Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg

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Count Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg , short form: Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg , (* November 7, 1750 in Bramstedt , Holstein , then under the Danish government; † December 5, 1819 at Gut Sondermühlen ( Melle ) near Osnabrück , buried in Stockkämpen ) was a German poet, translator and lawyer.

Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg, lithograph by Josef Lanzedelli the Elder. Ä.
Göttingen memorial plaque for Christian and Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg-Stolberg
Friedrich Leopold Count zu Stolberg
Graf zu Stolberg – Stolberg Portrait of Anton Graff (1785)

His revolutionary-pathetic poems are counted as Sturm und Drang . He wrote odes, ballads, satires, travelogues and dramas. His Homer and Ossian translations are well known .

Initially friends with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , with whom he toured Switzerland, he was influenced in the long term by the religious groups around Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock , Matthias Claudius , Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi , Johann Gottfried von Herder and the Münsterschen Kreis . From 1806 to 1818 he wrote a 15-volume history of the religion of Jesus Christ .

Life

Family and youth (until 1770)

Friedrich Leopold was the second son of Count Christian Günther zu Stolberg-Stolberg (1714–1765) and his wife Christiane Charlotte nee. Countess zu Castell-Remlingen (1722–1773), daughter of Karl Friedrich Gottlieb zu Castell-Remlingen , born. He grew up in Copenhagen , where his father worked in the Danish civil service from 1738, most recently as Lord Chamberlain.

Friedrich Leopold Stolberg grew up in the countryside near Hirschholm on the Danish island of Zealand . His family was very interested in culture and was shaped by pietistic religiosity as well as a certain aristocratic elite consciousness, so that he was protected and guided but on the other hand also raised informally with his siblings, which strongly shaped Stolberg's career in later years. The relationship with his siblings remained very close throughout his life.

After the sudden death of her husband in 1765, Stolberg's mother bought the Rungstedt (Rondstedt) estate north of Copenhagen, which she and her children lived in until 1770. Since the Danish aristocratic culture at this time also included a certain approximation of "bourgeois" norms, education and training, the Stolberg children had been familiar with the cultivated dealings with bourgeois intellectuals and writers from an early age. Logically, after the early death of the father, the family friend and at the time already widely revered poet Klopstock took over the education of Friedrich and his brother Christian zu Stolberg-Stolberg .

Studies and first professional positions (1770 to 1783)

Together with his brother, Stolberg first studied law in Halle from 1770 . Later, apparently in order to have a more active part in contemporary cultural life, the brothers moved to Göttingen, where they and their court master Carl Christian Clauswitz were accepted into the Göttinger Hain poet association on December 19, 1772 . Stolberg already belonged to Johann Heinrich Voss , with whom he became friends, and Ludwig Hölty to the more talented writers of the federal government.

After finishing their studies in autumn 1773 and after the death of their mother in December of the same year, the Stolberg brothers stayed in the house of their brother-in-law Andreas Peter von Bernstorff in Copenhagen.

Stolberg was like his brother Christian on May 11, 1774 the Hamburg Masonic -Loge The three roses picked up and brought there on 21 April 1775 to the Master. In Berlin, he is said to have been accepted into higher levels of the Grand State Lodge. A little later he withdrew from the Freemasons' Association because he did not meet his standards.

In the summer of 1775, Stolberg went on an educational trip through Switzerland with Goethe, whose acquaintance had been made by Heinrich Christian Boie , and then accompanied him to Weimar at the end of 1775 . Here, Duke Carl August , presumably at Goethe's instigation, offered Stolberg a chamberlain post at his court, which Stolberg initially accepted, but finally canceled in favor of a position for the Prince-Bishop of Lübeck and later Duke of Oldenburg Friedrich August .

From 1776 to 1780 Friedrich Leopold was ambassador to Prince-Bishop Friedrich August in Copenhagen . In the summer of 1776 he went to Eutin , the residence of the Prince Diocese of Lübeck, and Oldenburg, to take office . In November of that year he began his service in Copenhagen.

Shortly afterwards, Stolberg found the conditions of court and state life in Copenhagen bothersome, so that he noticed the representative duties of court society and city life by traveling to his brother, who had settled in Tremsbüttel , as well as by further trips and visits to befriended families tried to withdraw their possessions. In the autumn of 1780, Stolberg's brother-in-law Andreas Peter Bernstorff was dismissed as Foreign Minister and Director of the German Chancellery . Stolberg took the opportunity to also leave Copenhagen as envoy in the spring of 1781. He went to Eutin, where he held the office of a thigh , that is, again court service. Once again under-challenged and unsatisfied, he looked for stimulating company again and went on trips to relatives and friends. In 1782 he got Johann Heinrich Voss a position as school rector in Eutin. Stolberg's wedding also took place this year.

Activity in Oldenburg (1783 to 1788)

In 1783 Stolberg took over the vacated position of governor in Neuchâtel in Oldenburg , but stayed in Holstein until the summer of 1784 and then went to Karlsbad again with his brother and their wives to meet Goethe. In spring 1785 Stolberg was with his wife in Copenhagen, where their second child was born. It was not until the summer of 1785 that Stolberg began working in Neuchâtel. Immediately after taking office in Neuchâtel, Stolberg received the order from the new Oldenburg Duke and Lübeck Prince-Bishop Peter Friedrich Ludwig to officially announce the death of his predecessor Friedrich August at the Tsar's court in Saint Petersburg . After his return in January 1786 and further stays in Holstein, Stolberg and his family did not return to Neuchâtel until April.

Since his official business once again made little use of him, Stolberg kept in close contact with the intellectual leadership of the duchy in Oldenburg, such as Gerhard Anton von Halem and Karl Ludwig von Woltmann , maintained extensive correspondence with relatives and friends and also wrote some literary works. In November 1788, Stolberg's wife died unexpectedly, he then left Neuchâtel to move to his brother in Tremsbüttel.

In Berlin and Eutin (1789 to 1800)

In 1789, thanks to his brother-in-law Bernstorff, he became the Danish envoy in Berlin . There he met his second wife, to whom he became engaged in August 1789 and whom he married in February 1790. With her extensive fortune, Stolberg became financially independent. From May 1791 to 1800 he was president of the prince-bishop's colleges in Eutin, where he belonged to the Eutin circle . Before taking office, however, from June 1791 he undertook a two-year journey through Switzerland, Italy and Sicily with his wife, his eldest son and court master Georg Heinrich Ludwig Nicolovius . On the way to Italy, he met the Princess Amalie von Gallitzin for the first time in Münster . The start of activity in Eutin did not take place until March 1793. The fortune of his wife enabled Stolberg in Eutin to have a much more representative way of life, which on the other hand removed Stolberg from personalities close to him, such as Voss and Halem. In the 1790s he was also close to the conservative and aristocratic Emkendorfer district . In the dispute over from the Enlightenment theology embossed liturgy of the General Superintendent Jacob Georg Christian Adler he teamed up in 1798 by an anonymous writing which Matthias Claudius has been allocated initially, as their opponents out. At this point in time he had already found a connection to the Munster circle around Princess Amalie von Gallitzin and Franz von Fürstenberg .

In the Münsterland (1800 to 1819)

At the beginning of 1800 he resigned his public offices and moved to Münster . There he, his second wife Sophie and his children - with the exception of their daughter Marie Agnes from their first marriage, who was engaged to her cousin Ferdinand zu Stolberg-Wernigerode - converted to the Catholic faith on June 1, 1800 , with the counts zu Stolberg and in Protestant Germany caused a great stir. 19 years later, Johann Heinrich Voss used this conversion as an opportunity for his polemical writings How did Friz Stolberg become a nonfree? (1819) and confirmation of Stolberg's activities (1820). The friendship with Halem had already broken apart. On the other hand, Stolberg's step was also welcomed by spokesmen for the incipient Classic and Romantic periods .

Stolberg initially stayed in Münster and in his summer residence in nearby Lütkenbeck . From 1812 to 1816 he lived in the water castle Tatenhausen near Bielefeld . Then he finally moved to Gut Sondermühlen near Osnabrück , where he also died in 1819.

family

The first wife Henriette Eleonore Agnes, b. von Witzleben, portrait by Anton Graff (1785)

On June 11, 1782 he married Henriette Eleonore Agnes , the daughter of Adam Levin von Witzleben the Younger . The couple had the following children:

  • Christian Ernst (* July 30, 1783; † May 22, 1846); KuK major general; 1846 Lieutenant Field Marshal ⚭ 1818 Josephine von Gallenberg (1784–1839)
  • Marie Agnes (1785–1848) ⚭ 1802 Ferdinand zu Stolberg-Wernigerode (1775–1854)
  • Andreas Otto Heinrich (1786–1863), by marriage (1817) master of Söder
⚭ 1817 Philippine von Brabeck (1796–1821)
  • Botho Felix (1818-1840)
⚭ July 26, 1823 Anna von Hompesch-Bollheim (1802–1833)
⚭ 1836 Maria Julia von Gallenberg (1808–1889)
The second wife Sophie Charlotte Eleonore, b. von Redern, portrait by Anton Graff (1789/1792)

After the untimely death of his first wife on November 15, 1788, he married Countess Sophie Charlotte Eleonore von Redern (* November 4, 1765 - January 8, 1842 in Rumillies, Hainault), daughter of Sigismund Ehrenreich von , on February 15, 1790 Talking . The couple had the following children:

  • Julie Agnes Emilie (* December 10, 1790 - March 12, 1836) ⚭ March 10, 1812 Count Maximilian von Korff called Schmising-Kerßenbrock (* November 14, 1781 - October 18, 1850)
  • Sybille Johanna Amalie (April 2, 1792 - August 29, 1792)
  • Johann Franz Leo (* August 21, 1793; † April 13, 1794)
  • Franz Bernhard Leo (born February 9, 1795 - † June 21, 1795)
  • Christian Franz Leo (born February 26, 1796 - † June 16, 1815), died near Ligny
  • Johann Peter Cajus (1797–1874) ⚭ 1829 Marie von Loë (1804–1871)
  • Leopold (1799–1840) ⚭ 1838 Christiane von Sternberg-Manderscheid (1798–1840)
  • Alfred (born August 13, 1800 - † November 9, 1834)
  • Franz Bernhard (born January 8, 1802 - † March 29, 1815)
  • Bernhard Joseph (April 30, 1803; † January 21, 1859) ⚭ January 8, 1833 Charlotte von Seherr-Thoss (* July 8, 1809; † August 1, 1878)
  • Joseph Theodor (1804-1859); was a landowner and politician
⚭ October 17, 1838 Maria Theresia von Spee (born June 19, 1811 - † February 1, 1850)
⚭ February 25, 1851 Caroline von Robiano-Borsbeek (* December 24, 1826 - January 9, 1882) daughter of Maria and Carl von Robiano-Borsbeek
  • Maria Theresia Amalie (* December 24, 1805; † December 25, 1843) ⚭ May 4, 1825 Carl von Robiano-Borsbeek (* May 8, 1785; † October 9, 1854)
  • Marie Amalie Pauline Clementine (April 12, 1807 - January 20, 1880) ⚭ September 19, 1826 Ludwig von Robiano-Borsbeek (March 10, 1781 - May 24, 1855)
  • Marie Sophie Pauline (born September 18, 1810 - † January 19, 1889)
⚭ Werner von Nagel (born June 13, 1800; † January 28, 1832)
⚭ Wilderich von Ketteler (born June 14, 1809; † July 29, 1873)

A companion describes how things went in this family around 1800: “After breakfast the count read a chapter from the Bible and a song from Klopstock's songs. Then she (the Countess) read quietly in the magazine "Spectator". Then the countess read from Lavater's “Pontius Pilatus” for an hour. Everyone read the time until lunch for themselves. For dessert there was a reading from Milton's “Paradise Lost”. Then the count read Plutarch's biography and after tea one read to oneself favorite passages from Klopstock. Letters are written in the evening and read the next morning before they are sent. In the free hours you read contemporary novels, which is mentioned rather shyly. "

Werner von Haxthausen was raised together with his eldest sons in Münster from 1799–1800 , through whom Stolberg had contact with his half-sister Therese, mother of the poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff . Friedrich-Leopold became the progenitor of numerous Catholic aristocratic families through the marriage of his converted children.

His sisters Henriette (1747–1782) and Augusta were successively married to the Danish Foreign Minister Andreas Peter von Bernstorff .

A memorial plaque in honor of the Stolberg brothers is attached to the facade of Gotmarstrasse 1 in Göttingen, where they lived as students. Their names, together with other members of the Göttingen Hainbund and incorrectly spelled Stollberg , are also on the heavily weathered Hainbund monument on the upper Herzberger Landstrasse in Göttingen.

Works

Stolberg was extensively literary. As early as 1779 he and his brother had a joint collection of their poems published in various almanacs and journals.

He wrote odes, ballads, satires, travelogues and dramas, including the tragedy Timoleon in 1784 and the novella Die Insel in 1788 . In 1794 he described his travels in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Sicily in 1791 and 1792 (digitized version ) Friedrich Christoph Perthes , a son-in-law of Matthias Claudius, published several of these writings.

He had considerable language skills and translated the Iliad (1778), Plato's dialogues in three volumes (1796–1797), Aeschylus (1802) and Ossian (1806), whereby he wanted to show references between ancient and Christian ethics .

Stolberg's late work, which arose after his conversion to Catholicism, shaped contributions to general and Catholic religious and church history. In 1815 he published the life of Alfred the Great and from 1806 to 1818 a fifteen-volume history of the religion of Jesus Christ , plus two index volumes. His little book of love and his answer to a pamphlet by Johann Heinrich Voss. Brief processing of the long diatribe by Hofrath Voss appeared only after his death.

Some of his poems were set to music by Franz Schubert : Morning song , evening song , To nature , To sing on the water , song , voice of love , Daphne at the brook , song in the absence , romance .

Work in detail (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg  - Sources and full texts
Wikiquote: Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ New Prussian Nobility Lexicon 1843
  2. ↑ Werner Adolph Freiherr von Haxthausen - Inspirer of the Bökendorfer Romantikerkreis and his descendants, by Wilderich Freiherr Droste zu Hülshoff (introduction and biographies) and Sibren Verhelst, Gorinchem (Netherlands), 2014.
  3. ↑ Carl Arnold Freiherr v. Broich, Franz Graf zu Stolberg-Stolberg: The descendants of Count Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg 1750-1819, 250 years after his birth. Self-published, 2000.
personal data
SURNAME Stolberg-Stolberg, Friedrich Leopold to
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stolberg, Friedrich Leopold Graf too
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician and poet
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1750
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Bramstedt
DATE OF DEATH December 5, 1819
Place of death Sondermühlen Castle near Osnabrück