Johann Peter Kohl

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Bernhard von Breydenbach , sanctae peregrinationes . Mainz: Erhard Reuwich February 11, 1486. ​​( Incunabula from Johann Peter Kohl's library)

Johann Peter Kohl (born March 10, 1698 in Kiel , † October 9, 1778 in Altona ) was a theologian and polyhistor ; he was one of the first scholars who dealt philologically with the Slavic languages and dealt with a union of the Russian and Western churches.

Live and act

Kohl's father was Franz Dietrich Kohl, who was Rector in Kiel for almost 50 years. The son studied theology in Kiel and Rostock . In 1723 he was a historian in Leipzig . In the same year he expanded a document that the Russian Tsar Peter I had already received in 1717 and in which Kohl presented his thoughts on a union of the Western and Russian Churches. In 1725 Johann Peter Kohl was appointed professor of church history and beautiful sciences at the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg (followed in 1730 by a compatriot, the geographer Gerhard Friedrich Müller ). In 1727, however, he was dismissed from this office, allegedly at his own request, as he could not stand the climate; other sources claimed that Kohl fell in love with the 18-year-old Elisabeth, who later became Tsarina , which hastened his departure from St. Petersburg.

The life-long pension of 200 rubles from the Russian government allowed Kohl to live a carefree private scholar in Hamburg in the years that followed . Since his return from St. Petersburg he has not only published his own poems and translations, but has also worked as an author and publisher of various magazines and treatises. The most important of his works is likely the Introductio in historiam et rem literariam Slavorum imprimis sacram , published in 1729 , in which he dealt with Church Slavonic literature. In 1731 he published the Lower Saxony News . The Hamburg reports of new scholars things (the so-called cabbage leaves ) appeared from 1732 to 1759. With his Hamburg mixed library (1743–1745) and the Collected Letters of Scholars (1750–1752) as well as other periodicals, he underlined his presence as a scholar who he also used in international correspondence.

In 1768 he received permission from Christian VII , King of Denmark, to settle in Altona, Denmark, where he died in 1778. He had already given his extremely valuable library to the Christianeum , the Gymnasium Academicum in Altona, in 1768 , after he had offered it to the Danish king in view of his establishment in Altona for his local educational institution. According to the donor's wishes, this collection was kept there separately as the “Donum Kohlianum” for almost two hundred years. In the winter of 1946/47 most of the collection came to the Hamburg State and University Library .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Enrolled on August 1, 1720, see his entry in the Rostock matriculation portal
  2. ↑ General German Biography (ADB): Johann Peter Kohl
  3. ↑ Johannis Petri Kohlii Introductio in historiam et rem literariam Slavorum imprimis sacram , 1729 , accessed on November 3, 2011
  4. ↑ Digital copies : Volume 1 (1750) , Volume 2 (1751)
  5. ↑ Homepage of the Christianeum: 60 Years Disappeared (2012; accessed on August 29, 2015)

Web links

Wikisource: Johann Peter Kohl  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Kohl, Johann Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Theologian and polyhistor
DATE OF BIRTH March 10, 1698
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiel
DATE OF DEATH October 9, 1778
Place of death Altona