Johann Julius Surland (lawyer, 1687)

Engraving by Christian Fritzsch

Johann Julius Surland (born May 21, 1687 in Hamburg ; † July 23, 1748 ibid) was a German lawyer and council syndicate .

Working as a lawyer

Johann Julius Surland came from an important Hamburg family. His father Julius Surland (1657–1703) rose to Hamburg's mayor in 1702/03. The mother Sara (1655–1692) came from the Berenberg merchant family. He had a brother and a sister and spent the first years of his life in Hamburg until his parents died. His guardians then gave him to Merseburg , where he received lessons from Johann Hübner , among other things . He then continued his education at the Johanneum School of Academics in his native town and moved to the Athenaeum Stade in 1705 , where Michael Richey had a lasting influence on him. After graduating from high school in 1707, he studied law, philosophy, mathematics and natural sciences in Altdorf near Nuremberg and Leipzig .

After completing his studies, Surland traveled and came back to Hamburg in 1713. Since he could not find a job anywhere else, he stayed there and initially worked as a lawyer under his future father-in-law, Johann Friedrich Fürsen. Since he was considered to be well educated and had unusually good language skills, he qualified for higher offices in a short time. The City Council of Hamburg elected him on October 11, 1719 as Syndicus. After his colleague Johann Anton Winkler died in 1728, Surland officiated as the oldest Syndici.

Because of his skills, Surland mostly carried out jobs outside of Hamburg. He took over 24 embassies and traveled to the court of the Austrian emperor and the seats of the kings of Prussia, Denmark and England. He also stood up for the interests of Hamburg before the imperial courts. Surland knew the complicated political contexts and legal bases very well and was considered a skilled diplomat. He also maintained many contacts with important people who he used for his work.

In 1724/25 Surland traveled to Berlin and Hanover with Barthold Heinrich Brockes to negotiate disputes with the Schauenburger Hof. In 1731 he took part in negotiations on coins and trade in Copenhagen . In 1741 the Prince of Schwarzburg appointed him Count Palatine . Because of his merits, he was considered a candidate for the office of Hamburg mayor, but did not achieve it. In 1745 he represented the Hamburg council at the accession of Franz I to the throne in Vienna .

Surland had been married to Rebecca Catharina Fürsen, the daughter of his first employer, since 1716. The couple had four sons and two daughters, of whom the son of the same name, Johann Julius, became a successful university teacher.

Act as an educator

In addition to working as a diplomat and politician, Surland was involved in the Patriotic Society of 1723, which was important throughout Germany for the early days of the Enlightenment. While some members of the community appeared more journalistic, Surland as council syndicus mostly took on the role of mediator to the council members. In this way he helped the "patriots" to get the necessary political support.

An indication of the importance of Surland for the Patriotic Society is the dedication of the third volume of the “Poesie der Nieder-Sachsen” by his colleague Christian Friedrich Weichmann , for which Surland wrote three articles himself. More important than these texts was his involvement in eight-person community of editors of the weekly Der Patriot from 1724 to 1726. He wrote parts 2 and 7 himself and, together with Weichmann, part 13. In particular in volume 2 he criticized with the help of the invented family “Schaamroth” behaviors that arose out of luxury and waste, the need for recognition and addictions, with which the enlighteners came into conflict with the church and state, who had judged this on their own up to that time.

literature

• Dirk Brietzke : Surland, Johann Julius . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 6 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2012, ISBN 978-3-8353-1025-4 , p. 332-334 .