Friedrich August Wilhelm Wenck

Friedrich August Wilhelm Wenck

Friedrich August Wilhelm Wenck (born September 4, 1741 in Idstein , † June 15, 1810 in Leipzig ) was a German historian.

Life

The son of Johann Martin Wenck (1704–1761) studied from 1760 to 1763 at the University of Erlangen . As a result he was court master of a young Count Alexander von Schönberg in Dresden and in 1766 he worked at the pedagogy in Darmstadt . In order to pursue an academic path, he went to the University of Leipzig in 1768 , where he found a livelihood as the court master of two young nobles through the mediation of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert . In 1770 he acquired the academic degree of a master's degree in philosophy and subsequently held lectures on universal and imperial history, as well as on diplomacy.

On October 23, 1771 he became an associate professor of philosophy, in 1779 a full professor of philosophy and in 1780 had acquired the baccalaureate at the law faculty. On October 2, 1780, after the death of Johann Gottlob Böhme, he received the professorship of history with the title of court councilor. As such, he also participated in the organizational issues of the Leipzig University, was dean of the philosophical faculty, procancellor of the university and was rector of the Alma Mater in the summer semesters 1784, 1792, 1796, 1800, 1804 . Since 1799 he was permanent president of the Societas Jablonoviana . He found his final resting place in the St. Johannis cemetery, where numerous family members are also buried.

His marriage in 1781 to Johanna Louise Schmidt (born October 13, 1743, † May 23, 1824), a daughter of the later princely Mansfeld chancellery director Johann Christoph Schmidt in Eisleben , had five children, two daughters and three sons, including Karl Friedrich Christian Wenck (1784–1828), who also gained importance as a professor of law. After the death of her mother, his daughter Juliane Emilie took over the manor of Beerendorf; before that she had married the later Leipzig university professor Wilhelm Andreas Haase .

Wenck owned several manors in the Delitzsch area. On August 3, 1785, he bought the Beerendorf manor from Carl Wilhelm Graf von Wartensleben . He also owned Schenkenberg and at times also Petersrode.

Act

His best-known work was the Codex juris gentium recentissimi, an edition of the treaties of the years 1735–1772, which at that time was positively received by the academic world. The three-volume work was published in Leipzig in 1781, 1788 and 1795. The translation previously adopted by Ed. Gibbon's history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire could not lead Wenck beyond the first volume published in 1779. His critical comments are drawn from a thorough knowledge of Roman imperial history. The work was continued by Karl Gottfried Schreiter (1756–1809), but this never came close to his attention to detail. He has also written about Saxon history. As a history professor, in addition to his work as an academic teacher, he was also responsible for political censorship . In some cases, he violated the official regulations and had to justify himself to the authorities. In the justifications, which provide a rare insight into the previous censorship of his time, he complained, among other things, of the difficulty of the censorship of periodicals such as the European overseer banned in 1806 or the only political newspaper in Leipzig, the Leipziger Zeitung.

Works (selection)

• Outline of the history of the Austrian and Prussian states. Leipzig 1782 ( online )
• Progr. Illtium, de concessione Insignium in Impero Romano - Germanico. Leipzig 1783
• E tubulatorium exemplariumque publica auctoritate editorum fide compositus, T. I continens diplomata from Anno 1735-43. Leipzig 1781
• E tubulatorium exemplariumque publica auctoritate editorum fide compositus, T. II from Anno 1743-53. Leipzig 1788
• Progr. Relatio de binis Codicibus epistolarum et legationum imeditarum Sigismundi I et Sigismundi II Augusti, Regum Poloniae. Leipzig 1794
• Commentatio I de Henrico I, Misniae et Lusatiae Marchione. Leipzig 1798
• Diss. I Historia Alberti II: Romanorum, Hungariae et Bohemiae regis, Austriae Ducis, Marchionis Moraviae. Leipzig 1770

literature

• Karl Wenck:  Wenck, Friedrich August Wilhelm . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 55, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1910, p. 41 f.
• Helge Buttkereit, Censorship and the Public in Leipzig 1806-1813, Münster 2009
• Markus Huttner, History as an Academic Discipline. Historical studies and historical studies at the University of Leipzig from the 16th to the 19th century (= contributions to the history of Leipzig universities and science A 1), Leipzig 2007, p. 325ff.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ often also information * September 20, 1741 in Darmstadt (cf. also manual of the general literary history based on Heumann's ground plan , Georg Christoph Hamberger, Johann Georg Meusel: Das schehre Teutschland, or lexicon of the now living German writers. Meyersche Buchhandlung, Lemgo, 1800, Vol. 8, p. 437 ( online ))
2. ↑ Heinlein: The Leipzig cemetery in its current form; or, Complete collection of all the inscriptions on the oldest and most recent monuments there. CL Fritzsche, Leipzig, 1844, p. 146 Heinrich Online
3. ↑ cf. Helge Buttkereit: Censorship and the Public in Leipzig 1806–1813. Münster 209, p. 64ff.
4. ↑ Three of these justifications can be found in Buttkereit, Zensur und Demokratie, pp. 201ff.
5. ↑ cf. Buttkereit, Censorship and the Public, p. 221