Ludwig von Milewski

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Ludwig von Milewski , lithograph by W. Kersten, 1849, Stadtmuseum Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf

Ludwig von Milewski , also Ludwig Milewsky (born August 24, 1825 in Kalisch , Congress Poland ; † on the night of May 9-10 , 1849 in Düsseldorf ), was a Polish painter . As the leader of revolutionary street fighters, he was shot on a barricade during the May uprising in Düsseldorf in 1849 . The dramatic event was understood by contemporaries as a sacrificial death, a representation of his laying out was distributed as a lithograph.

Life

Little is known about Milewski's life. From 1844 to 1845 he studied painting with Karl Ferdinand Sohn . Sohn was one of the teachers at the Düsseldorf Art Academy who, together with their students, took part in the events of the German Revolution of 1848/1849 . For example, he had designed an allegorical Germania statue for the festival of German unity , which was organized by democrats on August 6, 1848 on Friedrichsplatz in Düsseldorf .

When the revolution also came to a head in the Rhine Province in May 1849 , after the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV had rejected the constitutionally limited imperial dignity offered to him by the Imperial Deputation over a German Empire , Milewski, like several other academy students , was involved in the Düsseldorf Volksklub Local association of supporters of the ideas of republicanism and socialism under the leadership of Julius Wulff , which had close ties to the Cologne workers' association . In the Düsseldorfer Zeitung he published a call to citizens to urge the Prussian state government to give the Poles freedom. Milewski's brother was also very active politically in the context of the revolutionary events, so that the police thought of expelling the brothers. During the imperial constitution campaign , Milewski was a leader of insurgents who attacked the Prussian authorities in Düsseldorf through street fighting and the attempt to occupy official buildings. On May 7, 1849, the provisional district president Friedrich von Spankeren had declared a state of siege. When, on May 9, 1849, the Gerresheim doctor Peter Joseph Neunzig called for an armed fight from the window of Lorenz Cantador's house on the Düsseldorf market square and the news spread that the Republic had been proclaimed in Elberfeld and that the military from the Düsseldorf garrison were marching there, barricades were built in the city and armed citizens attacked the town hall and main guard. The subsequent bloody fighting between the citizens and the Prussian military, which resulted in 16 deaths on the part of the insurgents, lasted from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. on the morning of May 10, 1849. In these battles Milewski commanded a barricade in Grabenstrasse and suffered a fatal gunshot wound. Milewski is said to have been shot by a Prussian infantryman when he jumped on the barricade to tell the soldiers not to shoot the people.

reception

The dramatic event was understood as a sacrificial death and Milewski was celebrated as a hero at his burial in the Golzheim cemetery . Hundreds came to decorate his coffin, which was lined all in red. The solemn march past turned out to be a real demonstration, so that the military was deployed to stop it. A representation of his laying out was distributed as a lithograph. The deaf and dumb Düsseldorf still life painter Joseph Wilms made a vanitas still life and souvenir picture of Milewski in 1849 , which is entitled The Legacy of Ludwig von Milewski and is now inventoried in the City Museum of the State Capital Düsseldorf . This image shows a variety of items that life Milewskis and political context, to symbolize his death, such as the statute of Civil Guard to Dusseldorf , one Hambach hat with black, red and gold rosette and a flintlock pistol of the make Kuchenreuter .

Milewski's tomb, which was erected by Milewski's parents in Golzheim's cemetery in 1852, was moved from field IX to field VII in 1948. In 2016, the District Council 1 of the city of Düsseldorf decided to ask the administration to move the tomb back to its original location. The district council also decided to ask the administration to erect a memorial site for all victims of the civil uprising of 1848/1849 at the northern end of the Golzheim cemetery. A model by the artist Ramon Graefenstein is available for this, who designed a structure with crosses in a circular arrangement.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See nos. 9419 and 9420 in the finding aid 212.01.04 Student lists of the Düsseldorf Art Academy , website in the archive.nrw.de portal ( North Rhine-Westphalia State Archive )
  2. ↑ Bettina Baumgärtel , Sabine Schroyen, Lydia Immerheiser, Sabine Teichgröb: Directory of foreign artists. Nationality, residence and studies in Düsseldorf . In: Sabine Baumgärtel (Ed.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918 . Volume 1, Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , p. 436
  3. ^ Hugo Weidenhaupt : Small history of the city of Düsseldorf . Triltsch Verlag, Düsseldorf 1983, ninth revised edition, p. 109, illustration of Germania on p. 108
  4. ^ Wolfgang Hütt : Die Düsseldorfer Malerschule 1819–1869 . VEB EA Seemann Buch- und Kunstverlag, Leipzig 1984, p. 190
  5. ^ Wilhelm Herchenbach : Düsseldorf and its surroundings in the revolutionary years 1848–1849 . Düsseldorf 1882, p. 61 ( digitized version ), 135 ( digitized version )
  6. ^ Hermann Joseph Aloys Körner: Life struggles in the old and new world. An autobiography . Meyer and Zeller, Zurich 1866, p. 74 ( online )
  7. ↑ Jürgen Herres: The Prussian Rhineland in the revolution of 1848/49 . In: Stephan Lennartz, Georg Mölich (Hrsg.): Revolution in the Rhineland. Change in political culture in 1848/49 . In: Bensberger Protocols (series of publications by Thomas-More-Akademie Bensberg) , Cologne 1998, issue 29, pp. 13–36
  8. ^ Memorandum on the state of siege in the Sammt community of Düsseldorf, the districts of Elberfeld, Solingen and the city of Wittlich . In: Stenographic reports on the negotiations of the Second Chamber , Deckersche Geheime Ober-Hofbuchdruckerei, Berlin, August 21, 1849, first volume, p. 208 ( online )
  9. ↑ Wolfgang Hütt, p. 304
  10. ↑ a b Katrin DuBois: The legacy of Ludwig von Milewski, 1849 . In: Bettina Baumgärtel (Hrsg.): The Düsseldorf School of Painting and its international impact 1819–1918 . Volume 2, Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86568-702-9 , p. 313 f. (Catalog No. 263)
  11. ↑ Northern part, field VIII - Cf. Der Tod in Düsseldorf , website in the portal postmortal.de , accessed on November 6, 2014
  12. ^ Wilhelm Herchenbach : Düsseldorf and its surroundings in the revolutionary years 1848/49 . Düsseldorf 1882, p. 151 f.
  13. ↑ Wolfgang Hütt, p. 203 f.
  14. ↑ Long live the revolution! Article from September 10, 2016 in the portal rp-online.de , accessed on June 23, 2017
  15. ↑ Birgit Halcour (The Golzheimer Friedhof shall live eV): Program 2017 , program flyer 2017
  16. ↑ Template 171 / 139/2016: Application dated June 10, 2016: Golzheimer Friedhof: Memorial place for those who fell in the Düsseldorf Revolution of 1848/1849 ( online file )
personal data
SURNAME Milewski, Ludwig von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Milewsky, Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish painter
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1825
PLACE OF BIRTH Kalisch , Congress Poland
DATE OF DEATH May 10, 1849
Place of death Dusseldorf