Johann Jakob Meyer (editor)

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Meyer's monument in the Heroes' Cemetery in Messolongi
Title page of the Ellinika Chronika

Johann Jakob Meyer (born December 30, 1798 in Zurich ; † 1826 ; citizen of Schöfflisdorf ) was a Swiss editor . He is one of the most popular Philhellenes in Greece .

Life

The son of a doctor had an unsteady youth, during which he more than once came into conflict with the bourgeois morals of those around him. After completing his apprenticeship as a pharmacist, he began studying medicine in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1819 , which he had to give up after a short time because he had repeatedly been in high debt. That did not prevent the young man from registering with the Bern aid organization for Greece in 1821 as “Dr. Johann Jakob Meyer from Zurich, Doctor and Surgeon ”, where the costs for the trip to Greece were paid for him without further ado. Once there, Meyer took part in the naval battle of Patras as a surgeon on March 5 and 6, 1822 under the command of Andreas Miaoulis . As a result, he settled in Messolongi , where he married a Greek woman, opened a pharmacy with her money and quickly became a respected citizen, also because he learned the Greek language . From 1824 he published in his adopted home with the Ελληνικά Χρονικά (Elleniká Chroniká) the first newspaper in Greece, which the aristocrat Lord Byron financed, although Meyer did not recognize himself in the newspaper of the shirt-sleeved republican arguments. Much of the accounts in Europe of what happened during the second siege were due to Meyer and his newspaper. That makes it difficult to evaluate, as the Swiss always had a tendency to imposture when he stood upright for the Greek cause .

The Philhellene Lord Byron had died of malaria on April 19, 1824 in the Greek port town of Messolongi in Meyers, the alleged doctor, poor , which Meyer rather pleased because he thought Byron was an aristocratic dandy, in whom the Greek cause had not lost much. From April 1825 the Turks besieged the city again. The exact circumstances of Meyer's death are not known, it is said that he was among the first to attempt the eruption on April 10, 1826. A few hours before his end, Meyer wrote to a friend:

I am proud to think that the blood of a Swiss man, a grandson of William Tell , should mix with the blood of the heroes of Greece.

In the Heroes' Park of Messolongi, two monuments commemorate Meyer, in his Swiss homeland the author Alex Capus saved him from oblivion in 2008 with a literary sketch based on archival research.

literature

  • Alex Capus , sky striker . Twelve portraits, Albrecht Knaus Verlag, Munich, 2008 ISBN 978-3-813-50314-2 . Pp. 82–97, with a detailed bibliography on p. 203.
  • Emil Rothpletz: The Schöfflisdorf Philhellene Johann Jakob Meyer (1798-1826). A contribution to the history of the Greek movement in Europe during the Greek War of Independence (1821-1829) , Basel 1931
  • Jean-Philippe Chenaux, Le Philhellène suisse Johann Jakob Meyer, héros de la lutte pour l'indépendance grecque, Desmos (Amitiés gréco-suisses), November 2013, p. 23-26
  • Jean-Philippe Chenaux, Le Philhellène suisse Johann Jakob Meyer (1798-1826), héros de Missolonghi et rédacteur du premier journal grec - Le drame de Missolonghi et l'action humanitaire du Genevois Jean-Gabriel Eynard relatés par deux quotidiens vaudois, Lausanne, chez l'auteur, mars 2019, 20 p.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Capus postpones the failure to the 22./23. April and cites (p. 96) George Finlay in 1877, who was allegedly present in Messolongi and reported that Meyer was killed by the Turks while his wife and child were captured. (Finlay had already died in 1876).
  2. ↑ Pavlos Tzermias : Neugriechische Geschichte , Tübingen 1999, p. 72
personal data
SURNAME Meyer, Johann Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss philhellene and editor
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1798
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH 1826