Ernestine Christine Reiske

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ernestine Christine Reiske , b. Müller (born April 2, 1735 in Kemberg ; † July 27, 1798 there ) was a German author and private scholar.

Life

Ernestine Christine Müller grew up as the youngest of 10 daughters of the Kemberger provost and superintendent August Müller senior (1679–1749) and his wife Eleonore Christine nee. Nitzsch (1697–1780). Deeply educated by her father, her eldest brother Gottlieb took over her spiritual education after his death . She also read a lot on philosophical topics, studied genealogy and played the piano. After her brother's marriage in 1755, she contributed to her and her mother's livelihood. Living with her in Leipzig, she managed to gain access to the “Society of Liberal Arts and Science in Leipzig”. Here she met the writer and literary scholar JC Gottsched , as well as the philologist Johann Jacob Reiske (1716–1774) know.

In her younger years, she turned down several marriage proposals, finally gave in to the advertisements of Reiske, who was 20 years her senior, and signed the marriage covenant with him on July 23, 1764. He worked as the rector of the Nikolaischule Leipzig and was professionally recognized as an Orientalist and Graecist. However, due to his difficult character, he did not make a career.

After the highly intelligent woman had been introduced by him in four languages, including Greek and Latin, she helped him with the comparison of manuscripts and with the printing of his works. In order to publish her sick husband's writings, she moved, among other things, her personal jewelry. Between her and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , with whom her husband first came into contact, an intensive pen friendship developed from 1771 onwards. For him she translated the fables of Aesop from Greek into German. Staying in correspondence with Lessing for a long time, after the death of her husband, Reiske hoped that he would marry her, but this did not happen.

As a widow, Reiske self-published the monumental edition of her husband's “Oratores Graeci” (1770–1775) and also published other extensive editions that he left behind, e.g. T. multi-volume works. In 1785 she was the only woman to write four articles for the “Magazin zur Erlebnisseelenkunde” and publicly defended her husband against the criticism of the theologian JD Michaelis. By selling her husband's Arabic manuscripts to the Danish scholar Peter Frederik Suhm , she received a substantial pension. In addition, she achieved considerable prosperity through extremely skillful marketing of the books she published.

The Reiske maintained extensive correspondence with many scholars. From 1777 she kept very close contact with the much younger Brunswick Landdrost Dr. Moritz von Egidy (1756–1820), with whom she entered into a life and work community. To protect her reputation, she adopted him pro forma. Together with him she only moved to Dresden in 1780, where they lived for a few months. As a result, Reiske leased a ducal monastery property in Bornum am Elm, Brunswick, in 1781, certainly in the interests of Egidy . She was also very good at managing it. With Egidy's marriage in 1789, their community ended.

The Reiske then moved to Kemberg, where she was born, where she bought a house and continued her work until she died.

Generally respected by her contemporaries, she passed away as the ideal of a clever and learned woman.

In 2012, in honor of EC Reiske, the school in Kemberg was named "Ernestine Reiske All-Day School". In 2015, a sculpture (by Carina Engelhardt) of Reiske was erected in front of the building.

Fonts (selection)

  • A speech by Libanius. For the first time from a Churfl manuscript. Munich library printed. Leipzig 1775
  • Hellas. 1st volume Mitau 1778, 2nd volume Mitau 1779
  • On morality, translated from the Greek. Dessau and Leipzig 1782
  • Biography of Johann Jacob Reiske. Leipzig 1783
  • Ernestine Christine Reiske. Selected letters . St. Ingbert 1992, ed. by Anke Bennholdt-Thomsen and Alfredo Guzzoni ISBN 3-924555-89-3

literature

Web links