Heinrich Jacob Sivers

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Heinrich Jacob Sivers, 1756

Heinrich Jacob Sivers , also Henrich Jacob Sivers (born April 8, 1709 in Lübeck , † August 8, 1758 in Tryserum , today part of the Valdemarsvik congregation ) was a German Evangelical Lutheran theologian, pastor and scholar.

education

Heinrich Jacob Sivers was a son of Hinrich Sivers (* June 23, 1674 in Lübeck; † November 6, 1736 ibid) and his wife Regina Catharina, nee Pagendarm (* 1688; buried on April 20, 1762 in Lübeck), the daughter of Johann Jacob Pagendarm and sister of Hermann Heinrich Pagendarm and Johann Gerhard Pagendarm .

Sivers went to the Katharineum in Lübeck until 1725 , where his father worked as a cantor. The Katharineum was under the direction of the representative of Lutheran Orthodoxy Johann Henrich von Seelen , whom Sivers admired. Von Seelen apparently was one of Sivers' supporters early on. In 1725 Sivers moved to the Academic Gymnasium in Hamburg and in the following year to the University of Kiel . He first began to study law, but switched to theology a little later. Due to an illness of his father, he came back to Lübeck for a short time in 1727. He then moved to Rostock, where he immediately worked as a poet and scholar and was awarded a master's degree in September 1728 at the age of 19.

Beginnings in Rostock and Lübeck

From 1728 Sivers wrote various works on theology and literature in Rostock and later in Lübeck. This included the weekly "Satyrischer Patriot" from 1730. He based his morally instructive poems on the guidelines of Martin Opitz . His verses led to the first literary controversy.

After receiving his doctorate on September 21, 1728 at Rostock University, Sivers also gave lectures there. He himself wrote that he held this "with not a small amount of applause". In Rostock he expressed himself as a decidedly orthodox polemic against Erik Pontoppidan , who represented pietistic positions. At the end of 1730 Sivers went back to Lübeck. At that time he was an imperial-crowned poet and candidate for the Ministry of Spirituality . He had previously written the “Opuscula academica Varno-Balthica” in Lübeck, which contained a foreword by his Rector von Seelen. The Bibliotheca Lubecensis , as a periodical organ of the local scholars, had reported on him repeatedly, so that he was already known as a writer in Lübeck.

In Lübeck, Sivers said in December 1730 that he wanted to create a "now living, learned Lübeck", which was to appear in the following year of the Lübeck Reformation, 1732, but was never realized. However, he celebrated great success with several descriptions of rare fossils. He added copperplate engravings to them and sent them to scholars. His first work, the “Curiosa Niendorpensia”, was dedicated to the Prussian Academy of Sciences , to which he had belonged since 1731. In it he described a stone that he had found on the beach in Niendorf (Timmendorfer Strand) and that he claimed had a musical note on it. For this he received not only praise, but also ridicule. In more recent literature, however, he is referred to as the rediscovered " petrefact collector of the early 18th century".

Disputes with Christian Ludwig Liscow

In Lübeck he was mocked by the satirical poet Christian Ludwig Liscow , who lived here from 1729 to 1734. Liscow wrote three satires about Sivers, in which he presented them as a prime example of a "wretched scribe". In addition, a parody circulated about Sivers announced “itz living learned Lübeck” from January 1731, which Liscow could have written, but for which there is no evidence. In addition, it is unclear how strongly personal motives motivated him to write his diatribes.

In 1732 Sivers published an annotated Passionsharmonie , which was followed by an ironic condemnation in the Hamburg Correspondents . Sivers suspected Liscow to be its author and wrote a powerful counter-speech, which he addressed to the scholars of Lübeck and which also appeared in the Correspondent. Liscow answered Sivers contribution anonymously in the same year with a "pathetic story of the pathetic destruction of the city of Jerusalem". He explained these "according to M. Heinrich Sievert's taste".

Liscow wrote other satires, such as on Sivers "Descriptio lapidis musicalis Niendorpensis" and in 1732 "Vitrea fracta or letter from the knight Robert Clifton to a learned Samoyed regarding the strange and thoughtful figures which he perceived on a frozen window pane". In the latter text, a “Mr. Makewind "Sivers, who maintains a" cabinet of rarities "and is ridiculed for being accepted into the Academy of Sciences.

In a third satire, Liscow wrote, with little encryption, that a Lucas Hermann Backmeister († 1750) wrote the first parody. Thus the pastor of the same name of the Lübeck rural community Breitenfelde , who was considered good and loyal, became part of the dispute between Sivers and Liscow. The Spiritual Ministry was one of Sivers' supporters . Liscow had his followers in the enlightened literary environment of Friedrich von Hagedorn in Hamburg, to whom he sent his ridiculous stories. Sivers cast a curse on Liscow from the pulpit and apparently had a large audience listening. In Swedish literature you can read that other theologians from the Ministry of Spirituality envied Sivers the large number of believers who followed his sermons.

Career in Sweden

As was customary at the time, Sivers went on extensive trips, during which he cultivated friendships with renowned clergymen. During a trip through Scandinavia, he had to stay in Linköping for a long time because of a broken leg . In 1735 he followed a call as compastor for the German community in Norrköping . Here he achieved a rise that he had not been able to do in Lübeck, and he was considered a respected polymath and avid writer in Sweden.

As an extremely orthodox theologian, Sivers initially took action against the pietism that was flourishing in Norrköping . In 1746 he was appointed royal court preacher . In 1747 he took over the post of chief pastor ( kyrkoherde ) in Tryserum, Hannäs and Fågelvik . In 1748 he became provost and two years later provost of Västervik and Norra Tjust . The University of Greifswald in Swedish Pomerania awarded him a doctorate in theology in 1756.

During his time in Sweden, Sivers wrote many casual poems, sermons and speeches in German, Swedish and Latin. He was also engaged in geology and compiled a collection of minerals, parts of which can now be found in Lund University . In addition, he dealt with medical and pharmaceutical topics. His main work dealt with historical subjects. This included a depiction of Gustav I. Wasa's flight to Lübeck or the history of the city of Västervik with pictures by Erik Dahlberg , which only appeared after his death.

Sivers died as a scholar who was held in high regard. His 1738 begun pedigree is now in the collegiate och landsbiblioteket in Skara kept.

family

Sivers married Anna Maria Aschanius on September 22, 1737 (born July 28, 1714 in Skrafwestad ; August 29 in Norrköping ). The couple had the son Nicolaus Hinrich Liljensparre (* July 22, 1738, † January 5, 1814), who was ennobled as a feared Stockholm police master. He identified the assassin Jacob Johan Anckarström .

On July 5, 1739 Sivers married Maria Magdalena Rising (born March 9, 1713 in Vimmerby , † probably 1758 in Langemala ). The childless marriage ended in divorce in 1739.

In his third marriage, Sivers married on October 8, 1740 Helena Retzius (* March 3, 1714, † March 24, 1799), with whom he had five sons and three daughters.

Sources

The data situation regarding Sivers life is complicated. Since he moved to Sweden early and mainly worked there, biographical information can be found predominantly and in detail in Swedish literature. There are ambiguities here in German-language sources. His conflicts with the satirical writer Liscow are again not reported in Swedish works, instead they can only be found in German documents.

Swedish sources portray Sivers as a very positive personality. In German-language documents, however, he can only be found as the ridiculous personality that Liscow described.

Works

  • Cvriosa niendorpiensia, sive Variarvm rervm natvralivm litoris niendorpiensis descriptio et historia brevissima. Lübeck 1734 ( digitized , Library of Congress )

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Enrollment in 1727 in the Rostock matriculation portal
  2. ^ Alken Bruns: Sivers, Henrich Jacob . In: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 7. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1985, pp. 295-296.
  3. ↑ Entry of the doctorate in the Rostock matriculation portal
  4. ↑ a b c d e Alken Bruns: Sivers, Henrich Jacob . In: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 7. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1985, p. 296.
  5. ^ Alken Bruns: Christian Ludwig Liscows Lübeck satires . In: Journal of the Association for Lübeck History and Archeology (ZVLGA) 61 (1981), pp. 95–128 ( digitized version )
  6. ^ Alken Bruns: Sivers, Henrich Jacob . In: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 7. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1985, pp. 296-297.
  7. ↑ a b c d e Alken Bruns: Sivers, Henrich Jacob . In: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 7. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1985, p. 297.
  8. ↑ Hans Sallander: Stamböcker i Skara Stifts- och Landsbibliotek . Skara 1980, pp. 13-15
  9. ^ Alken Bruns: Sivers, Henrich Jacob . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 7. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1985, p. 295.
personal data
SURNAME Sivers, Heinrich Jacob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sivers, Henrich Jacob; Sivers, Heinrich Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian and scholar
DATE OF BIRTH April 8, 1709
PLACE OF BIRTH Lübeck
DATE OF DEATH August 8, 1758
Place of death Tryserum