyx cameos of extraordinary size. An archaeological treatise (Leipzig 1796). The Treatises on Greek Vase Paintings. With archaeological and artistic explanations of the original copper , which came from Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein , published between 1797 and 1800 in Weimar. Sabina or morning scenes in the cleaning room of a rich Roman woman. A contribution to the correct assessment of the private life of the Romans and to a better understanding of the Roman writers was published in Leipzig in 1803, edited again in 1805 and reprinted in an improved edition in 1806 and 1811; a French edition was printed in Paris in 1813 after extensive excerpts had already been published in translation in the Magasin encyclopédique . Böttiger was in written contact with Heinrich Zschokke .

In addition, Böttiger developed extensive journalistic activities. From around 1794 he published the New German Merkur in Wieland's name . From 1797 he edited Friedrich Justin Bertuch's Journal of Luxury and Fashions and London and Paris . In 1800 he boasted that he was the inventor of the term phelloplastic for the production of architectural models made of cork, which had recently emerged.

His student Julius Sillig published his most important writings under the title C. A. Böttiger's small writings of archaeological and antiquarian content (3 vols., Dresden 1837f.), Ideas on Art-Mythology. Second volume. Second, third and fourth courses. Jupiter, Juno and Neptunus, Cupid and Psyche. From papers left by C. A. Boettiger ed. by Julius Sillig (Dresden 1836) and C. A. Boettigeri opuscula et carmina Latina. Collegit et edidit Iulius Sillig (Dresden 1837).

The text collection Literary Conditions and Contemporaries (Dresden 1838), published for the first time by Böttiger's son from the estate , is considered an important source text from the Weimar period of the Late Enlightenment from 1772 to 1804. His closest friends outside Weimar include the Göttingen philologist Christian Gottlob Heyne , the Parisian philologists and archaeologists Louis-Aubin Millin and Désiré Raoul-Rochette , the publishers Georg Joachim Göschen and Johann Daniel Sander . Böttiger is an important mediator in German / French cultural transfer. Böttiger's archaeological work was published in the Magasin encyclopédique (1792 / 1795-1817). In this magazine he also reported on German literature. Böttiger had established a close network of prominent scholars, writers, state officials and publishers. This is impressively reflected in his extensive correspondence, of which large parts have survived, especially in the Saxon State, State and University Library in Dresden and in the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg. The literary states ... were published for the first time in 1998 in full and unchanged.

Fonts (selection)

  • Ideas on the archeology of painting. First part. Walthersche Hofbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1811, ( digitized version ).
  • Art mythology ideas. First volume. First course. Family tree of the religions of antiquity. Introduction to the pre-Homeric mythology of the Greeks . Dresden, Leipzig 1826 ( digitized version ).
  • Art mythology ideas. Second volume. Second, third and fourth courses. Jupiter, Juno and Neptunus, Cupid and Psyche. Edited from papers left by CA Boettiger by Julius Sillig . Dresden / Leipzig 1836 ( digitized ).
  • CA Boettigeri opuscula et carmina Latina. Collegit et edidit Iulius Sillig . Dresden 1837 ( digitized version ).
  • CA Böttiger's small writings of archaeological and antiquarian content, collected and edited by Julius Sillig. Dresden and Leipzig 1838 (digital copies of Heidelberg University Library: Volume 1 , Volume 2 , Volume 3 ); (Digitized Google Volume 1 , Volume 2 , Volume 3 ).
  • Karl Wilhelm Böttiger (Ed.): Literary conditions and contemporaries in descriptions from Karl Aug. Böttiger's handwritten estate. 2 volumes, FA Brockhaus, Leipzig 1838.

literature

biography

Individual aspects

  • Peter Witzmann (Ed.): Carmina aliquot Graeca. Karl August Böttiger's Greek poems . De Gruyter, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-11-052311-9 .
  • René Sternke (Ed.): Böttiger-Lektüren. Antiquity as the key to modernity. With Karl August Böttiger's antiquarian-erotic papers attached. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-05-005954-9 .
  • René Sternke: Böttiger and the archaeological discourse. With an appendix to the writings 'Goethe's Tod' and 'Nach Goethe's Tod' by Karl August Böttiger. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-05-004349-4 .
  • Klaus Gerlach: The correspondence between Goethe and Schiller as the cornerstone of German classical music [contains Böttiger's reviews of the same]. In: Ibycus. Yearbook of the weekly newspaper Neue Solidarität. Wiesbaden 2005, p. 20 f.
  • Frank Boblenz : The joy high priestess - Cäcilie von Werthern (1773-1831), Karl August Böttiger (1760-1835) and Frohndorf. In: Sömmerdaer Heimatheft. 14, 2002, pp. 60-92.
  • Elena Agazzi: Carl August Böttiger and his role as a mediator between the stage and antiquity. In: Euphorion. 94, 2000, pp. 423-434.
  • Klaus Gerlach, René Sternke (eds.): Karl August Böttiger: Literary conditions and contemporaries. Encounters and conversations in classic Weimar. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-351-02829-6
  • Eckhard Richter: "Dear Mr. Hofrath". Tieck and Böttiger. In: Walter Schmitz (Ed.): Ludwig Tieck. Literary program and staging of life in the context of its time. Tübingen 1997, pp. 169-191.
  • Eduard Hirsch: Carl August Böttiger. Journey to Wörlitz 1797. State Palaces and Gardens Wörlitz, Oranienbaum and Luisium, Wörlitz 1971.

Correspondence editions

  • René Sternke, Klaus Gerlach (Eds.): Karl August Böttiger. Correspondence with Christian Gottlob Heyne . De Gruyter, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-05-005178-9 .
  • Böttiger's necrology (based on Anna Amalia ). In: Heide Schulz: Weimar's most beautiful star. Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar and Eisenach. Source texts for the creation of an icon. (= Weimar-Jena event. Culture around 1800. Aesthetic research , volume 30). Winter, Heidelberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8253-5887-7 , pp. 22-89.
  • Klaus Gerlach, René Sternke (ed.): Karl August Böttiger. Correspondence with Auguste Duvau . With an appendix to Auguste Duvau's letters to Karl Ludwig von Knebel. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-05-003795-4 .
  • Bernd Maurach (Ed.): The correspondence between Friedrich Nicolai and Carl August Böttiger. Peter Lang, Bern a. a. 1996, ISBN 3-906755-20-7 .
  • Bernd Maurach (Ed.): The letters Johann Daniel Sanders to Carl August Böttiger. Peter Lang, Bern 1990–1993.
  • Bernd Maurach (Ed.): Garlieb Helwig Merkel's letters to Carl August Böttiger. Peter Lang, Bern 1987, ISBN 3-261-03711-3 .
  • Bernd Maurach (Ed.): The correspondence between August von Kotzebue and Carl August Böttiger. Peter Lang, Bern 1987, ISBN 3-261-03682-6 .
  • Luise Gerhardt: Karl August Böttiger and Georg Joachim Göschen in correspondence. H. Haessel, Leipzig, 1911.

Web links

Commons : Karl August Böttiger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Karl August Böttiger  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. Eugen Lennhoff, Oskar Posner, Dieter A. Binder: Internationales Freemaurerlexikon. Herbig, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-7766-5036-5 , p.
  2. Correspondence between Böttiger and Zschokke
  3. Note on the article about Mr. Mey's Felloplastik by Jakob Dominikus in Der Neue Teutsche Merkur, Jg. 1800, Part I, pp. 325–336, here p. 325 ( digitized version ).