Dorothea Hagenow

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Dorothea Hagenow (born November 10, 1763 in Lassentin , † June 7, 1844 in Greifswald ) was the childhood sweetheart and secret fiancée of Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten .

Life

Dorothea Ida Hagenow was a daughter of the "Royal Pledger" Hagenow, whose family was raised to the nobility in 1802. She received her schooling from the village sexton.

On March 18, 1780, Dorothea met the theological candidate Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten during a service at which he was giving the sermon. The two fell in love and on August 13th they got engaged without the knowledge of Dorothea's father.

Kosegarten dedicates the 23-verse poem “To Dörtchen” to his lover for her 17th birthday. In the eighth stanza he raves about the appearance of Dorothea:

" Who gave this sky blue / your bright pair of eyes? / Who gave this dark tan / your curly hair? "

In February 1781 Kosegarten asked for his lover's hand, but was turned down by his father because Kosegarten had no prospect of employment.

The church in Niepars where Dorothea's husband was pastor

Then Dorothea married the forty-year-old pastor Daniel Christoph Gerhard Otto from Niepars , a brother of the Greifswald professor Bernhard Christian Otto, on August 1, 1783 . In 1807 the rectory was pillaged seven times by the French. Dorothea's face was completely disfigured by the smallpox . Her husband died in August 1807 as a result of the abuse by the French.

Of the couple's 8 children, only one son and daughter Ida Johanna Dorothea Otto (* April 30, 1789, † April 23, 1826) survived . This daughter married Johann Carl Balthasar (1784–1854) on May 2, 1813 . One child from this marriage was Alwine, who later became the Low German poet Alwine Wuthenow .

In 1812 Dorothea wrote to Kosegarten again and asked him, who was now a professor at the University of Greifswald, to help her son-in-law get her own pastorate. Kosegarten answered by way of introduction:

“Dearest, dearest friend! I am deeply moved by your writing, your mementos and your confidence. I have never forgotten you. I will never forget the beautiful summer nights in the garden at Lassentin, never the Elysian days of my youth. If afterwards our relationship changed, it is not your fault. It lies entirely in my disruptive, inadequate, passionate way of thinking and feeling. Of course, if one of us has something to forgive the other, at least I am not that one. .. "

Dorothea died in Greifswald after 37 years of widowhood. She had kept the engagement ring and the poems by Kosegarten addressed to her and, before her death, handed it over to one of her granddaughters, who later handed them over to the Greifswald University Library .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eberhard Schmidt : Kosegartens Ring. The correspondence between Bertha Balthasar and Theodor Pyl between 1884 and 1886 . Elmenhorst / Vorpommern 2016, ISBN 978-3-939680-34-5
personal data
SURNAME Hagenow, Dorothea
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German woman, fiancee Ludwig Gotthard Kosegarten
DATE OF BIRTH November 10, 1763
PLACE OF BIRTH Lassentin
DATE OF DEATH June 7, 1844
Place of death Greifswald