Jacob Schimmelmann

Jacob Schimmelmann (born June 17, 1712 in Demmin , † January 23, 1778 in Stettin ) was a German Lutheran clergyman. He was the first to translate the Old Icelandic Edda into High German .

Life

Jacob Schimmelmann was the son of the Demmin merchant and (later) councilor Diedrich Jacob Schimmelmann (1683–1743) and Esther Elisabeth Ludendorff. After studying theology, he became a pastor in Groß Luckow near Pasewalk in 1741 , where he married the daughter of his predecessor in the same year . His brother Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann , who had made his fortune through opaque business transactions and played an important role in the Danish government, induced him to give up the pastorate in 1765 and move to Stettin . There he bought several houses as well as a ship and was successful in trading. Supported by his brother with 1,000 thalers a year and given the title of consistorial councilor , he primarily pursued his studies of historical literature.

Jacob Schimmelmann announced his project of a German Edda publication in the Stettiner Zeitung in 1773 . Already here he made it clear that he considered the Edda to be the oldest book in the world after the Bible and saw it as a doctrine of the ancestors of the Scandinavian, Celtic and Germanic peoples. The resulting criticism forced him to publish a justification in 1774. In 1777 Jacob Schimmelmann published the first German translation of the Snorra- Edda. The basis for his work was the Edda version (1665) by Petrus Resenius and the Monumens de la Mythologie (1756) by Paul Henri Mallet , which his brother probably sent him from Denmark. Since it was published, Schimmelmann's translation and his comments on the Edda have been subject to sustained criticism. Without knowing the Icelandic language, Schimmelmann tried to prove “the harmony of Edda and Bible” with etymological investigations and allegories , that is, to bring it into harmony with Christian teaching.

In the last years of his life, Jacob Schimmelmann suffered from an illness that was accompanied by paralysis of the arms and hands. He was buried in Stettin's Marienkirche . He was married to Margarete Sabine Neye (* March 4, 1723, † December 17, 1774 in Stettin) and had two sons with her. His son Heinrich Ludwig von Schimmelmann (1743–1793) was ennobled in 1780 and in 1785 Governor General of the Danish West Indies .

Fonts

• Treatise drawn up in a letter to a scholar from the old Icelandic Edda ... Curtische Buchhandlung, Halle u. Leipzig 1774.
• Preliminary report and at the same time the preface to the old and rare Icelandic Edda, ... Struck, Stettin 1776.
• The Icelandic Edda: That is: The secret doctrine of God of the oldest Hyperboreans, the Northerners, the Venetians, Gethen, Goths, Vandals, the Gauls, the Britons, the Scots, the Sueven, [et] c. briefly containing all of the old Kaltiens, or European Scythia; ... Struck, Stettin 1777.

literature

• Franz Müller: Contributions to the cultural history of the city of Demmin. W. Gesellius, Demmin 1902, p. 9f.
• Thomas Krömelbein: Jacob Schimmelmann and the beginning of the Snorra Edda reception in Germany. In: Hans Fix (Ed.): Snorri Sturluson. Contributions to the work and reception. de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1998, ISBN 3-11-016182-6 , ( Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde supplementary volume 18), p. 109f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Schimmelmann (Jakob). In: Johann Georg Meusel : Lexicon of the German writers who died from 1750 to 1800. Vol. 12, G. Fleischer, der Jüngere, Leipzig 1812, pp. 163-164 ( digitized version ).
2. ^ ^{A b} Franz Müller: Contributions to the cultural history of the city of Demmin. P. 16.
3. ↑ De Vestindiske Øer - biografihistorisk oversigt (Danish)

Web links

• Literature by and about Jacob Schimmelmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Writings by Jacob Schimmelmann in the joint union catalog