Georg Franz Müller

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Georg Franz Müller (born October 4, 1646 in Ensisheim , Alsace , † July 26, 1723 in Rufach , Alsace) was an Alsatian world traveler. As one of the few Catholics, Müller was employed as a soldier in the Dutch East India Company . He began his service on October 13, 1669 and drove back to Holland on January 9, 1682, where he landed on October 24, 1682.

Life

Illustration from Journey to Batavia

After his apprenticeship as a gunsmith, 14-year-old Georg Franciscus Müller left his parents' house in Rufach in January 1661. With great curiosity and thirst for knowledge, he went from master to master, from place to place and country to country: from Breisgau , Mainz , Trier and Cologne to Austria , Hungary and Italy . It was there that he longed to get to know the sea and distant countries. When he found out that the Dutch East India Company was looking for mercenaries for the colonies, he emigrated to Holland and undertook service there for at least five years. The now 23-year-old enthusiastically used every free minute and every stay to explore everything Merck-worthy , to describe in rhymes and to capture in very naturalistic pictures. He continued this during the 13 years that he served on the many islands of the Indonesian archipelago. He drew and described plants, animals and the people of the various ethnic groups with whom he came into contact. For example, Müller also came into contact with betel chewing and the Sirih Pinang tradition, which was widespread in large parts of Southeast Asia.

He processed his impressions in the values ​​of the colonialism of the time and with his very strong Christian faith. But he always tried to remain as neutral as possible and to remain true to his self-image. It is his duty to observe everything closely and to document it for those people who have not had the luck and the mind to see and explore all of this. Georg Franz Müller, despite his low school education, acquired an amazing knowledge for his time through careful observation, questioning and reading. The result was two works that are worth seeing and reading. He bequeathed his hard-to-read handwriting and the handwriting copied by the copyist as well as the rarities he had brought with him to the monastery; the St. Gallen Abbey Library keeps them to this day.

Self-portrayal of Georg Franz Müller as a pilgrim and the portrayal of death as a skeleton

Müller was unmarried. He spent his last years as the personal servant of Abbot Columban von Andlau in Rorschach . He died in Rufach in 1723, where his parents were buried, as he had wished.

literature

  • Journey to Batavia , Cod. Sang. 1301, Library of St. Gallen Monastery
  • Karl Schmuki: The "Indian" in the St. Gallen monastery. Georg Franz Müller (1646-1723), a world traveler of the 17th century, from manuscripts No. 1278 and 1311 in the St. Gallen Abbey Library St. Gallen 2001
  • Ingrid Grendel and Jeanne Dericks-Tan: From annone to cinnamon, in rhyme and picture. Notes by the world traveler Georg Franz Müller 1646-1723 . Cultural botanical notes No. 3, Abadi Verlag Alzenau 2015, ISSN 2364-3048

Individual evidence

  1. Ingrid Grendel and Jeanne Dericks-Tan: From Annone to Cinnamon in rhyme and picture. Notes by the world traveler Georg Franz Müller 1646-1723 . Kulturbotanische Notes Nr. 3, Abadi Verlag Alzenau 2015, ISSN 2364-3048, p. 7
  2. Cod. Sang. 1311, http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/list/one/csg/1311
  3. Cod. Sang. 1279. http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/list/one/csg/1278
  4. Ingrid Grendel and Jeanne Dericks-Tan: From Annone to Cinnamon, in rhyme and picture. Notes by the world traveler Georg Franz Müller 1646-1723 . Kulturbotanische Notizen Nr. 3, Abadi Verlag Alzenau 2015, ISSN 2364-3048, pp. 5-6