Ludwig August Mellin

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Ludwig August Mellin

Ludwig August Graf Mellin (* 12 January July / 23 January  1754 greg. In Tuhala , today rural community Kose , Harju County , Estonia ; † 28 February July / 12 March  1835 greg. In Riga , Livonia ) was a Baltic German nobleman and liberal politician. He was one of the most important Baltic cartographers of his time.

Life

Early years

Ludwig August Mellin was born as the eighth child of Count Carl Johann Mellin (1707–1775) and his wife Anna Gertrude von Staal (1723–1763) on the family estate in Tuhala (German Toal ). He received a thorough education (including Latin, French, mathematics and astronomy) primarily from his tutor, the theologian Berend Johann Campmann .

In 1767, the Russian Tsarina Catherine II appointed the gifted boy to accompany the two Princes of Holstein-Gottorp , Wilhelm August and Peter Friedrich Ludwig, who lived in Bern , on their grand tour of Europe. Mellin and the princes were close friends. Ludwig August Mellin visited Germany , Switzerland , France and Italy . He studied in Bologna for a long time . For a short time he attended the University of Göttingen . Mellin's encounters with Albrecht von Haller , Frederick the Great , a three-day visit to Voltaire and an audience with Pope Clemens XIV were formative.

Military time

After his return to the tsarist empire, Ludwig August Mellin entered Russian military service in 1773 . In 1774 he took part in the war between Russia and the Ottoman Empire . From the middle of the following year he served in the drawing office of the Quartermaster General Bauer. After that he worked with interruptions from 1773 to 1883 in the topographical department of the Russian General Staff in Saint Petersburg . Mellin became an expert in cartography there.

Ludwig August Mellin married the German Baltic noblewoman Helena Augusta von Mengden-Altenwoga (1763-1812) in July 1781 . The couple had three daughters. In 1783 he said goodbye to the military.

Politician

Mellin moved to the Livonian capital Riga and settled on the nearby Bīriņi (German Kolzen ) estate , which his wife had brought into the marriage. From there he became involved politically in addition to his diverse scientific activities. Mellin held important offices in Livonia: he was a. a. from 1783 to 1786 district chief of Riga and from 1786 to 1795 district judge of the Riga district; In 1795 he became assessor at the Livonian court of conscience. From 1797 to 1818 Mellin was Livonian district administrator and from 1804 to 1807 parish judge of several parishes and in 1813 Livonian court judge.

At the instigation of Tsar Alexander I , Mellin became a member of the Riga Department of the Livonian Committee for Peasant Affairs in 1814. There he was committed to improving the situation of the rural population. He advocated a new agricultural law and supported the reform parties around District Administrator Friedrich Wilhelm von Sivers. As a liberal politician who was basically well-disposed towards the rural population, Mellin supported the peasant liberation in Livonia in 1819.

Mellin worked to make it easier for the peasant class to dowry recruits and make contributions to public works. Mellin brought individual concerns and complaints from peasants about unjust treatment by members of the knighthood as far as Saint Petersburg. He quickly came into conflict with the Livonian Landtag, especially with the members of the Livonian Knighthood who feared for their traditional feudal privileges. Under pressure from the knighthood, he finally had to resign from the Livonian district council in 1818. But he continued to be politically influential.

Together with the General Superintendent of Livonia, Karl Gottlob Sunday (1765-1827), Mellin served as secular Chairman and CEO from 1796 to 1831, the Livonian upper consistory .

In 1835 he died very old in Riga. Ludwig August Mellin is buried today in Bīriņi, Latvia . A memorial stone in the park of his birthplace Tuhala in Estonia commemorates him today.

Works

Atlas

In 1798 the main part of Mellin's cartographic main work, the Atlas of Lieffland or of the two governors and duchies of Lieff and Ehstland and the province of Oesel , appeared in Riga . Some sheets were printed as early as 1794. The impetus for the work was provided by the visit of the then Russian Grand Duke and later Tsar Paul to Riga in November 1782, who criticized the lack of precise military maps for Livonia. Mellin was put in charge of the work. During his work, he discovered numerous inaccuracies on existing maps. From 1791 to 1798 Mellin worked intensively on the atlas. He had over 200 local freelancers and traveled parts of the country himself to survey. He also used astronomical observations.

The atlas was reprinted in sheets in Leipzig in 1798 and 1810 . The atlas published by Mellin was intended to complete August Wilhelm Hupel's (1737–1819) topographic news of Liefland and Ehstland . In the first half of the 19th century, it was the best and most detailed map series in the region.

The atlas contains an overview map and 14 maps of the districts of Livonia, Estonia and the island of Saaremaa on a scale of 1: 200,000, four of which are in what is now Latvia and ten in what is now Estonia. In his work, Mellin summarizes in detail and with the greatest accuracy the entire cartographic knowledge of the region of his time.

In addition to the coastline, islands and localities, the atlas also contains detailed information on localities (fortified city, open city, castle, destroyed castle, estate, cattle yard, village), important buildings (parish church, chapel, rectory, tavern, border station, mill) , Infrastructure (port, lighthouse, post road, large country road, church communication route), topography (forest, mud, sand, lake, sea cliffs), administrative boundaries and history (“battlefield”). Decorative accessories ( cartouches , coats of arms and some city views) round off the atlas. The legend is written in parallel in German and French. The scale is given in werst , Livonian miles and common German miles.

Other works

In addition, Ludwig August Mellin has written research papers on a wide variety of topics, including: a. on the old fortresses in Estonia and Latvia, electricity and magnetism as well as on practical questions such as the “Use of horses and oxen in plowing”, “About the treatment of grain and especially grain drying in our regions” (Bern 1786) and “ Try to make the tiled roofs more durable ”(1805). Sometimes he wrote curiosities such as “Two women marry each other, a Livonian anecdote” (Leipzig 1798), “Message from the found tombstone of the Apostle Peter” (1827) and his writing “About people found in a wall”.

Mellin's literary legacy is Das Quodlibet, a posse in five acts with chants and choirs. It is handed down in an autograph from January 1804 with the music Mellin composed himself. The piece was never printed.

photos

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birini palace. In: ambermarks.com, accessed May 8, 2019.
  2. ^ Atlas of Livonia, or of the Two Governments and Duchies Livonia and Estonia, and of the Province of Oesel. In: wdl.org. World Digital Library , accessed January 21, 2013 .
  3. ↑ 2004. February. Count Ludwig August Mellin ( Memento from July 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). In: eha.ee, accessed on May 8, 2019 (English).
  4. ↑ Count Mapping Estonia ( Memento from June 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). In: erst.ee.ee, accessed on May 8, 2019 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Mellin, Ludwig August
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mellin, Ludwig August Graf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Baltic German nobleman and liberal politician
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1754
PLACE OF BIRTH Tuhala , now the rural parish of Kose , Harju County , Estonia
DATE OF DEATH March 12, 1835
Place of death Riga , Livonia