Hildebrand von Horn

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Hildebrand von Horn (born August 26, 1655 in Kiel , † October 8, 1686 on a ship in the Mediterranean, buried on the island of Kythera ) was a diplomat .

ancestors

Hildebrand von Horn was a son of the Kiel councilor Petrus von Horn (* 1625; † after April 1, 1685 ibid) and his wife Catharina, née Büll (around 1630–1701). The ancestors of the family were probably the middle-class vam Horn family who lived in Oldesloe around 1500 . By 1540 family members had residences in Kiel. The grandfather Hildebrand von Horn was the ducal clerk in Reinbek from 1617 to 1641 . The father worked for Friedrich III. during his time as Archbishop of Bremen. He then moved to Kiel, where he married in 1650. In addition to Hildebrand, the von Horns had four other children, but only this son grew up.

Live and act

Hildebrand von Horn attended the Kiel School of Academics and matriculated at the university there in 1665, the year it was founded. This was a child or honorary matriculation. In fact, he did not study law and political science until 1673. He also dealt with literature. Daniel Georg Morhof supported him and appreciated him very much.

After the end of his studies, von Horn put himself in the service of the Danish state. In the summer of 1676 he traveled as legation secretary with Friedrich Gabel via Berlin to Moscow. Von Gabel was a distant relative of von Horns and a Danish diplomat. Tsar Fyodor III was just in Moscow . came to power and the diplomat wanted to persuade the Russians to ally with Denmark and take action against the Swedes. Such an alliance already existed with the Brandenburgers, who had declared war on Sweden.

After unsuccessful negotiations, the Danes left again at the end of 1677. What von Horn did in the following years is not documented. He probably worked at the German law firm in Copenhagen. In 1681 he traveled to Moscow as a legation secretary with his own mandate. He offered that Denmark could mediate between Russia and Poland. In addition, the procedure for receiving embassies and providing them with food and drink should be discussed.

Von Horn's talks with the Russians ended unsuccessfully. As a token of recognition of his knowledge of Russian, Tsar Fyodor von Horn presented several Russian books. This may have been rare for diplomats who came to Russia at the time. Von Horn then traveled to Morhof in Kiel and introduced him to works by Simeon Polozki .

Coming from Hamburg in the summer of 1682, von Horn again visited Russia as envoy. According to the official mandate, the talks served to conclude the affairs of the envoy receptions. De facto, however, von Horn was supposed to scout out the mood of the new Russian rulers who ruled after the death of the tsar. He was also supposed to secure an alliance between the Russians and France, Denmark and Brandenburg, which would act against Sweden.

The leading people at the Tsar's court received von Horn in an unusually friendly manner. At the same time, however, the Russians were also negotiating with the Swedes, with Dutch support. Therefore, the alliance that Horn wanted did not come about. In 1648 he reached at least a treaty on the affairs of the embassies.

In February 1685, von Horn reached Copenhagen again and received support in particular from Friedrich von Ahlefeldt. Probably with Moritz Hartmann he got a vacation, which he used to volunteer for Venice against the Turks. He wrote letters addressed to von Ahlefeldt in which he raved about visits to the courts in Berlin and Vienna. Von Horn received benevolent and honorable receptions from the Great Elector and the widow of Emperor Ferdinand III. In Venice he attended the annual celebrations for the marriage of the republic to the sea. The Doge of Venice took him on board the magnificent galley Bucintoro .

Probably with the auxiliary corps of the Knights of Malta, von Horn captured Koroni in August 1685 . He suffered injuries that were obviously not properly treated. In December of that year, von Horn wrote to Ahlefeldt from Rome that the doctor there, Francesco Borrhi, had saved him from death. He also successfully applied for a vacation extension.

At his own request, but also following a request from Francesco Morosini , von Horn took part in his military campaigns in the summer of 1686. He participated in the capture of Nauplia . In September 1686 he boarded a transport ship that was supposed to drive Hanoverian auxiliary troops to Zante . The soldiers on board had been infected with a fever off Nauplia. Von Horn succumbed to the disease on board the ship. He found his final resting place on the southern tip of Cerigo .

Von Horn's mother donated an epitaph in the Nikolaikirche in Kiel . According to his inscription, von Horn died as a "foreign knight" (eques peregrinus) of the Order of Malta. This was the highest honor for members of non-Catholic faiths.

Works

From a young age, von Horn was considered a talented man of letters. The most important parts of his works no longer exist today, including a German poem about the trip to Moscow, French travel stories to Italy and Greece and reports of the siege of Korani. The few known German and Latin texts do not allow any judgment about von Horn's writing qualities.

literature

  • Dieter Lohmeier: Horn, Hildebrand von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, pp. 216–218.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Horn, Hildebrand von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 216.
  2. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Horn, Hildebrand von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 217.
  3. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Horn, Hildebrand von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 217.
  4. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Horn, Hildebrand von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 217.
  5. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Horn, Hildebrand von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, pp. 217-218.
  6. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Horn, Hildebrand von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 218.
  7. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Horn, Hildebrand von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 218.
  8. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Horn, Hildebrand von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 218.
  9. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Horn, Hildebrand von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 218.
  10. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Horn, Hildebrand von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 218.
  11. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Horn, Hildebrand von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, pp. 218-219.
  12. ↑ Dieter Lohmeier: Horn, Hildebrand von . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 219.
personal data
SURNAME Horn, Hildebrand von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1655
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiel
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1686
Place of death Mediterranean Sea, buried on the island of Kythera