Johann Georg Eben (archivist)

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Johann Georg Eben (born December 28, 1795 in Ravensburg , † May 12, 1838 in Ravensburg) was a German civil servant and archivist. He wrote the first printed city history of Ravensburg.

Life

Youth and first civil servant positions

Johann Georg Eben was the son of the Protestant pastor and teacher Johann Philipp Eben, who came to Ravensburg in 1792 . He attended the shared secondary school in Ravensburg and, after his father's death in 1811, began an administrative apprenticeship with his brother Johann Philipp in the city chancelleries of Ulm and Biberach . In 1816 he was a clerk's assistant in Schwäbisch Gmünd and organized the registry of the Gmünd camera office . In 1819 he became a clerk at the council clerk in Ravensburg. In 1822 Franz von Zwerger was chosen as the successor to the council clerk. Just himself cites his "shyness and indecision" as the reason. Again and again he got into debt from 1816 to 1824. In 1824 he went to Leutkirch , where he was pledge commissioner at the Higher Regional Court from 1826 to 1827 , then lost his job because of a forgery of documents and spent four weeks in prison. As early as 1825 he had published a volume of occasional poems .

Archival activity in Ravensburg

After the free imperial city of Ravensburg became Bavarian in 1802 and finally in Württemberg in 1810, the state authorities repeatedly criticized the disorganized state of the city ​​archive . In 1827, following instructions from the secret archivist Christoph Friedrich Lotter , the Württemberg Ministry of the Interior commissioned the city ​​to organize the archive. The city first tried to pass the costs for this task on to the kingdom, as the archive had only been put into chaos by the Bavarian and Württemberg authorities and their unsystematic removals, but could not prevail. Johann Georg Eben was chosen for the task, which was bothersome for the city, and was to organize the archive in just two years and eight months as an "archive commissioner". In doing so, he was constantly pushed forward by the city council commission, which wanted to complete the task in the shortest possible time in order to save costs.

The archive material has just been arranged according to the model of the Württemberg “state organism”, divided according to the areas of responsibility of the ministries. As early as 1829, Lotter attested that he had mastered his task “with great diligence and appreciable skill”. Alfons Dreher paid tribute to his work as a Sisyphean work in 1972, which was quite an achievement for its time, but also noted that due to the shortness of the time allotted, his work had to remain summary in many respects. By Ebens cassations a large part of the municipal accounting and tax books and correspondence with other imperial cities were destroyed and the late medieval thinking books (with Council decisions) and deposit and debt books. The parchment documents, however, he kept on all, even if he did not find the time Regesten create. From today's point of view, Dreher attributes painful segregation to the fact that he was not a trained historian and, as a Protestant, maintained a too one-sided and occasionally negative relationship to the times before the Reformation.

Eben began to write a large-scale city history in the archive. He made some money through archival work and in 1830 married Lisette Buder, the daughter of a goldsmith. From 1830–1831 he arranged the city archives in Leutkirch, no employment can be proven for the rest of his life.

An attempt at a history of the city of Ravensburg

From 1830 to 1835 Eben published a history of the city of Ravensburg, which was later summarized in two volumes, in six issues. Although he had not earned any thanks for his archival work, he dedicated his work to "the father city". In the preface he mentions “pure, unselfish love for a good cause” as the mainspring to devote his free time to this work, “sacrificing necessary recreation”. He also values ​​noting that he was working directly from sources. His book is characterized by religious tolerance. He was also allowed to use the Catholic library in Ravensburg for research, while Protestant Tobias Hafner was denied access to Catholic church records 50 years later.

Until 1802 the work systematically followed the order of the archive. Then Eben continues the story chronically to the present. Since he either experienced this time in Ravensburg himself or had access to handwritten sources from family and relatives, his descriptions have their own source value. Some sections, such as the description of the rod festival , are unique for their time and are considered irreplaceable.

Source editions are repeatedly woven into the systematic history, including privileges, citizen lists and the first edition of the Peasant War Chronicle by Weissenau Abbot Jacob Murer . Speeches and lists of citizens are also interspersed in the sections on the 19th century.

In 1950, Albert Hengstler described Eben's attempt at a systematic history of Ravensburg as “successful for its time”. In 1972, Alfons Dreher did not consider the work to be useful until the second half of the 16th century, as the source criticism was still in its infancy at the same time and Eben's findings on medieval history were soon out of date. During the revolutionary wars and the Napoleonic wars, he is considered to be an “attentive observer”. In 1987, Peter Eitel found the work “worthy of all honor” for an amateur.

death

In 1838 Eben died impoverished in Ravensburg. He left behind his wife and two children who had to be supported by the local poor fund.

Afterlife

Up to Alfons Dreher's work of 1972, Eben's main work remained the most important comprehensive city history, especially since Tobias Hafner's book from 1886 barely exceeded Eben’s attempt and even copied it page by page.

In the 20th century, the "Ebenweg" in the Breitenen residential area in Ravensburg was named after Eben and his father.

In 1987 a facsimile edition of his city history was published, which made the work accessible to a wider audience and, with a brief biographical outline of Peter Eitel and Beate Falk, also made it possible for the first time to identify the person behind the work in the “well-read and aesthetic assistant on call”.

Fonts

Title page: Occasional poems
  • Occasional poems . Self-published, Ravensburg 1825
  • An attempt at a history of the city of Ravensburg from the beginning to the present day . 2 volumes. Gradmann, Ravensburg 1835.

literature

  • Peter Eitel with the collaboration of Beate Falk: Johann Georg Eben and his "Attempt at a History of the City of Ravensburg" . Preface to volume 2 of the facsimile edition. Genth, Oggelshausen 1987, pp. VII-X
  • Andreas Schmauder: Eben, Johann Georg (1795–1838) , in: Ulrich Gaier et al. (Ed.): Schwabenspiegel. Literature from the Neckar to Lake Constance 1000–1800 . Volume 1. OEW, Ulm 2003, ISBN 3-937184-00-7 , p. 33

Web links

Wikisource: Johann Georg Eben  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Johann Georg Eben (archivist)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Andreas Schmauder : Eben, Johann Georg (1795–1838) , in: Ulrich Gaier et al. (Ed.): Schwabenspiegel. Literature from the Neckar to Lake Constance 1000–1800 . Volume 1. OEW, Ulm 2003, ISBN 3-937184-00-7 , p. 33
  2. ↑ on the father cf. Gradmann: The learned Swabia , p. 114 ( digitized version ) and Johann Georg Eben: attempt at a history of the city of Ravensburg , Gradmann, Ravensburg 1835, vol. 2, p. 236 ( digitized version )
  3. ^ Johann Georg Eben: Attempt at a history of the city of Ravensburg . Vol. 2. Gradmann, Ravensburg 1835, p. 456 ( digitized version )
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h Peter Eitel with the collaboration of Beate Falk: Johann Georg Eben and his “Attempt at a History of the City of Ravensburg” . Preface to volume 2 of the facsimile edition. Genth, Oggelshausen 1987, pp. VII-X
  5. ^ A b Alfred Lutz : Between persistence and departure. Ravensburg 1810-1847 . Aschendorff, Münster 2005, ISBN 3-402-05912-6 , pp. 73 f.
  6. ^ A b Alfons Dreher : History of the Imperial City of Ravensburg . Vol. 2. Anton H. Konrad Verlag, Weißenhorn and Dornsche Buchhandlung, Ravensburg 1972, ISBN 3-87437-085-2 , p. 637 f.
  7. ^ A b c Alfons Dreher: History of the imperial city of Ravensburg . Vol. 1. Anton H. Konrad Verlag, Weißenhorn and Dornsche Buchhandlung, Ravensburg 1972, ISBN 3-87437-084-4 , p. 21
  8. ^ A b Johann Georg Eben: Attempting a History of the City of Ravensburg . Vol. 1. Gradmann, Ravensburg 1835, preface, pp. XI – XX ( digitized version )
  9. ↑ The edition of the Murer Chronicle can be found in vol. 2 from p. 245 in the notes ( digitized version ).
  10. ^ Albert Hengstler: The Ravensburger Stadtarchiv. Memorandum on the occasion of the 25 years of office of city archivist Dr. Alfons Dreher, 1925-1950 . Ravensburg 1950, p. 24
  11. ^ Alfons Dreher: History of the imperial city of Ravensburg . Vol. 1. Anton H. Konrad Verlag, Weißenhorn and Dornsche Buchhandlung, Ravensburg 1972, ISBN 3-87437-084-4 , p. 23
  12. ^ WorldCat
personal data
SURNAME Exactly, Johann Georg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German civil servant and archivist
DATE OF BIRTH December 28, 1795
PLACE OF BIRTH Ravensburg
DATE OF DEATH May 12, 1838
Place of death Ravensburg