Nemesis (magazine)
The magazine Nemesis with the subtitle "Zeitschrift für Politik und Geschichte" was a political journal and appeared from January 1814 in "informal notebooks" by Bertuch in Weimar. It comprises 12 volumes of four booklets each (called "Stück") and was published by the Jena history professor Heinrich Luden and the Weimar publisher Friedrich Justin Bertuch , although Bertuch - for fear of censorship - was not publicly mentioned.
At the beginning entirely under the sign of anti-Napoleonic propaganda, the Nemesis developed into a high-quality and serious political journal that was received and followed closely throughout Germany and even Europe far beyond the borders of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach . It belongs to the liberal and liberal national press in the time of German early constitutionalism . After the attempted printing of a secret bulletin by August von Kotzebue to Tsar Alexander I of Russia in the nemesis in January 1818 led to a Europe-wide scandal (Kotzebue affair), the last issue of the magazine appeared in October 1818 due to political pressure.
The title of the magazine
At first, Luden and Bertuch considered the title “People and State” for their joint magazine project. It was supposed to “show how the whole political and social life revolves around the two poles of people and state”. After these and other variants of Bertuch were rejected as not having enough appeal, it was decided to suggest that Bertuch's son Carl call them Nemesis. Following on from the myth of the ancient goddess of fate Nemesis , whose punitive justice no one can escape, this title should symbolize the historical necessity of the collapse of Napoleonic rule and the desired political rebirth of liberated Germany . In the first issue of the first volume, Bertuch wrote the justification for the title Nemesis:
“So she (Nemesis), as a beautifully winged female figure, carries half the equally and justly distributing measure of temporal goods in her hand, and her foot stands on a wheel, the symbol of the rapid changeability of worldly things; Sometimes it curbs the irrepressible and devastating ambition with a bridle, or chastises the proud and boisterous thyrant with the scourge, or punishes with scales and weight, as divine justice, the crimes of the despot on the throne, and avenges on him the abused and oppressed Humanity. Soon she appears with rudder and cornucopia, and rewards the noble striving and the worries of the wise regent with popular happiness and abundance. In her highest, I may say religious symbolism, she appears with the veil lifted and sees herself as a punishing or acquitted conscience into her own heart. "
Importance of the magazine
The Nemesis first appeared on the market as an anti-Napoleonic propaganda sheet. But after the loss of the cause of Napoleon in April 1814, its editor Luden turned to the actual topic that dominated the magazine until its end: the German constitutional discourse. Focusing initially on a national solution, as a result of the founding of the German Confederation and the associated disappointment of the hoped-for unification of nations, the weight shifts very quickly to the discussions about the establishment of rural constitutions according to Article 13 of the Federal Act .
In the course of the discourse within the magazine, the moderately liberal and statistically oriented Luden emerges as the prototype of the educated citizen who, in numerous articles of his own, votes for a representative constitutional implementation of Art. 13, drawing on the liberal teachings of modern political and legal theory. He tries to intervene in the public discourse by means of publicity and thereby exert influence, which he succeeds. The Nemesis will soon be one of the most important political journals in the entire language area and can thus help shape the public discourse on the constitutions of the individual German states.
The magazine benevolently accompanies the constitutional developments in Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach, which has since risen to become the Grand Duchy, and praises the Thuringian small state as a pioneer of the German constitution as a preliminary stage to the later unified German nation-state. In this way, it carries the message far into the German-speaking area that under Grand Duke Carl August, things are being tried out and lived out on a small scale, which should prepare the ground for the next great. With the increasing criticism of the politically restorative opponents such as Metternich and Friedrich Gentz of the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the Weimar press, the position of the nemesis is also becoming increasingly acute.
That the moderately liberal political professor Luden is finally embroiled in a constitutional conflict through the so-called Kotzebue affair, which causes protests far beyond the Thuringian borders throughout Europe, culminating in censorship demands and finally in 1819 in the Karlovy Vary resolutions , clearly shows radicalization tendencies existing before 1818 in the course of the constitutional discourse. Through the interaction of the Weimar representative constitution with its freedom of the press and the political magazines such as the Nemesis, the Grand Duchy comes into the focus of major German and even European politics and becomes the target of restorative efforts, especially from Vienna, but also Berlin and Petersburg.
literature
- Julia A. Schmidt-Funke: On the way to civil society. The political journalism of the Weimar publisher Friedrich Justin Bertuch . Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-412-22305-0
- Werner Greiling: Thuringia as a press landscape. Requirements and beginnings . In: Konrad Scheurmann, Jördis Frank (Ed.): Newly discovered: Thuringia - Land of Residences, Essays (6) . Mainz 2004, pp. 461-479.
- Werner Greiling: Press and Public in Thuringia. Media concentration and communicative networking in the 18th and 19th centuries . Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-412-11502-9
- Detlef Jena: Russia's influence on the constitutional conflict in the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach from 1817/1818 . In: Weimar and the East. Historical and cultural relations between the Thuringian region and Eastern Europe (= series of publications on European thinking, 2). Jena 2002, pp. 11–32.
- Gerhard Müller: Heinrich Luden as a parliamentarian . In: Writings on the history of parliamentarism in Thuringia , issue 10. Weimar 1998, ISBN 3-86160-510-4
- Franz Schneider: Freedom of the press and political public. Studies on the political history of Germany up to 1848 . In: Politica. Treatises and texts on political science , 24, pp. 175–190.
- Johannes Haage: Heinrich Luden . 1930.
- Elisabeth Reissig: Heinrich Luden as a publicist and politician . Jena 1920.
- Hans Ehrentreich: The Free Press in Saxony-Weimar from the Wars of Freedom to the Karlsbad Decisions . Hall 1907.
Web links
- Nemesis: Journal of Politics and History, Volume 1 on Google Books