Johann Esaias von Seidel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marble bust v. Seidels in the Sulzbach-Rosenberg City Museum

Johann Esaias von Seidel (born April 28, 1758 in Ortenburg ; † November 20, 1827 in Sulzbach ) was a printer, publisher and publicist in the 19th century. Seidel promoted the reforms of Montgelas with his publishing and journalistic activities . He was also a promoter of ecumenism.

life and work

Origin and childhood

Seidel was born in Ortenburg as the fourth of eight children of the Protestant pastor Georg Stephan Alexander Seidel and his wife Anna Margarete, née Faust. He came from an educated Lutheran family of theologians. Seidel moved from Ortenburg to Sulzbach in 1766 to live with his uncle Georg Abraham Lorenz Lichtenthaler (1711–1780). He was the fourth generation to run the oldest of four publishing printing houses (founded in 1664).

Seidel as printer and publisher

He learned the printing trade from his uncle Lichtenthaler and went on a journey in 1777, which led him to see Johann Baptist Rotermundt in Regensburg, among others . When he was offered the factor position there in 1780, Lichtenthaler died. At the request of the widow, Seidel returned to Sulzbach to continue the printing company. Seidel bought these in 1785 and also took over the Lutheran (1790) and Catholic (1797) printing works, along with their privileges. Seidel expanded the business quickly. In 1790 he was appointed to the Royal Bavarian Council of Commerce . He established close contacts to the modern north German book system and created a wide network of relationships in art and culture, church and politics, state administration, education and science. In 1821 he was raised to hereditary nobility. He died on November 20, 1827. Contemporaries (such as the publisher Friedrich Christoph Perthes in 1823 ) praised Seidel's exceptional business acumen, which was always paired with a comprehensive sense of social responsibility. In 1822, for example, after a city fire, he took on the affected Hebrew print shop, although this caused capacity bottlenecks for himself.

Spiritual historical meaning

Promoter of the Bavarian reforms

Comparable to the Stein-Hardenberg reforms in Prussia, Count Maximilian von Montgelas , supported by the Barons von Aretin , pushed ahead with the modernization of the administration in Bavaria . Von Seidel had a relationship of trust with Count Montgelas, so that the official journalism of the Bavarian government was published in his publishing house. Conversely, von Seidel supported Montgelas' reforms by publishing a magazine entitled " Der Genius von Bayern under Maximilian IV " from 1801 to 1804 , which was published by Johann Georg von Aretin . It was their task to place the earlier grievances in state and public life in clear contrast to the reforms of Montgelas. The monthly Allemania , which Johann Georg's younger brother Johann Christoph von Aretin published from 1815 to 1816, turned against the romantic nationalism of Ernst Moritz Arndt and Johann Gottlieb Fichte in particular and opposed the enlightened spirit of the Bavarian state reformers.

Irenik sponsor

Seidel's importance for the southern German intellectual culture around 1800 lies in his consistently Irish attitude. In short, Irenik would mean ecumenism today. Seidel mediated not only between Protestantism and Catholicism, but also between Enlightenment and Romanticism, northern and southern Germany. As a pioneer of the ecumenical movement, he built up an interdenominational Bible institute with great commitment. From 1810 onwards, with royal Bavarian privilege, a joint Bible edition for Catholics, Lutherans and Reformed people was published for the first time. Although Seidel himself was a Protestant, his company became one of the most important publishers for southern German Catholicism in the 19th century.

Rescue of the Sulzbach Castle

In 1807, Seidel acquired the Sulzbacher Schloss, which had been vacant since 1794, and merged all of its business premises there. He saved the castle from deterioration. He had lavish terrace gardens laid out on the Schlossberg and a "pantheon" with 18 portrait busts of important scholars, churchmen and statesmen. The sculptor Joseph Kirchmayer was involved in both projects. Among other things, he created a life-size Minerva statue made of lead for Sulzbach , which is considered a prime example of the newer Bavarian metal casting and today adorns the backyard in front of the Seidel Hall .

Statue of Minerva by Joseph Kirchmayer

Historical print shop JE v. Seidel

Tomb of Johann Esaias von Seidel in the town cemetery of Sulzbach-Rosenberg after the renovation

After Seidel's death in 1827, his sons initially succeeded him and then sold them to Friedrich Pustet from Regensburg in 1854 . Pustet sold the castle in 1862 and moved into smaller rooms on Sulzbacher Luitpoldplatz. In 1877 Friedrich Pustet KG handed over the company to Dietrich Wotschack, who had been the company's authorized signatory since 1848. His great-grandson Ingo Wotschack ran the "JE v. Seidel'sche Buchhandlung" in Sulzbach-Rosenberg until his death in 2006 (after the printing business was closed in 1976).

In 2006, an intensive scientific inventory and investigation of the extensive, nationally significant estate, which includes the publisher's archive and library from the 17th to the 20th century, began. The first results were published in 2008. The discovery of the picture story "The Cake Dough" by Wilhelm Busch , which represents a previously unknown preliminary study for " Max and Moritz ", was rated as a "sensational find ". This was published in 2010 by Insel-Verlag in the Insel-Bücherei series as IB 1325. Further development of the estate, in which around four and a half thousand hours of voluntary work has been invested so far, is still ongoing.

The expansion of the premises of the Seidel print shop into an exhibition center and event hall began in 2010 and was completed in April 2011 with a festive opening as the Seidel hall . Financing came from LEADER funds, donations and voluntary contributions by the city's population. In the meantime, the Seidel-Saal has established itself as an event location alongside the events of the Friends' Association, especially for events organized by the Sulzbach-Rosenberg cultural workshop.

A tangent wing in its original state was also discovered in the estate . It was presented to the public in 2012 after extensive restoration as part of a concert.

The renovated "Seidel-Saal" in the historical print shop

literature

  • Markus Lommer (Ed.): Johann Esaias von Seidel (1758–1827): For the 250th birthday of a Bavarian publisher . Sulzbach-Rosenberg 2008, ISBN 978-3-9807612-6-0 .
  • Volker Wappmann: Sulzbach as the place of printing and publishing. In: Elisabeth Vogl, Johannes Hartmann (Ed.): Eisenerz and Morgenglanz . Amberg 1999, ISBN 3-924350-66-3 .
  • Klaus Engelmann: Literature and journalism in Sulzbach at the time of the Enlightenment. In: Elisabeth Vogl, Johannes Hartmann (Ed.): Eisenerz and Morgenglanz . Amberg 1999, ISBN 3-924350-66-3 .
  • Andreas Platthaus (ed.): The cake dough . Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-458-19325-8 .
  • Sepp Lösch: The personality of JE v. Seidels . Article in: Festschrift for the 950th anniversary of the city of Sulzbach-Rosenberg , Sulzbach-Rosenberg 1976
  • Karl Gerhard Steck : Commerce and Denomination - To the program of the Sulzbacher publisher Johann Esaias (von) Seidel 1758-1827 . published in Verein Literaturarchiv eV: opening of the archive and the JE von Seidel exhibition (rediscovery of a major publisher) 4.-27. November 1977 . Sulzbach-Rosenberg 1977
  • Markus Lommer:  Seidel, Johann Esaias. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 30, Bautz, Nordhausen 2009, ISBN 978-3-88309-478-6 , Sp. 1384-1392.
  • Markus Lommer:  Seidel von Rosenthal, Johann Esaias. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 174 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. also the synoptic timetable in: Steck, Karl Gerhard: Kommerz und Konfession - To the program of the Sulzbacher publisher Johann Esaias (von) Seidel 1758–1827 . published in Verein Literaturarchiv eV: opening of the archive and the JE von Seidel exhibition (rediscovery of a major publisher) 4.-27. November 1977 . Sulzbach-Rosenberg 1977.
  2. ↑ cf. on this Lösch, Sepp: The personality of JE v. Seidels . Article in: Festschrift for the 950th anniversary of the city of Sulzbach-Rosenberg , Sulzbach-Rosenberg 1976.
  3. ↑ cf. the corresponding explanations in: Markus Lommer:  Seidel, Johann Esaias. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 30, Bautz, Nordhausen 2009, ISBN 978-3-88309-478-6 , Sp. 1384-1392.
  4. ↑ to Joseph Kirchmayer on the RegioWiki Niederbayern & Altötting
  5. ↑ It's encrusted like a pie , FAZ June 14, 2008, also A cake dough that risen late SZ June 14, 2008
  6. ↑ Platthaus, Andreas (ed.): Der Kuchenteig : Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main and Leipzig 2010 (Insel-Bücherei 1325), ISBN 978-3-458-19325-8 .
  7. ^ Small and cheeky Süddeutsche Zeitung of January 4, 2016, accessed on January 5, 2016.
  8. ↑ Seidel-Presse (Haus-Zeitung)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , PDF of the SEIDEL-PRESSE newspaper from March 2010, length: 4 pages, accessed on September 19, 2015.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.historische-druckerei-seidel.de  
  9. ↑ 56,000 euros Leader funding for the renovation of the historic Seidel-Saal Sulzbach-Rosenberger Zeitung of September 22, 2010.
  10. ↑ New life in the old printing house Sulzbach-Rosenberger Zeitung from April 9, 2011.
  11. ^ Website of the Kulturwerkstatt Sulzbach-Rosenberg , accessed on January 25, 2016.
  12. ↑ Historical tangent piano discovered - 200-year-old piano can be heard for the first time in public at Klassik.com on August 24, 2012.
  13. ↑ Unheard of dimensions of music elicited - Prof. Hammer and Sylvia Ackermann at the second presentation concert of the Tangentenflügel in the Seidel-Saal , Sulzbach-Rosenberger Zeitung on September 7, 2012.
personal data
SURNAME Seidel, Johann Esaias von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German printer, publisher and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH April 28, 1758
PLACE OF BIRTH Ortenburg
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 1827
Place of death Sulzbach