Karl Viktor von Bonstetten

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Bonstetten

Karl Viktor Freiherr von Bonstetten (born September 3, 1745 in Bern , † February 3, 1832 in Geneva ) was a Swiss writer .

Life

Karl Viktor von Bonstetten came from the Bernese patrician family von Bonstetten , his father Karl Emanuel von Bonstetten was finance minister for the French subject areas of Bern. After the majority of his youth spent in Yverdon, he studied first in Geneva (with the naturalist and philosopher Charles Bonnet ), then in Leiden / Holland and Cambridge (where he became friends with the poet Thomas Gray ) and Paris, after which he returned to Bern. In 1773 he met the young Swiss historian Johannes Müller , whose friend and patron Bonstetten remained for a lifetime. In 1774 Bonstetten was on a grand tour of Italy; the letters addressed to Müller have only recently been collected and published.

In 1775 he was elected to the Grand Council (legislature) of the Republic of Bern and, as an enlightened patrician, tried to loosen the encrusted social and political conditions. After marrying Marianne von Wattenwyl and working together with Johannes Müller on his Swiss history, he became governor in Rougemont in 1779/80 . Bonstetten's letters about a Swiss shepherd's land (1782) described the transition from pasture farming to proto-industrial cheese making. In the Grand Council he tried unsuccessfully to reform the Bern education system.

While traveling, he made friends with Sophie von La Roche , Friedrich von Matthisson and the Danish writer Friederike Brun . From 1787 to 1793 Bonstetten worked as bailiff in Nyon / Waadt , where he initiated hydraulic engineering forms and was chief judge in Lugano . In 1792 the first writings by Karl Viktor von Bonstetten appeared . From 1795 to 1797 he was a syndicator (supervisor) in the then Ticino bailiwicks of the Swiss Confederation and fought against the corruption prevailing in the legal system.

After Bern's surrender to the Napoleonic troops in March 1798, Bonstetten went to Copenhagen to see Friederike Brun; In 1802 she anonymously published the letters of a young scholar to his friend between Bonstetten and Johannes von Müller, and with her help a four-volume edition of Neue Schriften appeared , which among other things contained Bonstetten's letters on the Italian offices: Lugano, Mendrisio, Locarno Valmaggia : Moral and social images still worth reading today.

In 1803 Bonstetten settled in Geneva, from where he frequently visited Madame de Staël at Coppet Castle on Lake Geneva, where he formed de Staël's closest circle of friends with Charles de Sismondi , Benjamin Constant and August Wilhelm Schlegel . He made various trips to Italy and France, which he processed as a writer; In addition, he wrote philosophical experiments on the imagination and intellectual abilities of people, as well as cultural-philosophical essays on the influence of climate on culture. Bonstetten died in Geneva in 1832 at the old age of 87. The last three years of his life he was accompanied by the Geneva doctor's daughter Espérance Sylvestre .

Bonstetten wrote mostly in French and translated his writings into German together with friends such as Johannes Müller and Friederike Brun. In addition to the writings, he expressed himself mainly in an extensive correspondence with numerous leading contemporaries in Europe. On the way back from a trip to Italy, Goethe's colleague Eckermann met 85-year-old Bonstetten in Geneva in September 1830. He passed on the following judgment: Bonstetten is a man [...] who lived from Voltaire and Rousseau up to the wife of Staël and Lord Byron with all the literature of the century. He has limitless experience and a special gift for conveying the peculiarities of different people to someone else through the finest, sharpest hints. "As a cultural mediator between Germany, France, England and Scandinavia, Bonstetten was a" Bernese with a truly European cut «(Hellmut Thomke). Over 4000 of his letters have meanwhile been processed and have been presented since 1996 in the comprehensive edition of the Bonstettiana founded and directed by Peter and Doris Walser-Wilhelm .

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Italiam! Italiam! A newly discovered Karl Viktor von Bonstetten. First publications. Edited, translated and explained by Doris and Peter Walser-Wilhelm. Lang, Bern et al. 1995.
  2. ^ Karl Viktor von Bonstetten Chief Justice in Lugano on ticinarte.ch
  3. ↑ Quoted from Goethe- Artemis-Gedenkausgabe , Volume 24, Zurich 1948, pp. 435f.
  4. ↑ Quoted from Stefan Howald : Departure to Europe. Karl Viktor von Bonstetten 1745–1832. Life and work. Basel / Frankfurt / M. 1997.

Works

  • Letters about a Swiss pastoral country , Basel 1782
  • Small writings , Copenhagen 1799–1801, 4 volumes
  • On national education , Zurich 1802, 2 volumes
  • Voyage sur la scène des six derniers livres de l'Énéide , Geneva 1805
  • Recherches sur la nature et les lois de l'imagination , Geneva 1807, 2 volumes
  • Pensées diverses sur divers objets du bien public , Geneva 1815
  • Études de l'homme, ou recherches sur les facultés de sentir et de penser , Geneva 1821, 2 volumes
  • L'homme du Midi et l'homme du Nord , Geneva 1824 (studies on the influence of the climate)
    • bilingual edition Göttingen, Wallstein 2010, 2 volumes, ed. v. Doris and Peter Walser-Wilhelm with the collaboration of Antje Kolde, ISBN 3-89244-603-2
  • La Scandinavie et les Alpes , Geneva 1826
  • Souvenirs, écrits en 1831 , Paris / Zurich 1832, ²1833
  • Italiam! Italiam! A newly discovered Karl Viktor von Bonstetten. First publications . Edited, translated and explained by Doris and Peter Walser-Wilhelm. Bern 1995
  • BONSTETTIANA, historical-critical edition of the correspondence of Karl Viktor von Bonstetten and his circle, 1753-1832 . Edited by Doris u. Peter Walser-Wilhelm, 14 vols., Bern: Peter Lang 1996 ff., Göttingen: Wallstein 2002 ff.
  • BONSTETTIANA, historical-critical edition of the writings of Karl Viktor von Bonstetten , 10 volumes, Bern: Peter Lang 1997 ff., Göttingen: Wallstein 2006 ff.

literature

Web links

Commons : Karl Viktor von Bonstetten  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Bonstetten, Karl Viktor von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bonstetten, Charles Victor de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 3, 1745
PLACE OF BIRTH Bern
DATE OF DEATH February 3, 1832
Place of death Geneva