The visit of the personal doctor

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The visit of the personal physician is the title of the novel by Per Olov Enquist , published in 2001 in a German translation by Wolfgang Butt and published in 1999 in Sweden under the original title Livlakarens Besök . The work is a historical novel; The framework plot is based on real events with historical people, some details in the plot are fictitious.

Portrait of Johann Friedrich Struensee (1737–1772) by Jens Juel (oil painting, 1771)

action

The insane Danish King Christian VII , who was mistreated and beaten in his childhood, has to take over the throne at the age of sixteen (father: Frederick V ). Two years later he was married to the British Princess Caroline Mathilde , who was three years his junior . The king only has sex with his wife once . She becomes pregnant and gives birth to a boy on January 28, 1768, who later becomes Friedrich VI.

Christian VII is planning a trip through Europe. Hans Graf zu Rantzau auf Ascheberg can arrange for the Altona doctor Johann Friedrich Struensee , who is known to him, to accompany the king. The journey begins on May 6, 1768, and ends on January 14, 1769. Stops are also London, where a planned Hamlet performance is canceled at short notice, and Paris, where the king can get to know the encyclopedists about Voltaire and Diderot . At the reception, Diderot turns to Struensee with the words:

"Some claim that the king is insane. You have his confidence. That places a great responsibility on you. Very rarely, as here, are the opportunities for an enlightened monarch to break the darkness of reaction ."

Struensee can win the trust of the king and, as a conference councilor, take on the task of editing decrees in order to then have them signed. He himself does not call this task an assignment or a calling, but a visit. His opponent Guldberg analyzes that the linguistic processing has become an exercise of power and that reforms rolled in like a flood.

However, the personal physician succeeds in further expanding his position of power and having his appointment as secret cabinet minister . From now on he is empowered to make laws without the consent of the king. Struensee the possibility has created ideas of the Enlightenment such as abolition of torture , freedom of thought and education reform to realize in Denmark.

The second narrative thread, the development of love between Struensee and the king's wife, is woven into the gradual takeover of power. On the occasion of the appointment to the conference council, the king said of Struensee:

"The queen suffers from melancholia . She is lonely, she is a stranger in this land. It has not been possible to alleviate this melancholy. You must take this burden off my shoulders. You must! Take care of it."

On September 26, 1770, the royal couple traveled from Struensee to Ascheberg with their company. On the third day after arriving at the hut, which had been prepared for a planned visit by the philosopher Rousseau , an act of love took place .

After his return, the king asks his personal physician Struensee again to look after his wife. On February 6, 1771, the Queen told her lover that she was pregnant . A girl was born on July 7, 1771 and was baptized in the name of Louise Augusta . The doctor Struensee, slightly damaged by the previous fall from the horse, is present at the delivery . King Christian VII accepts the daughter's birth disinterestedly.

Meanwhile, Élie-Salomon-François Reverdil , of Jewish descent , returned to Copenhagen from exile in Switzerland in order to carry out the plans for the abolition of serfdom on behalf of Struensee . At that time, Struensee had issued a total of 623 decrees.

As Struensee became more and more powerful, Ove Høegh-Guldberg, as Minister of State, decided to restore the king's honor, to remove Struensee and to revise the content of the Enlightenment . With a fake overturning plan, which allegedly came from Struensee, Guldberg was able to form a plot with the queen widow Juliane von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel and Count Rantzau . The following process is planned by the conspirators and then actually implemented:

  • Dinner on January 16, 1772 followed by tea and a masked ball
  • Arrest of Struensee and Brandt on January 17, 1772 at 4:30 a.m.
  • Arrest and transfer of the queen and her daughter to Kronborg Castle .

In the last phase of the course of action, Guldberg controls the state-political actions - despite occasional doubts:

  • Christian VII recognizes Louise Augusta as his child entitled to inheritance and divorces Caroline Mathilde .
  • The Queen leaves Denmark without her daughter and moves to Celle in a castle of her brother Georg III. where she will only live three more years.
  • On February 25, 1772, Struensee signed the confession of his intimate relationship with the Queen.

Struensee was executed on the scaffold on April 28, 1772 . Guldberg is now the actual ruler with the title of Minister of State . And he quickly ended the revolution that Struensee had started:

"It only took a few weeks, then everything was back to the old or even older. As if his six hundred and thirty-two revolutionary decrees, issued in these two years, which were called the 'Struenseezeit', as if they were paper terns, some of which had landed, while others were still floating close to the ground and still cannot find a place in the Danish landscape. "

In 1784 Guldberg was overthrown in a coup. The sixteen-year-old king's son, who staged the coup, took over power as crown prince regent and from 1808, the year his father died, as king. Liberal reforms began again in Denmark during his reign as Crown Prince. As early as 1788, bondage to clods and serfdom was abolished .

The daughter of Struensee and the queen later marries Friedrich Christian von Augustenborg . Caroline Amalie , one of her three children, becomes Queen of Denmark in 1839.

people

King Christian VII

King Christian VII is described as "an old man, very small, emaciated, with a sunken face, and his burning eyes testify to his sickly mental state [...] when he is nervous, he experiences spastic twitches". He's actually quite intelligent from birth. There are two theories as to why he got insane. Either because he was mistreated in his childhood or because he allegedly suffered from schizophrenia , which could also have been triggered in his upbringing. Christian believed very early on that he would have been mistaken and that he was actually a farmer's son. At the age of five he attended a performance by an Italian comedian group and from then on believed that court life would be a play and that it would be his job to play a part in it. Before the arrival of Struensee, his dog is his only "conversation partner". He is very shy and reserved with the queen. It was only with the prostitute Anna Catherine Beuthaken that he met affection and understanding.

Princess Caroline Mathilde

Of Princess Caroline Mathilde says: "They have bright, long hair, beautiful blue eyes, plump lips, although a slightly wider lower lip, and own a melodious voice". During the crossing to Denmark, where she was supposed to see her bridegroom for the first time, she cried the whole time, because she knew what task she had been assigned: “Like a broodmare, she should be mated by the short, deranged Danish king and give birth to an heir to the throne ”. At the Danish court she feels very lonely and alone, as she is mostly ignored after the wedding with Christian. When Struensee enters her life and takes care of her, she sees hope again. The relationship is also developing quite well, as the queen is very intelligent and can therefore talk to Struensee on the same level of understanding. Guldberg calls her "the little English whore" because she has a relationship with Struensee.

Johann Friedrich Struensee

Johann Friedrich Struensee was born on August 5, 1737 in Halle. After successfully completing his medical degree, he opened a medical practice in Altona. Later he became Christian VII's personal physician . In contrast to his father, Johann Friedrich Struensee followed the idea of ​​enlightenment. He is described as friendly, silent, listening. Medium-sized and blond in shape. “One of the first to use toothpaste.” He quickly won the king's trust and later became sole ruler. When the king approaches him with the request that "he should take care of the queen", he begins a love affair with her. Until his execution he tried to realize the ideas of the Enlightenment - he issued a total of 633 ordinances.

Ove Høegh-Guldberg

Ove Høegh-Guldberg is the son of an undertaker from Horsens. At the age of thirty he became a professor at the Sorø Academy . Originally he was brought to court in Copenhagen as a private tutor for Christian's half-brother Friedrich . He is described as "similar in figure to Christian VII. [...] a dwarf, childlike, 1.48 m tall". At the beginning of the novel, he is still a rather unknown person. But as history progresses, its role becomes more and more important. Out of envy and the pursuit of power, he wants to eliminate Struensee.

Language and stylistic devices

The entire story, written in a sophisticated language , is told by a well-informed narrator. The text is a mixture of a non-fiction biography and a novel. Although the reader learns in the first sentence of the book that Struensee is going to die, the author still manages to keep the tension throughout. Enquist begins with the sentence:

On April 5, 1768, Johann Friedrich Struensee was hired as personal physician to the Danish King Christian VII and executed four years later .

radio play

The novel was produced as a radio play by NDR and SWR in 2002 . Radio play adaptation and direction: Walter Adler . Starring: Hans Peter Hallwachs (narrator) , Ulrich Matthes (Struensee) , Andreas Pietschmann (Christian) , Felix von Manteuffel (Guldberg) , Alexandra Henkel (Caroline Mathilde) , Jutta Hoffmann (queen widow Juliane) .

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 165 and 203.
  2. ↑ Ibid., P. 234.
  3. ↑ Ibid., P. 192 (shortened quote.)
  4. ↑ Ibid., P. 260.
  5. ↑ Ibid., P. 237.
  6. ↑ Ibid., P. 287.
  7. ↑ Ibid., P. 245.
  8. ↑ Ibid., P. 281ff.
  9. ↑ Ibid., P. 300.
  10. ↑ Ibid., P. 336f.
  11. ↑ Ibid., P. 342 and 404.
  12. ↑ Ibid, pp 405-434.
  13. ↑ Ibid, pp. 456-479.
  14. ↑ Ibid., P. 520.
  15. ↑ Ibid, p. 521.
  16. ↑ Ibid., P. 11.

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