Friedrich Apollonius von Maltitz

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Baron Friedrich Apollonius von Maltitz (born June 11, 1795 in Gera , † March 2, 1870 in Weimar ) was a German poet and Russian diplomat.

origin

He was the youngest son of the imperial Russian envoy Pyotr Fyodorowitsch von Maltitz (1754-1826). His father was transferred frequently and was repeatedly on extraordinary missions.

His older brother, Franz Friedrich (born June 6, 1794), was also in the diplomatic service, and most recently the Russian envoy in The Hague. From there he retired to Boppard in 1854 , where he died on April 25, 1857. He made himself known in Germany with a performance of Schiller's Torso Demetrius (1817).

Life

Due to the wandering life of his father, von Maltitz never experienced the feeling of home, and was also unable to enjoy living with other people of his age or attending a grammar school. The lessons had to be achieved exclusively by private tutors. His wandering life led to a frequent change of teachers and so the lessons were poor.

The young Maltitz recognized this very soon and was eager to fill in all the gaps in his knowledge through constant self-study. This pursuit has been with him throughout his future life. As a result, however, a shyness and self-consciousness inherent in his being developed more and more in him, which took many years to overcome. However, the travel life had a more favorable effect on the boy's imagination.

During a stay in Karlsbad he saw Goethe, whose importance the boy suspected more than understood; he looked at him, as he said, "with a shudder of admiration and awe of a greatness that seemed to him to be far above all other power." It was there in 1813 that he saw Theodor Körner , who was to die for his fatherland that same year.

After his father had been ambassador to Stuttgart for two years, he was transferred to Karlsruhe in 1812. Here Maltitz was employed as an attaché to the embassy alongside his older brother. In this capacity he accompanied his father to the Congress of Vienna . When Varnhagen came to Karlsruhe later in 1816 as the Prussian chargé d'affaires and General Tettenborn had also settled there, the young Maltitz was allowed to find acceptance and understanding in the circle of important men who had soon gathered around these two .

Stimulated by this, Maltitz devoted himself to studying the old classics, while at the same time exercising his poetic talent with increasing confidence. As early as 1817 a volume of poetic experiments was published in Karlsruhe, which the young 21-year-old poet sent out into the world. Its comfortable existence was suddenly and glaringly destroyed. The humble young diplomat was insulted in the most shameful way by a military bully; a duel was inevitable, and the offender was left dead on the square. For many years the young poet's tender heart remained shaken by this event.

Another consequence was his transfer to the embassy in Stuttgart. Here the then special envoy, Prince Kosloffsky (* 1783, † October 26, 1840), soon became a fatherly friend; this relationship with one of the most witty and liberal diplomats of his time was not without influence for Maltitz. It was his lucky star that after the resignation of this superior, Count Konstantin von Benckendorff's successor , also accepted him as a family member. In his elegiac and sentimental mood at the time, Maltitz was very delighted with Matthison's poems, and since he was living in Stuttgart at the time, he had preferred to seek his company. The sixty-year-old had welcomed him with friendly sympathy. It was under these impressions that Maltitz tried his hand at dramatic poetry for the first time, and his tragedy Virginia is the best of those he had written. Relocated to Berlin in 1821, he soon found pleasant socializing there and was introduced to the circle of the most important representatives of literature by Varnhagen. A visit to Dresden established a close, friendly relationship with Elise von der Recke and Christoph August Tiedge ; the Christian tendency that prevailed in this circle made an indelible mark on his mind and spirit.

He had to leave these surroundings sooner than he liked; towards the end of 1823 he was appointed to the chancellery of Grand Duke Constantine in Warsaw ; Here he spent three years in almost complete seclusion, but this loneliness brought many a poetic bloom: in addition to lyrical effusions, comedies and epistles were created. The year 1826 brought him back to his earlier career, namely to Vienna, where he quickly felt at home and enjoyed a rich intellectual life. After three years he was transferred to Rio de Janeiro , where he found the ambassador Franz Frantsevich Borel on his deathbed, and from the beginning of 1830 he ran the mission business independently. He experienced the revolution here in April 1831, which caused Emperor Peter I to transfer his crown to his underage son. For seven years he had to stay in this country, to which he was very reluctant to come; but he quickly found himself in his position, for there was no lack of a small circle of eminent men whom he knew how to attract and tie. The charm of the strange world that surrounded him constantly stimulated him to do poetic work.

His health was suffering from the tropical climate, so he asked for his transfer. This reached him in the late summer of 1836 and took him to Munich, where he was soon connected to the envoy Severin through the closest friendship. The number of outstanding men in the field of science and art was strikingly large in Munich at that time. In these circles, Maltitz soon found himself recognized as an equal. He joined forces with Franz von Elsholtz and Friedrich von Zu Rhein to publish a weekly Deutsche Theeblätter , which was sold again after only two years. In Munich, in Clothilde von Bothmer (* May 2, 1809; † September 5, 1882) in March 1839, he found a wife whose cheerful, fine-tempered disposition understood the direction of the spirit, the piety and the humor of the husband and whose loving involvement with them Intentions of the poet for this a spur to incessantly new creation. His diplomatic wandering life came to an end for him in 1841 when he was transferred to Weimar as chargé d'affaires. Here he found his home, and lived there for twenty-nine years in the most comfortable position. The purest selflessness, the genuine Christian spirit, the hard-working humanity enabled him to participate in the weal and woe of his fellow men, to act on these feelings that did not shrink from any trouble or complaint. And this warmth of the heart was illuminated by a humor of conception and presentation that is seldom seen in this way and in this mixture. That such a character could not be lacking the tribute of general unrestricted veneration need hardly be mentioned.

In the course of these years, in addition to numerous poems, several larger poetic works were created; such as the tragedies Spartacus and Anna Bolena ; also The first forgiveness , biblical scenes of the reconciliation of Esau and Jacob; two chants to the epic of the eternal Jew; three volumes of lyric poems: 1844 a flag of symbolic poems ; 1857 Another sheet in Lethe ; 1858 Before falling silent . This work did not find general recognition, but it was understood and appreciated by the large circle of his friends, and on the day of the 300th anniversary of the University of Jena , in August 1858, the philosophical faculty awarded him a doctoral hat.

His official achievements were recognized by his appointment to the Privy Council and the award of the Order of St. Anne, 1st class . He took his official duties so strictly that he never left Weimar without overnight leave; for this he compensated himself with the annual vacation time granted to him, in that he and his wife again visited the places he had loved to stay before. In 1865 his very unstable health compelled him to resign, but he kept his residence in Weimar and saw the storms of 1866 here from the standpoint of a participating spectator who was keenly interested in Germany's fate. Uninterruptedly active, he continued his happy domestic existence in the usual way, until on March 2, 1870 a gentle death wrested him from his deeply bent widow.

Works

As Lola Milford:

After his death:

family

In March 1839 he married Countess Clothilde von Bothmer (* May 2, 1809, † September 5, 1882). The couple had no children. They had a foster daughter, Clothilde von Bothmer, a niece of his wife, who died on December 5, 1871.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gothaisches genealogical pocket book of the count's houses for the year 1872. S. 115. (books.google.de)
  2. ^ General newspaper Munich. 1871, obituary notice
personal data
SURNAME Maltitz, Friedrich Apollonius von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Milford, Lola (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German poet and Russian diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH June 11, 1795
PLACE OF BIRTH Gera
DATE OF DEATH March 2, 1870
Place of death Weimar