Martin Joseph Prandstätter

Martin Joseph Prandstätter (born October 5, 1760 in Vienna ; † June 25, 1798 in Munkács ) was a poet and magistrate in Vienna. In 1795 he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for not reporting his acquaintances, the Viennese Jacobins Franz Hebenstreit and Andreas Riedel, and for his democratic efforts.

Life

Martin Joseph Prandstätter was the son of the Viennese city and regional court assessor Johann Ferdinand Prandstätter and Anna Rose. He was the oldest of seven siblings. He was born in Leopoldstadt and grew up there. He lived there until his arrest. When he was 16 years old, his mother died. His father soon became seriously ill and caring for them devoured the children's entire income.

He studies philosophy , law and aesthetics at the University of Vienna . At the same time he wrote poetry and by the age of twenty was well known that he became editor of the Vienna Muses Almanac for a year . His poet colleagues and friends are Aloys Blumauer and Joseph Franz von Ratschky . His poem Die Fröhlichkeit was set to music by Franz Schubert in 1815 ( D 262 ).

Martin Joseph Prandstätter became a Freemason in 1782 and was accepted into the St. Joseph Lodge on April 24th . Together with his friend and poet Johann Baptist von Alxinger he was in the on 11 February 1785 Loge To True Harmony affiliert , on the same night that there also Joseph Haydn initiated was.

In 1783, through his father's mediation, Martin Joseph Prandstätter became a magistrate at the Vienna court. There he met the officer colleague and officer Kajetan Gilowsky, who also wrote poetry, through whom he met Andreas Riedel and Franz Hebenstreit .

In the next few years he worked as a magistrate, was a committed Freemason and took part in the discussions about the French Revolution . At the same time, because of the high debts of his family, he was seized twice. In February 1794 his father died and Martin Joseph Prandstätter became the guardian of his siblings. The family only managed to get out of the debt crisis slowly, but by 1794 almost all debts were paid.

On August 1, 1794, Martin Joseph Prandstätter was arrested. His politically active friends and acquaintances had been arrested two weeks earlier. After a show trial , he was sentenced to long prison terms with dozens of others. Martin Joseph Prandstätter was sentenced to 30 years of lengthy, hardest prisons because he had not reported the others earlier as a civil servant . He died on June 25, 1798 of inflammation and weakness in the Munkács fortress prison .

Memorial plaque for Martin Josef Prandstätter on the Vienna City Hall (tower)

In 1923 the members of the Association of Social Democratically Organized Employees and Servants of the City of Vienna put a plaque in honor of Martin Joseph Prandstätter on the main tower of the Vienna City Hall .

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Prandstätter, Martin Joseph . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 42nd part. Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1880, pp. 192–195 ( digitized version ).
• Ernst Wangermann: From Joseph II to the Jacobin trials. Europa Verlag, Vienna 1966, DNB 458572764 .
• Franz Haderer: Martin Joseph Prandstetter (1760–1798). Councilor, Freemason, Poet and Jacobin. Dissertation. Vienna 1967, OCLC 62156185 .
• Alfred Körner: The Viennese Jacobins. Metzler, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-476-00238-1 .
• Edith Rosenstrauch-Königsberg: circles and centers. Essays on the Enlightenment in Austria at the end of the 18th century. Deuticke, Vienna 1991, ISBN 3-7005-4632-7 .
• Leslie Bodi: Thaw in Vienna. Böhlau, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-205-98360-2 .
• Alexander Emanuely : Outcome: Franz Hebenstreit (1747–1795). Silhouettes of the Viennese democrats. 1794. Encyclopedia of Viennese Knowledge, Portraits, Volume II, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-902416-42-1 .

Web links

• A little encyclopedia about Franz Hebenstreit