Franz Xaver Amand Berghofer

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Franz Xaver Amand Berghofer (born December 2, 1745 in Grein , † February 7, 1825 in Graz ) was an Austrian philosopher , writer and educator .

Life and writing

Amandus Berghofer was born in Grein on the Danube as the son of the Grein town clerk Johann Gregor Berghofer and his husband Maria Rosalia. He received the first name Amandus , which he later used as the only first name, from his godfather Amand Braitweg, who was a judge by profession .

In 1751 his father was called to Passau as a judicial officer . Berghofer was raised strictly Catholic while attending a monastery school, which later led to his anti-clerical stance.

His artistic and philosophical talent was shown early on, and he attended a two-year course at the philosophical faculty as preparation for the teaching profession. He completed his training in logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, natural history, practical philosophy, politics and political economy in 1771.

He initially earned his living as a tutor and wrote poetry. In 1774 the volume of poetry "Sensations from my life" was published. A little later he took up the post as director of the Kuk Hauptschule in Steyr . He also wrote literary reviews. Since Berghofer felt comfortable neither in Steyr nor in school and, on top of that, his wife Katharina († 1778) and his three children died shortly after each other, he resigned his service in 1787 and intensified his writing activities, which he carried out in several places in Austria during the monarchy and exercised in Switzerland.

At the invitation of his lifelong friend Count Hermann von Callenberg , Berghofer went to Muskau an der Lausitzer Neisse and received an apartment, food, service, a riding horse and other things in the castle. During this time he wrote his main works "Berghofer's writings" and "Berghofer's newest writings", in which he presented his ideas about the relationship between man and nature.

Tired of aristocratic life, Berghofer hoped to find a quiet, frugal, rural, hard-working life in harmony with nature in Switzerland , wandered through the country there and became a friend of Johann Caspar Lavater . He married a Bernese cantor's daughter, but the council of Bern refused to settle in Oberösch , and he was given money to leave the country because it was feared that the state and his future family might burden the state.

With financial support from the cash register of a Masonic lodge , mediated by Ignaz von Born , chairman of the lodge Zur True Eintracht , Berghofer was able to buy a small property in Helenental near Baden . In the following years the name "Austrian Rousseau" was created. There he tried to realize his ideal of a rural and active life and threw himself into physical labor. In addition to financial difficulties, there were soon problems with the surrounding area, especially with the pastor there, so that after four years he left the Helenental again.

His renewed attempt to settle in Switzerland with the support of his childhood friend Poschinger was thwarted by the Zurich Canons. On his return to Austria, he barely escaped an arrest warrant for heretical writings in Passau . After his escape he was offered a post as director of the schools and the abolished monastery libraries and censor in Prague, which he accepted because of his existential threatening situation and the sense of responsibility for his wife and children. He did not do his job properly and received several sharp reprimands. Since he had a lover, his marriage was soon broken too. In 1795 the "Life Revisions of the Man on the Mountain with Critical Reflections" appeared in Prague .

Later he had forbidden writings published anonymously, which could not be proven to him, after a house search he wanted to travel to Bavaria in 1809/1810, but was not allowed to do so. In 1812 he was placed under police supervision because of bad convictions and at the same time the payment of the censor's salary was stopped. After moving to Graz, he wrote his third-person biography, which he published in Hamburg in 1818 under the title “Hofscheu or rural homesickness”. Berghofer lived with his family in Styria near Graz and in 1824 was imprisoned for the incorrigibility of his restless and questionable character. In 1825 he married his mistress in Prague and died on February 7, 1825 in Graz as a martyr of the French police regime.

With the failure of the Enlightenment in Austria, his works were quickly forgotten. In 1944, "Hofscheu or rural homesickness" with manipulative intentions as "rural homesickness" was re-edited by the Hitler regime with corresponding revisions and expanded with text pieces from other Berghofer works.

Works

  • Amand Berghofer: Sensations from my life (1774)
  • Amand Berghofer: Berghofer's writings (1783, 1784, 1787), 2 volumes, self-published
  • Amand Berghofer: Life revisions from the man on the mountain with critical reflections , Prague, 1795
  • Amand Berghofer: The man from the warm heart , Prague 1796
  • Amand Berghofer: Verbotene Schriften , Straubing 1805, 1809
  • Amand Berghofer: Shyness and rural homesickness , a biography (1818), autobiography (1819)
  • Amand Berghofer: Essay on the fist figure

literature

personal data
SURNAME Berghofer, Franz Xaver Amand
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Berghofer, Amand; Perghoffer
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian writer, educator, philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH December 2, 1745
PLACE OF BIRTH Grein
DATE OF DEATH February 7, 1825
Place of death Graz