Dorothea Schlözer

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Dorothea von Rodde-Schlözer, around 1800

Baroness Dorothea von Rodde-Schlözer (born August 10, 1770 in Göttingen , † July 12, 1825 in Avignon , France ) was a German philosopher and salonnière . She is one of the group known as the “ university ladies ” group of Göttingen learned daughters of the 18th century.

Life

Dorothea Schlözer
Göttingen memorial plaque for Dorothea Schlözer

doctor

Schlözer was the daughter of August Ludwig von Schlözer , a Göttingen professor of constitutional law and history, and Caroline Friederike von Schlözer (née Roederer), a painter and embroiderer. She learned to write at the age of four and began studying geometry, French and Latin a year later. When she was sixteen, she spoke ten languages. Fiction and poetry were excluded from classes; only the Aeneid could be read as a historical work. The artistic lessons consisted of drawing and music. “My Dortgen was already publicly playing the piano in a concert in 1778; Last year she sang in public at our university concert, ”the father notes proudly.

The father's views and upbringing methods found little understanding in the Göttingen area. Caroline Michaelis , also one of the professor's daughters, judged:

“A woman is only valued for what she is as a woman. I saw a speaking example of this in the Princess von Gallizin , who was here; she was a princess, had a great deal of learning and knowledge, and with all this she was the subject of ridicule and nothing less than respected. "

Caroline Michaelis judged less narrowly in later years, but her view at the time certainly corresponded to what people in the Göttingen Academia thought about Father Schlözer's ambition.

In 1781/1782 Dorothea was allowed to accompany her father on a study trip to Rome . There they made the acquaintance of Wilhelm Heinse , the poet of Ardinghello , who made the Cicerone for 11-year-old Dorothea with pleasure . Some of that seemed questionable to the father:

“I became angry with the statue; there is so much lewd about it. Dortchen is also getting used to the artificial language: she chatters about soft meat on marble statues. "

Professor Schlözer with his wife and five children, daughter Dorothea with globe, silhouette on glass, 1784

On the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the University of Göttingen , on September 17, 1787, she was rite (with the worst possible grade) at the age of 17 as Dr. phil. PhD. This doctoral procedure was initiated by Johann David Michaelis . It comprised a closed examination in German (not Latin), without submitting a dissertation and its defense. The doctoral examination took place on August 25th in Michaelishaus , the house of the dean of the philosophical faculty, by eight professors over 3½ hours and concerned the areas of classical literature ( Horace ), mining, architecture and mathematics. Dorothea von Schlözer was the second woman to receive her doctorate in Germany after Dorothea Christiane Erxleben . Schiller described the doctorate in a letter to Körner as "Schlözer's farce with his daughter, who is quite pathetic".

Together with her father, she wrote a specialist book on the history of coins, money and mining in the Russian Empire in the 18th century, which was published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in Göttingen in 1791 .

Lübeck

Flag and standard on March 9, 1913 under the pulpit of St. Mary's Church

Dorothea Schlözer married the imperial baron (1803) and mayor (1806) Mattheus Rodde in Lübeck in 1792 and had three children: Augusta (1794–1820), Dorothea (* 1796) and August Ludwig (1798–1821). From then on she signed with Rodde-Schlözer and can therefore be considered the inventor of the German double name .

After the birth of her first child, she met Charles de Villers , a French philosopher and artillery officer in exile, in Göttingen in 1794 . From July 1797 he became a permanent guest of the Roddes, the triangular relationship did not end until Viller's death in 1815. During the sacking of Lübeck by Napoleon's troops in November 1806, Villers managed to prevent worse things for the house and the city. He describes these events in detail in his letter to Fanny de Beauharnais , a French salonnière close to Napoleon . The letter was published and the sack of Lübeck became known throughout Europe and aroused sympathy.

In March 1813 the women of the Platzmann family and Demoiselle Rodde embroidered the flag of the Hanseatic Legion in Lübeck. Their inscriptions were "God with us" and "Germany or death".

In the years after Viller's death, Dorothea Schlözer ran an enlightened salon in Lübeck , but also socialized with intellectual circles in the neighboring residential town of Eutin , at that time the “Weimar of the North”. Friends there were Johann Heinrich Voss , Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg .

Paris

Portrait of Dorothea von Rodde-Schlözer, marble bust by Jean-Antoine Houdon , 1806

In 1801 Schlözer traveled to Paris in connection with a diplomatic mission of her husband. Villers and her children accompanied them. In Paris they visited Viller's sister and met the Hamburg writer Friedrich Johann Lorenz Meyer , who wrote a report about his stay. Above all, however, she sought contact with the French scholars and scientists who honored her by letting Schlözer take part in a meeting of the first class of the National Institute, where she was allowed to take a seat in the seat of the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte , which she was already in July had seen at a theater performance. At that time she made the acquaintance u. a. the naturalist Lacépède , the geologist Dolomieu and the philologist Fauriel . She also visited galleries, got to know the painters Jacques-Louis David and Jean-Baptiste Isabey and became an object of artistic creation herself: Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier made a portrait and Jean-Antoine Houdon created a bust.

Rodde was sent on a diplomatic mission a second time and again Schlözer and Villers drove with him to Paris, this time from 1803 to 1805. This time Dorothea was introduced to the imperial couple, the Empress Joséphine being particularly interested in “Le Docteur” Rodde because she was in the salon frequented her aunt, the poet Fanny de Beauharnais . She also visited the couple Friedrich and Dorothea Schlegel (née Brendel Mendelssohn), who stayed in Paris from 1802 to 1804. On the way home in July 1805, Dorothea and Villers stopped in Göttingen, where the 70th birthday of Dorothea's father was to be celebrated.

The husband goes bankrupt and returns to Göttingen

In September 1809, Schlözer's father died and in the spring of 1810 Schlözer traveled to Göttingen for a long time to settle the inheritance. In September she received news from Lübeck that her husband had gone bankrupt , who had lost track of the extensive credit business he carried out. In the end the debts amounted to an enormous 2.7 million Courant marks . For Schlözer, there was now the danger that she too would lose everything, including her father's inheritance, since according to customary law in Lübeck , one could claim the wife in full for her husband's debts. With the help of Villers, she turned a case off. As a result, the Rodde family moved to Göttingen, where Schlözer bought a house at 49 Langen Geismarstrasse. Memorial plaques for her and for Villers are attached to this house today.

Her last years were overshadowed by infirmity and deaths: after the bankruptcy, her husband aged quickly, became deaf, became childish and a need for nursing care that put a considerable strain on those around him: “But that those who are forged into a galley with him don't go half mad is inexplicable to me, ”said Karl Sieveking at the time. Villers died in 1815, Dorothea's eldest daughter Augusta died of consumption on October 13, 1820, and their only son August Ludwig died on April 29, 1821, also of consumption . Then the youngest daughter Dorothea, called Dortchen, also fell ill. A trip to the south was recommended for the cure; they went to Marseille , which was found to be very cold in December. On June 12th they left Marseille. Dorothea was already sick at this point. In Avignon it was not possible to continue with the patient. Dorothea Freifrau von Rodde died on July 12, 1825 of pneumonia. She was buried in the Saint-Véran cemetery in Avignon, where her grave still exists today. Her husband survived her by five months.

Appreciation

In 1882, Emmy Türk , wife of the City Physics Committee Carl Türk and chairwoman of the Lübeck branch of the Patriotic Women's Association of the Red Cross , founded the women's trade school and ran it until 1894. The school, which still exists today, was named in 1970 after Dorothea Schlözer .

The Georg-August-Universität Göttingen has been promoting women scientists within the framework of the Dorothea Schlözer program since 2009 and has been honoring women who are committed to science and women's education with the Dorothea Schlözer Medal since 1958 . On May 6, 2011, the FrauenORT Dorothea Schlözer was inaugurated by the Lower Saxony women's council in Göttingen .

Works

  • August Ludwig Schlözer, Dorothea Schlözer: Coin, Money and Mining History of the Russian Empire, from 1700 to 1789 . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1791 ( books.google.de ).

literature

  • (Anonymus K.): Dorothea Schlözern, born August 10th, 1770. In: Annalen der Braunschweig-Lüneburgischen Churlande . 2nd year, 1st piece, Celle and Lüneburg 1788, pp. 119–130 ( uni-bielefeld.de ).
  • Anne Bentkamp: La Doctoresse. Novel about Dorothea Schlözer. Salsa, Göttingen 2020, ISBN 978-3-948235-05-5 .
  • Erich Ebstein: Forgotten contemporary judgments about Dorothea Schlözer. In: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch 1924. New issue of the magazine of the historical association for Lower Saxony, Hildesheim 1924, p. 146–155.
  • Alken Bruns (Ed.): Lübeck CVs. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1993, ISBN 3-529-02729-4 .
  • Carsten Erich Carstens :  Rodde, Dorothea Freifrau von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 29, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, p. 1 f.
  • Lieselotte Jolanda Eberhard: From the famous, learned, beautiful and excellent Dorothea Schlözer, Doctor of Philosophy, married von Rodde in Lübeck. A collection of pictures and historical texts (= small booklets on city history. Volume 12). Schmidt-Römhild, Lübeck 1995, ISBN 3-7950-3111-7 .
  • Friedrich Hassenstein: Art. Rodde-Schlözer, Dorothea . In: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck , Volume 10. Wachholtz, Neumünster 1994; also in: Alken Bruns (ed.): Lübeck resumes from nine centuries . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1993, pp. 327-331
  • Theodor Heuss : August Ludwig von Schlözer and his daughter. In: Ders .: Shadow conjuring. Figures on the margins of history. Wunderlich, Stuttgart / Tübingen 1947; Klöpfer and Meyer, Tübingen 1999, ISBN 3-931402-52-5 .
  • Bärbel Kern, Horst Kern: Madame Doctor Schlözer. A woman's life amid the contradictions of the Enlightenment . Beck, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-406-33304-4 .
  • Eckart Kleßmann : Universitätsmamsellen: five enlightened women between rococo, revolution and romanticism. The Other Library Vol. 281. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-8218-4588-3 .
  • Martha Küssner: Dorothea Schlözer. A memory of Göttingen. Musterschmidt, Göttingen et al. 1976, ISBN 3-7881-8030-7 .
  • Leopold von Schlözer : Dorothea von Schlözer. A German woman's life at the turn of the century. 1770-1825 . Deuerlich, Göttingen 1937.
  • Ute Seidler: Between departure and convention. Dorothea Schlözer . In: Kornelia Duwe et al. (Ed.): Göttingen without Gänseliesel. Texts and images on the city's history. Wartberg, Gudensberg-Gleichen 1989, ISBN 3-925277-26-9 .

Web links

Commons : Dorothea Schlözer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Göttingen City Archives, Persons, Dorothea Schlözer. Retrieved July 10, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Schlözer, Caroline Friedrike von . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 30 : Scheffel – Siemerding . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1936, p. 115 .
  3. ↑ a b Kleßmann: Universitätsmamsellen. 2008, p. 108.
  4. ↑ Hans-Bernd Spies: The encounters of August Ludwig Schlözer and his daughter Dorothea with Wilhelm Heinse in Rome (1782). In: Messages from the Aschaffenburg City and Abbey Archives. 10 (2011-2013), pp. 173-181.
  5. ↑ Kleßmann: Universitätsmamsellen. 2008, p. 116.
  6. ^ Letter from Schiller to Christian Gottfried Körner, October 6, 1787. Quoted in: Rolf Engelsing: The citizen as a reader. Stuttgart 1974, p. 297.
  7. ^ Fragments from Paris. Hamburg 1797.
  8. ↑ Fanny de Beauharnais was the grandmother of Joséphine's adopted daughter Stéphanie de Beauharnais .
  9. ↑ Kleßmann: Universitätsmamsellen. 2008, pp. 214-220.
  10. ↑ Kleßmann: Universitätsmamsellen. 2008, p. 265 f.
  11. ↑ Kleßmann: Universitätsmamsellen. 2008, p. 307 ff.
  12. ↑ From the annual report of the Fatherland Women's Association of the Rothen Kreuz. In: Lübeckische Blätter. Volume 43, No. 5, edition of February 3, 1901, pp. 58–59.
  13. ^ Dorothea Schlözer School .
  14. ^ Dorothea Schlözer program .
personal data
SURNAME Schlözer, Dorothea
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rodde-Schlözer, Dorothea von; Rodde, Dorothea von; Rodde, Dorothea Baroness of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH August 10, 1770
PLACE OF BIRTH Goettingen
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 1825
Place of death Avignon , France