Heinrich Harries

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Heinrich Harries, portrait in the collection of his poems published by Gerhard Holst in 1804
Memorial stone at the St. John's Church in Bruges (Holstein)

Heinrich Harries (born September 9, 1762 in Flensburg , † September 28, 1802 in Bruges ) was a pastor and writer in the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which were then part of the Danish state . It was from him - addressed to the Danish king - the original form of the Prussian- Reich German ruler's hymn Heil dir in the wreath as well as the German-speaking commitment to Dania, O Dania .

Life

Harries came from a Flensburg merchant family. His father Diederich Harries (1729–1783) had come from Martfeld to Flensburg and married Christina Rasch (1730–1813), the daughter of a ship owner and captain. His father first bought the house at Angelburger Strasse  28 and later the large property at Grosse Strasse  69. He ran a sugar refinery in town .

Heinrich Harries was a student at the Flensburg Latin School between the ages of 9 and 14 . For another three years he attended the boarding school of Pastor Christian August Valentiner in Boren , where he also met his daughter Ida Christine Margarethe (1764-1825), his future wife. In 1779 he began studying theology in Kiel , which he later continued in Göttingen . After the death of his father, he obtained permission to preach from General Superintendent Adam Struensee . Two years later he passed the exam. Since he did not immediately get a pastor's position, he went on an educational trip through various German cities, the Netherlands and England in 1787/88. From 1788 to 1790 he lived in Flensburg and, together with other young theologians who were also waiting for a pastor, founded the Flensburger Wochenblatt für Jedermann , of which he was the main editor until 1793.

In his newspaper, Harries hailed the French Revolution . In his home country in the entire Danish state , however, he saw no need for a revolution: Thanks to progressive reforms such as freedom of the press and the abolition of serfdom , he saw his ideals realized here. Just a few weeks after the fall of the Bastille, on the occasion of the 41st birthday of the Danish King Christian VII. On January 27, 1790, in his Flensburg weekly newspaper, Harries published a “song for the Danish subject to sing on his king's birthday in the melody of English folk song: God save great George the King “. It began with the words “Hail, the loving ruler of the fatherland! Heil, Christian, you! ". The song was reworked by Balthasar Gerhard Schumacher for Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia and shortened to five stanzas, appeared in this version under the title Berliner Volksgesang in the Haude and Spenersche Zeitung on December 17, 1793 and became increasingly popular afterwards. Harries published other poems in August Hennings ' Genius der Zeit . However, most of his poems were not printed until after his death. He also carried the seal seasons by James Thomson in iambic .

In October 1790 Harries was called to Sieverstedt as pastor . When he took up this poorly paid job, he was promised an early promotion. In the small community with only 250 inhabitants, he was not challenged very much. During his first years as a pastor, he continued to work at the Wochenblatt , wrote many poems and wrote a Christmas booklet for the youth , which was used a lot in schools, and the edification book Der pious Seefahrer . In 1794 he became a pastor in Bruges in the Bordesholm office . This pastoral position was paid much better. here Harries was visited several times by Jens Baggesen . In 1798, in The Holstein Apostle Joachim Heeschen , he made a polemical argument about those parishioners who rejected the ecclesiastical rationalism of the new Schleswig-Holstein church agendas of the general superintendent Jacob Georg Christian Adler .

He married Ida Christina Margaretha Valentiner in 1790. Their son Diederich (1791-1857) also became a pastor and made a name for himself as an archaeologist and monument protector in fishing .

Works

  • Poems (Altona 1804, 2 volumes), also contains his original version of Heil dir in the wreath
  • Christmas booklet for the youth , 1791
  • The Pious Navigator , 1792
  • Thomson's seasons / In dt. Iambus v. [Heinrich] Harries , Altona 1796 (translation of The Seasons by James Thomson )
  • The Holstein apostle Joachim Heeschen. Along with all sorts of things about the glorification of Christ etc. , 1798

literature

  • Lars N. Henningsen: Freedom friend and Danish state patriot. For the 250th birthday of the Flensburg poet Heinrich Harries . In: Grenzfriedenshefte. Journal for German-Danish Dialogue 4/2012, pp. 219–234 ( online )

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Harries  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Heinrich Harries  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heil, Christian, dir , edition from 1901
  2. ↑ Danes Song (1797)
  3. ^ Henningsen: Freedom friend and Danish state patriot. On the 250th birthday of the Flensburg poet Heinrich Harries , page 219 ff.
  4. ^ Henningsen: Freedom friend and Danish state patriot. For the 250th birthday of the Flensburg poet Heinrich Harries , page 224 f.
  5. ^ The learned Teutschland, or Lexicon of the now living German writers Volume 3 (1797) p. 88
  6. ↑ Review in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung on November 5, 1804 ( digitized version )
  7. ^ Henningsen: Freedom friend and Danish state patriot. On the 250th birthday of the Flensburg poet Heinrich Harries , page 226 f.
  8. ^ 150th anniversary of the death of Diederich Harries
personal data
SURNAME Harries, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Poet of the later imperial hymn Heil dir in the wreath
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1762
PLACE OF BIRTH Flensburg
DATE OF DEATH September 28, 1802
Place of death Bruges