Carl Schirren (historian)

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Carl Schirren

Carl Christian Gerhard Schirren (born November 8 jul. / 20th November  1826 greg. In Riga ; † 11. December 1910 in Kiel ) was a Baltic German historian .

Life

Carl Schirren was born the son of a pastor . He visited in Riga , the high school and studied from 1844 to 1848 at the University of Dorpat ( Tartu ) history . He was a member of the Baltic Corporation Fraternitas Rigensis . After graduating, he initially worked in Riga as the head of a private school. Later he went back to Dorpat . At the university he soon became a private lecturer . In 1858 Schirren became a university professor and until 1863 he represented the subjects of geography and statistics . From 1863 to 1869 he taught as a professorHistory of Russia . Richard Hausmann is one of his students .

While working at the Dorpater Alma Mater , after studying in Stockholm, he published a five-volume work on the history of the fall of Livonian independence under Polish and Swedish rule. Two further volumes documented the preservation of the rights of the Germans during the transition between Liv and Estonia under Russian rule during the Northern War from 1700 to 1721. Carl Schirren was temporarily president of the Estonian Scholarly Society (1861–1864), which made him an honorary member in 1869 awarded, and editor-in-chief of the conservative "Dorpater Tageblatt". However, Schirren's lectures on the history of Livonia, which he gave in 1862 and 1866, had a greater impact on the public. These lectures strengthened German-Baltic patriotism.

In 1869, Schirren's book “Livonian Answer to Mr. Juri Samarin” was published. The book was a response to a polemical work by the Slavophile Samarin. This advocated the abolition of the autonomy of the Baltic provinces and an adaptation to Russia. In his work, Schirren defended Livonia's right to the Lutheran faith, the German language, self-government and its own jurisdiction, since these rights have been guaranteed to the Baltic provinces of Russia since Peter I. In doing so, Schirren put the historical importance of the Baltic Germans above that of the Russians, Estonians and Latvians. In the second chapter he dealt with the "Memoirs of a Orthodox Latvian", published by Samarin and written by the Latvian Orthodox priest Jānis Līcis under the pseudonym Indrik Straumit , in which Līcis called on Latvians to convert from the Protestant to the Orthodox denomination, also to strip away the German-Baltic supremacy.

Due to the publication of the “Livonian Answer to Mr. Juri Samarin”, Schirren lost his job at the university. He moved to Germany with his family. With the support of the Livonian Knighthood , he was able to carry out archive studies here. 1874 was Schirren a professorship at the University of Kiel , where he until his retirement in 1907, the professional history represented. In 1878/79 he was rector of the university.

In memory of the work of the historian, the Carl-Schirren-Gesellschaft was founded in Kiel in 1932 , which is dedicated to the care of the German-Baltic cultural heritage .

Fonts

  • Carl Schirren: Livonian answer to Mr. Juri Samarin . Duncker & Humblot , Leipzig 1869 ( digitized at EEVA ; digitized in the Internet Archive ).
  • Carl Schirren (Ed.): The recesses of the Livonian diets from the years 1681–1711, partly in wording, partly in excerpt . Karow, Dorpat 1865 ( digitized version of the Bavarian State Library ).
  • Carl Schirren: Lectures on Livonian History. Postscript by Johannes Lossius. Edited by Carl Schirren, Wilhelm Lenz. Publisher Carl-Schirren-Gesellschaft eV, Lüneburg 2013.

literature

  • Richard Hausmann: Nekrolog: Carl Schirren. In: Meeting reports of the Estonian learned society in Dorpat 1910. Estonian learned society , Jurjew-Dorpat , 1911, pp. 175–182.
  • Felix Rachfahl : Carl Schirren - a life sketch . In: Carl Schirren: On the history of the Northern War: Reviews . Mühlau, Kiel 1913, pp. 1-48.
  • Reinhard Wittram : Carl Schirren's Livonian answer . In: Ders .: The national as a European problem: Contributions to the history of the nationality principle primarily in the 19th century . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1954, pp. 161-182.
  • Irene Neander: Carl Schirren as a historian . In: Georg von Rauch (Hrsg.): History of Baltic German historiography . Böhlau, Cologne / Vienna 1986, pp. 175–202.
  • Norbert Angermann : Carl Schirrens lectures on the history of Livonia . In: Norbert Angermann et al .: Ostseeprovinzen, Baltic States and the National , Münster , 2005, pp. 213–226.
  • Carl Schirren:  Schirren, Carl Christian Gerhard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-428-11204-3 , p. 12 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Wilhelm Lenz : Carl Schirren and his "life's work" . In: Norbert Angermann , Wilhelm Lenz and Konrad Maier (eds.): Humanities and journalism in the Baltic states of the 19th and early 20th centuries . Lit, Berlin 2011, pp. 217-237.
  • Michael Garleff (Ed.): Carl Schirren as a scholar in the field of tension between science and political journalism. Publisher Carl-Schirren-Gesellschaft eV, Lüneburg 2013.
  • Carola L. Gottzmann / Petra Hörner: Lexicon of the German-language literature of the Baltic States and St. Petersburg . 3 volumes; Verlag Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 2007. ISBN 978-3-11019338-1 . Volume 3, pp. 1139-1143.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Baltic Historical Commission (ed.): Entry on Carl Schirren. In: BBLD - Baltic Biographical Lexicon digital
personal data
SURNAME Schirren, Carl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schirren, Carl Christian Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Baltic historian
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1826
PLACE OF BIRTH Riga
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1910
Place of death Kiel