Karol Libelt

Karol Fryderyk Libelt

Karol Fryderyk Libelt ( German Karl Friedrich Libelt ) (born April 8, 1807 in Poznań , † June 9, 1875 in Brdów ) was a Polish publicist, scientist, politician and revolutionary.

Early years

Libelt studied classical philology , philosophy , mathematics and natural sciences in Berlin between 1826 and 1830 . Already during his student days he was politically involved in the democratic wing of Polish youth in Berlin. He was a co-founder of the Society of the Polish Library in Berlin. He finished his studies with a doctorate to become a Dr. phil. In the following years he went on a research trip to Göttingen , Heidelberg , Brussels and Paris . He also worked as a correspondent for Gazeta W. Ks. Poznańskiego from Poznan.

In 1831 he took part in the November uprising in Poland . He first served as a soldier in the artillery and rose to the rank of non-commissioned officer and finally to sub-lieutenant. After the uprising ended, he was interned in Troppau . In 1832 he was sentenced to nine months of imprisonment for participating in the uprising, which he was serving in the Magdeburg fortress .

Journalistic and scientific work

From 1832 Libelt lived in Poznan as a scientific and political publicist. In 1833 there was a criminal case against him for political offenses. He was acquitted in the second instance.

After that he was tenant of the Ulejno estate until 1835. Since 1838 he has also worked for various magazines in Warsaw and Poznan. In 1840 he became editor of the magazine Tygodnik Literacki (Literary Weekly) in Poznan. Between 1840 and 1841 he ran a private boys' boarding school in Poznan. After that he was an assistant teacher at the German grammar school until 1844. That year he published a mathematics textbook. In 1844 Libelt first used the term intelligentsia in the sense of a totality of all educated people.

Around 1842 he founded the magazine Dziennik Domowy (Heimblatt) and since 1843 he was co-editor and editor of the magazine Rok (The Year). This journal was the center of Polish philosophical discussion in the 1840s. His main scientific work was the Filozofia i krytika , published in Posen in five volumes between 1845 and 1850. In addition, in the 1840s he gave numerous lectures in Polish on German literature and aesthetics in Posen. One of his goals was to establish a national Polish philosophy.

Political activity in the Vormärz

Polish Trial of 1847

Libelt also remained politically active. Between 1839 and 1845 the Libelt Committee existed to prepare for a Polish uprising. In 1841, Libelt was a co-founder, secretary and from 1844 vice-president of the Association for Teaching Assistance in Poznan. In Poznan he was a member of the city council since 1844. In 1845 he was a co-founder of the local trade association. In 1845 he was also a member of the Polish Central Revolutionary Committee. At the beginning of 1846 he took part in the Cracow uprising . He was a member of the revolutionary Polish national government and the author of a Krakow manifesto.

Since 1846 there were criminal proceedings against him for high treason in Prussia. He spent his pre-trial detention in Posen, Küstrin and finally in Moabit . He was one of the main defendants in the Poland trial before the Berlin Superior Court . This sentenced him to 20 years imprisonment. He was imprisoned in Moabit for the following months.

Revolution of 1848/49

After the liberation in the course of the March Revolution of 1848, he took part in the Polish uprising in the province of Posen. Between March and April of that year, Libelt was a member of the Polish National Committee and the Committee for the Reorganization of the Poznan Province. He was part of a delegation that negotiated the national reorganization of the province of Posen in Berlin in March 1848. Since April 1848 he was a member of the secret Polish national government. He was one of the signatories of the Jaroslawiec Convention between the Regorganizing Committee and General von Willisen . In May 1848 he took part in the Polish Congress in Breslau and in June in the Slavs Congress in Prague . There he was chairman of the Polish-Russian section. He was co-author of the manifesto of the Slav Evangelical Church to the peoples of Europe . In Berlin he was a member of the editorial committee of the magazine Die Reform from October 1848 . Between October 1848 and January 1849 he was a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly . He was a member of the Donnersberg parliamentary group .

Later years

From June 1848 to 1850 he was a member of the Interim Directorate of the Polish League , serving as director and head of the publication and education department. In December 1848 he was a member of the Polish electoral committee for the elections to the Prussian state parliament . In 1849 he was a member of the second chamber of the Prussian state parliament and belonged to the Polish parliamentary group . In addition, he was editor of the magazine Dziennik Polski (Polish daily newspaper) until the ban by the authorities in 1850 . His smaller writings appeared in Posen between 1849 and 1851 in a collection of six volumes.

Since 1850 he was the owner of the Czeszewo manor. He was the founder and member of the local farmers' association. After 1860 he was a member of the Society of Friends of Science in Poznan. Between 1868 and 1875 he was its chairman. Libelt was a co-founder of the Commission for Orthography and the Department for Economics and Statistics.

Between 1859 and 1870 he was a member of the Prussian House of Representatives and was chairman of the Polish parliamentary group from 1863 to 1866. A complete edition of his works Dzieła appeared in six volumes in 1875, the year he died.

literature

• Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Volume 12. Leipzig 1908, p. 505. Digitized
• Pierer's Universal-Lexikon, Volume 10. Altenburg 1860, p. 337. Digitized

Web links

• Karol Libelt . In: Heinrich Best : The members of the Frankfurt National Assembly 1848/1849 (BIORAB-FRANKFURT) (the exact data set must be found). Best / Weege
• Publications by and about Karol Libelt at Litdok East Central Europe / Herder Institute (Marburg)