Eberhard Savary

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Eberhard Savary

Eberhard Savary (* 12. April 1863 in Beat Thal in Wolmar , Governorate of Livonia , Russian Empire ; † 22. May 1919 in Riga , Latvia SPR ), with full name Hermann August Eberhard Savary , Latvian Eberhard Savarijs , Eberhard Zāvari or Eberhard's Safari was a German-Baltic pastor . He is considered an Evangelical Lutheran martyr and is recorded on the Riga Martyrs Stone.

The dates in this article are based on the Julian calendar for the period up to 1918 unless otherwise noted.

family

Eberhard Savary was a son of the farmer August Carl Maximilian Savary (1821–1886) and Mathilde, née Stark (1830–1916); he had numerous siblings. A sister was named Emilie Auguste Charlotte Savary (1861-1945, married Hasselblatt).

On August 22, 1889, Eberhard Savary married Bertha Pauline Johanna Hasselblatt (1868–1946), a daughter of the provost Eduard Hasselblatt, in Kamby . They had at least five sons, including Herbert August Arnold Savary (born October 4, 1890 in Ascheraden near Kokenhusen , † November 15, 1960 in Soltau, bank director, married to Gabriele von Renteln), the later pastors Eduard Johannes Savary (born March 25 1893 in Ascheraden; † March 27, 1962 in Rothenburg ob der Tauber ) and Richard August Savary (born April 19, 1896 in Ascheraden; † August 6, 1956 in Dielmissen / Bodenwerder ), who was temporarily headmaster and the doctor Erich August Savary (* October 2, 1899 in Ascheraden, † June 12, 1945 in Soldin, married on February 27, 1941 in Posen to Erika von Knorring).

Life

Career

Eberhard Savary grew up in modest circumstances, which the family rated unusually positively. This made Savary a humble and honest person. Because of his beliefs, he was also very peaceful. With this being he always acquired the affection of those around him.

From 1875 to 1878 he attended the Bergmannsche private boys' school in Doblen , from 1878 to 1882 the Gouvernements-Gymnasium in Riga, from which he graduated from high school.

Dorpat University around 1860

After studying theology at the University of Dorpat from 1882 to 1887 , which he completed as a graduate student, and an examination in the Livonian Evangelical-Lutheran consistory on October 25 or 26, 1887 and his probationary year, which he was with from 1887 to 1888, he was pastor Walter in Kremon (Livonia), ordained on March 13, 1888 in Riga by General Superintendent Girgensohn. Since September 9, 1883, he was a member of the Theological Association of Dorpat.

In 1889 two Latvian parishes wanted to hire him as pastor. One community was that of Tirsen (today part of the political community of Gulbene ), in which he was adjunct for a short time in 1888. The other was that of Ascheraden, who was looking for a pastor because the previous pastor, Pastor Harf, had been banned by the authorities of the Russian Empire. Savary had been pastor-vicar there for six months from 1888 to 1889. This situation was extremely unusual, as the time was marked by a pronounced nationalism that stood between the German-Baltic and Latvian ethnic groups. The fact that two Latvian communities tried to win over the German-Baltic Savary says a lot about his personality.

The community of Ascheraden eventually managed to hire Savary. He held services in Latvian and German.

Administration

Eberhard Savary concentrated on his work solely for the Ascheradener community. He avoided outside employment.

Nevertheless, in addition to his spiritual activities, he was also involved in pastor Karl Schilling , murdered in 1905, provost Ludwig Zimmermann , murdered in 1906, clergymen Hans Bielenstein , Alexander Bernewitz , Xaver Marnitz , Arnold von Rutkowski , Paul Fromhold-Treu , and Christoph Strautmann , who were executed by Bolsheviks in 1919 , Karl Schlau , Eugen Scheuermann and Wilhelm Gilbert and like the pastors Gustav Cleemann and Erwin Gross , who died as a result of their imprisonment with the Bolsheviks, full members of the Latvian-Literary Society , which was dedicated to the study of the Latvian language, folklore and culture . This society was mainly supported by German-Baltic pastors and intellectuals. For the Latvians themselves, a higher education was hardly accessible at the time of the imperial Russian rule, their culture led a shadowy existence.

Savary worked quietly and tenaciously, renewing the structure of his church. A new construction of the old and dilapidated church building would have depended on the approval of the Russian Orthodox bishop within the framework of the state church at the time. So the church could only be renovated, which in fact became a new building. Savary worked tirelessly to obtain funding for this from his own congregation, whose options in this regard were very limited. Thanks to his efforts, the church received a new organ and ornate new windows. The restoration of the ailing churchyard was also due to his efforts. He enjoyed spending his free time there.

He served his community with carefully prepared sermons and meticulous pastoral care. Savary was among the first country pastors to institute Bible studies. A church choir can also be traced back to his initiative.

Russian Revolution of 1905

During the Russian Revolution of 1905 on June 5, 1905, the first day of Pentecost, the divine service in Ascheraden, led by Savary, was initially calm. The sermon was also undisturbed. But when the prayer that included the intercession for the tsar was supposed to follow, three foreign revolutionaries who had advanced to the pulpit pulled revolvers and shouted: "Nost ar Kaisaru, nost ar patwaldibu." ("Away with the emperor, away with the Autocracy . ”) Numerous equally armed men joined the protest, the service could not be continued. The revolutionaries threatened the community, which then fled the church, sometimes through broken windows.

The subsequent events of that day have been reported inconsistently: According to one version, the revolutionaries wanted to force Savary to go ahead with a red flag. When he clearly refused, he was mistreated and put in a sack. According to the other version, parishioners managed to surround Savary for his protection and escort him home. After the interrupted service, speeches against the autocracy, the calling up of reservists and the state administration of the elementary schools were held outside the church. Revolutionary songs were sung, demonstrated with red flags and money was raised for the procurement of weapons. The revolutionaries told Savary that they had not wanted to disrupt the service, but only wanted to prevent the prayer for the tsar. A third report says that the leader of the revolutionaries asked the congregation if they wanted to keep Savary as pastor, which they invariably answered in the affirmative, whereupon the revolutionaries left.

District Administrator M. von Sivers, the owner of Römershof Castle, found out about the demonstration in the church that morning. He went with his administrator and other employees to the scene to prevent acts of violence. Since the church was about 4 miles from the castle, this intervention came too late to prevent disrupting the service. The police did not intervene either, as they had been recalled to Kokenhusen to prevent demonstrations there.

Similar incidents occurred in Sissigal with Pastor Lange from Sunzel , in Nitau with Pastor Karl Schilling , who was killed that same year, and in Lennewarden with Provost Ludwig Zimmermann , who later buried Schilling and rededicated the Nitau Church, and probably because of it his attitude towards the revolutionaries expressed on these occasions was killed in 1906.

Due to the clear attitude of the congregation, there were no further disruptions to the service; initially there were no further attacks against Savary, and he continued to serve in his office in Ascheraden. When the movement against the rural pastors flared up again in Courland as part of the revolution and spread to southern Livland, a number of pastors in the Riga district received threatening letters, including Savary. On April 30, 1906, the service was disrupted again. This time the military was used against troublemakers and distributors of leaflets. Savary-friendly parishioners saw him and his family in danger now that they could no longer protect him on his journeys through remote forest areas, and advised him to leave the parish at least temporarily. Reluctantly, he followed this advice in May. During the ongoing revolutionary unrest, Savary was able to work as a pastor in different places for a limited time. So he was mentioned from November 14, 1906 to January 16, 1907 in the church records of the parish Roschyschtsche in Volhynia as an executive pastor.

Pre-war period and World War I

After the suppression of the revolution, Eberhard Savary returned to Ascheraden in 1907.

On March 13, 1913, the provost Xaver Marnitz spoke on Savary's 25th anniversary in office . Savary himself said that he had originally come to this community against his will and that he did not want to return even after his temporary absence, but was now of the opinion that everything had turned out as it should.

During the First World War , before December 18, 1914, he donated ten rubles to the Riga Red Cross Medical Column No. 24.

In the summer of 1915, Savary had to leave his ward again. The parish on the Daugava was completely evacuated by the Russian army when the German forces approached. Savary was the last to go and took over the office of the sick pastor of Loddiger.

He also had to flee from here a little later, this time from the Russian soldiers who were in disorderly retreat. During the German occupation, which brought temporary stability, Savary returned to Loddiger as soon as possible. The pastor was also able to quickly win over this congregation. The church had been desecrated and tainted, but Savary was barely able to restore it. The community had suffered greatly from marauding Russian soldiers and the first Bolshevik supremacy that emerged before the German troops marched in . Savary advised her:

"Forgive, forget, bury all old grudges."

Capture and execution

The German army was withdrawn in December 1918; now the Latvian War of Independence was raging . Eberhard Savary was concerned. He wondered whether to stay with his community or to flee. He looked in vain for the answer in prayer. During this time he was asked to marry a couple. The wedding date fell on the time when it was assumed that the Bolsheviks would have invaded Loddiger by then. Savary saw in this a sign from God: Apparently he should stay. So he stayed in Loddiger and was happy to be able to give support and Christian hope to many people in difficult times.

On New Year 1919 Savary preached about Ps 37,5  LUT : “He will do it well”, a Bible word that says that God's guidance will ultimately lead to a good outcome in the sense of eternal life. The verse was to be of particular support to him in the future. Oskar Schabert sees it in his Baltic Martyrs Book (see chapter “Literature”) as a comforting motto of the later martyrdom of Savary.

The Bolshevik (oil painting by Boris Kustodijew ; 1920)

The Bolsheviks took control and began executing the first people. Savary also expected his death. His main concern was that he might get weak; he could not judge whether his own expected suffering and witnessing atheistically motivated violence would bend him. He consulted with an old church guardian, a Latvian farmer, about the extent to which orders from the Bolsheviks regarding church affairs may be followed from an evangelical position. They managed to get permission to hold services on Sundays and public holidays. Even the communists in Loddiger stood by the pastor.

Savary was finally arrested on April 10, 1919 by Bolsheviks who came from outside. His wife and all the German-Baltic community members were also arrested. The role the pastor played for his fellow prisoners in Segewold is reflected in a quote from a German colonist who was arrested with him: "We lived like in a church."

On April 13, his birthday, Savary received a special gift: his wife was released from custody. He told her:

"We want to be loyal."

It was to be his last words to his wife, whom he never saw again. Savary was transferred to the Riga Central Prison, where the pastors Erhard Doebler , August Eckhardt , Alfred Geist , Hermann Bergengruen and Theodor Hoffmann were also imprisoned, as were all the hostages of the Bolsheviks.

The prisoners expected an amnesty for May 1, 1919, but this did not materialize. They were torn between hope and fatefulness.

Savary was one of the many prisoners who contracted typhus . On May 21st, it was decided that he would be transferred to the hospital. It shouldn't come to that anymore.

On May 22nd, the prison was about to be stormed by a raid troop of the Baltic State Armed Forces , about which the prisoners knew nothing. Shortly before the Bolsheviks withdrew from Riga, Savary, who was seriously ill with fever, and 32 other prisoners (see the list below) were led out of their cells in the afternoon. They were brought in an orderly train through the long corridors under heavy guard to the prison yard. Soldiers of the Red Army, who formed the guard, were posted there and now shot all those who were taken out.

Immediately afterwards the soldiers and commissioners fled. A little later, an armored car from the Landeswehr made its way to the prison; the prisoners' relatives followed him into the courtyard. They were shocked by the sight they saw.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Church services. in the Düna-Zeitung , No. 171, July 31, 1892, online under Pastor Pastor Savary | issueType: P
  2. ^ List of members of the Latvian Literary Society from 1901 ( Memento from September 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Baltic Revolution Chronicle I 1905/1906 in the Baltic Monthly , No. 07–12, July 1, 1907, online at Savary | issueType: P
  4. ^ A number of shameful church disturbances in Livonia in the Düna-Zeitung , No. 120, June 7, 1905, online under Savary Pastor | issueType: P
  5. ^ Livonia. A number of shameful church disturbances in Livonia in the Libauschen Zeitung , No. 118, June 8, 1905, online at Pastor Schilling | issueType: P
  6. ↑ Kirchenschänderische operations in Courland and Livonia in Riga's Rundschau ., No. 121, June 8, 1905 online at Schilling | issue type: P
  7. ↑ Last local news in the Rigaschen Rundschau , No. 171, December 10, 1905, online at Savary | issueType: P
  8. ↑ Domestic. in the Libauschen Zeitung , No. 109, May 16, 1906, online at Savary | issueType: P
  9. ↑ For the Rigaer Sanitäts-Kolonne of the Red Cross No. 24 in the Rigaschen Zeitung , No. 295, December 20, 1914, online at Savary | issueType: P
personal data
SURNAME Savary, Eberhard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Savary, Hermann August Eberhard (full name); Savarijs, Eberhards; Zāvari, Eberhards; Safari, Eberhards
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Baltic pastor
DATE OF BIRTH April 12, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Beatenthal near Wolmar , Livonia Governorate , Russian Empire
DATE OF DEATH May 22, 1919
Place of death Riga , Latvian SPR