Joseph von Sonnenfels

Joseph von Sonnenfels

Front cover of the first volume of the weekly magazine Der Mann ohne Vorjudheil (1765)

Monument on Rathausplatz in Vienna

Joseph von Sonnenfels (* 1732 / 1733 in Mikulov , Moravia ; † 25. April 1817 in Vienna ) was an Austrian writer of the Enlightenment and the Josephinism , administrative reformer and professor of political science .

Life

Joseph von Sonnenfels' father Lipman Perlin (1705–1768), a son of the regional rabbi of Brandenburg , had initially worked as a translator and teacher of oriental languages in Nikolsburg. In 1734 he went to Vienna and converted to Catholicism with his three sons the following year . He took the name Alois Wienner and was ennobled Baron von Sonnenfels in 1746.

Joseph von Sonnenfels learned Hebrew from his father and then attended the Piarist school in his native city, initially with the intention of becoming a clergyman. He later decided to pursue a career as a soldier and served in the German master regiment in Klagenfurt and Vienna from 1749 to 1754 . After his release, he studied law in Vienna from 1754 to 1756 and worked as an assistant to Count Adam Franz von Hartig , Councilor of the Supreme Court of Justice.

At the same time, Sonnenfels made his first literary attempts and initially made (futile) hopes for a professorship for German literature at the University of Vienna . Appointed professor for "Police and Cameral Studies" at the University of Vienna in 1763 , Sonnenfels developed a rich journalistic activity in the sense of the Enlightenment , some of which also touched on literary matters. The young scholar wrote weekly papers ( Der Mann ohne Vorurtheil , 1765–1767) and tried to contribute to the reform of Viennese theater life through his letters on the Viennese Schaubühne (Vienna 1768, 4 volumes), whose artistic and moral condition (dominance of impromptu comedy in Form of the shoddy Hanswurstiade ) he criticized as depraved. He was ridiculed for it on the stage. Even if the imperial theater censorship of 1790 was largely for political reasons, Sonnenfels' criticism contributed to its introduction.

Sonnenfels was more deserving and successful in his contributions to judicial and administrative reform. After the Enlightenment in his work On Abolition of Torture (Zurich 1775) decided against torture , it was actually abolished in all of Austria at the beginning of January 1776 - a pioneering act for Europe. In the same year 1776, Sonnenfels, as director of the Illuminationsanstalt, reformed the public lighting of the city of Vienna with oil lamps. He was later of Maria Theresa to the Council , in 1779 the real Councilor Bohemian in secret and Austrian Chancellery and attendee of the study and Censorship Commission, 1810 K as President of the K.. Academy of Fine Arts appointed.

Sonnenfels was a member of the Balduin Freemason lodge in Leipzig and later on Zur Wahr Eintracht in Vienna. In 1784 he became grand master of the district box for charitable unity . He was also a member of the Viennese Illuminati around Ignaz von Born and is considered to be their head in Vienna.

One of his most important acquaintances was Ludwig van Beethoven , who dedicated his Piano Sonata in D major op. 28 to Sonnenfels , which was published in 1802.

Relationship to the dialect

Joseph von Sonnenfels was a vehement advocate of the new High German written language, as it had been established by Johann Christoph Gottsched in 1748, and condemned the use of the dialect in both the official and private spheres. In 1784 he complained to the Viennese that “the best-dressed lady of high society speaks as rabidly as her kitchen maid” .

Only in 1774 was in the Austrian crown lands after a heavy scholarly dispute, on the one side and on which, among other Gottsched Johann Balthasar Antesperg and John Sigismund Popovich took part on the other side, with the general compulsory education , the political decision to introduce the more Prussian Gottsched ' high German. Antesperg and Popowitsch had put forward not only practical but also educational arguments - for example, that the written language should be as close as possible to the spoken language in order to ensure better access to education. Before that, the Jesuits even attempted to establish a southern German writing language, which, however, was rejected as Catholic Jesuit German by the Protestant countries. This may also have been the reason why Maria Theresa finally decided against the “Kayserliche grammar” of her son's tutor, Johann Balthasar Antesperg, and in favor of Gottsched's proposal. In 1780, under Emperor Joseph II, Gottsched's German was finally introduced as a binding norm in public administration.

With this, however, the enlightenment principle of bringing reading and writing and thus education as close as possible to the people had been abandoned, at least for Austria and Bavaria, as opposed to a political argument. In this respect, the enlightenment motives of Joseph von Sonnenfels can be questioned in this context, because he must have understood the "common Austrian jargon" from his hometown Nikolsburg very well, both the Bavarian dialect of Lower Austria and Yiddish . With his opposition to the impromptu theater, he also helped to prevent this art form, which is mainly based on dialect.

In contrast to Gottsched, however, Sonnenfels advocated a more pragmatic and less puristic approach and thereby laid certain foundations for an independent Austrian official and administrative language that incorporated some elements from the vocabulary and grammar of the Bavarian dialects spoken in Austria. On the other hand, it was precisely this “Austrianized” German that was again a language-political instrument that was later forced upon non-German-speaking subjects of the Habsburg Empire and thus led to tension.

Relationship to Judaism

Joseph von Sonnenfels came from a Moravian-Jewish family. His father had lived for a time in the Jewish community of Eisenstadt before he converted to Catholicism with his three sons in 1735 and was ennobled as Baron von Sonnenfels in 1746 .

Even during Maria Theresa's wars against Prussia, the Moravian and Bohemian Jews kept in touch with their fellow believers in the Prussian kingdom, such as Moses Mendelssohn , which made them suspicious subjects in Vienna. For example, during the Second Silesian War , the Bohemian Jews were suspected of conspiring with the Prussians and were therefore expelled from Bohemia. In 1748 this measure was withdrawn.

As a Freemason and university teacher and with his drafts for state reform, Joseph von Sonnenfels undoubtedly contributed to the emancipation of Austrian Jews . Nevertheless, neither under Maria Theresa nor under Joseph II were the Jews equal to the other subjects. Some historians even call the Austrian Enlightenment schoolmasterly and not at all libertarian, but driven by a well-organized police apparatus. The fact that Sonnenfels raised the “state police” to the highest control body in the state and that this did not happen under Metternich is seen as a dark spot in his biography, both in the view of Jewish posterity and by enlightening circles. One of his cameralistic principles was also entirely in the spirit of absolutism: Polizey, action and finance .

Honors

Bust in the arcade courtyard of the University of Vienna

In 1862, Sonnenfelsgasse in Vienna's Innere Stadt (1st district) was named after him. The street name was changed to Johann-Sebastian-Bach-Gasse in 1938, and in 1945 the name was reversed.

In the arcade courtyard of the University of Vienna - the university's hall of fame - there has been a bust of Sonnenfels since 1891. As part of “purges” by the National Socialists in early November 1938, ten sculptures by Jewish or supposedly Jewish professors in the arcade courtyard were overturned or smeared with paint in connection with the “ Langemarck Celebration ”. At this point in time, the acting rector Fritz Knoll had the Arkadenhof sculptures checked; on his instructions, fifteen monuments were removed and placed in a depot, including that of Joseph von Sonnenfels. After the end of the war, all damaged and removed monuments were put back in the arcade courtyard in 1947.

In his memory, a statue of Hanns Gasser was erected on the Elisabeth Bridge in Vienna , which was placed on the Rathausplatz after the bridge was demolished. During the Nazi era , it was removed because Sonnenfels was of Jewish origin.

The square with the roundabout (from October 2011 " Shared Space " and from mid-2013 " Meeting Zone ") at the Karl-Franzens University Graz in the Geidorf district was named Sonnenfelsplatz . In addition, there was a Sonnenfelsgasse in Graz in the Gries district until 1938 , but this was renamed after the annexation of Austria to the National Socialist German Reich in 1938 because of its Jewish descent.

student

• Josef Ignác Buček , Czech university professor and author of economic works

Works

First lecture in this academic year , 1782

• with Mathias Wilhelm von Haan : Specimen juris germanici de remediis juris, juri romano incognitis, Vienna 1757.
• Mr. Joseph von Sonnenfels… Introductory speech to his academic lectures , Vienna 1763 ( digital copy ).
• Principles of the Polizey, Action and Finance - To the Guide to Political Studies , 3 Parts, 1769–1776.
• About the love of the fatherland . Kurzböck, Vienna 1771; IV, 131, 44 pp. ( Digitized version ).
• Letters about the Wienerische Schaubühne. (Created 1767–1769.) Edited by Hilde Haider-Pregler . Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, Graz 1988. (= reprint of the Konesen edition, Vienna 1884.).
• Experiment on the principles of style in private and public business 2 vols. Gerold, Vienna 1781.
• Joseph von Sonnenfels: First lecture in this academic year . Ed .: Joseph von Metzer. Vienna 1782 ( online [accessed on May 26, 2020]).
• Collected Writings. 10 volumes. Baumeister, Vienna 1783–1787.
• About the abolition of the ordeal . 2nd legal edition. Vienna and Nuremberg, Chr.Weigel and AG Schneider 1782, 144 pp.
• About the business style. The first basic lines for budding Austrian registrars . Vienna 1784. From 1785 second heavily revised edition.
• The dressing gown: Mr .. by wholesalers in ... . Regensburg 1783 ( digitized version ).

literature

• Günter Brosche : Joseph von Sonnenfels and the Vienna Theater , submitted by Günter Brosche, Vienna, Univ., Diss., 1962, 208 p., V p. Illustrations
• Helmut Reinalter:  Sonnenfels Joseph von. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 12, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2001-2005, ISBN 3-7001-3580-7 , p. 422 f. (Direct links on p. 422 , p. 423 ).
• Simon Karstens: Joseph von Sonnenfels (1733-1817): His career and his contribution to reform policy in the Habsburg monarchy . In: Wolfgang Schmale (Hrsg.): Multiple cultural references in the Habsburg monarchy of the 18th century . Winkler, Bochum 2010, ISBN 978-3-89911-134-7 , pp. 295-304.
• Reinhard Eisendle: The lonely censor. On the state control of the theater under Maria Theresia and Joseph II. Hollitzer Verlag, Vienna 2020, ISBN 978-3-99012-585-4 (Specula Spectacula 8).

Web links

Commons : Joseph von Sonnenfels  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Joseph von Sonnenfels  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Joseph von Sonnenfels in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Joseph von Sonnenfels  in the German Digital Library
• Entry on Joseph von Sonnenfels in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
• Joseph von Sonnenfels: Freymaning memory of the German stage, about the performance of Brutus (1770)
• Joseph von Sonnenfels in the Internet Archive

Individual evidence

1. ^ Peter von Polenz: German language history from the late Middle Ages to the present ; Volume II 17th and 18th centuries; de Gruyter Study Book, p. 172 ff. ( digital ).
2. ↑ Peter Stachel: A state that perished due to a language error (PDF; 288 kB), page 10, penultimate paragraph.
3. ^ Mitchell G. Ash, Josef Ehmer: University - Politics - Society . Vienna University Press, June 17, 2015, ISBN 978-3-8470-0413-4 , p. 118.
4. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Sonnenfelsplatz - “Shared Space” for the university roundabout , City of Graz, October 2011.  
5. ↑ http://steiermark.orf.at/news/stories/2581457/ End for "Shared Space" in Graz , ORF.at, April 24, 2013.
6. ^ Karl Albrecht Kubinzky, Astrid Wentner: Grazer street names. Origin and meaning. Leykam, Graz 1996, p. 380.