Nordic Mercury

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Nordic Mercury

language German
First edition 1664
Frequency of publication weekly / monthly / several times a week
Web link brema.suub.uni-bremen.de/zeitungen17/periodical/titleinfo/967576

The Nordic Mercurius appeared in Hamburg between January 1664 and 1730, between 1672 and 1675 it is listed as the supplement "Extraordinaire Relation". The newspaper was founded by Georg Greflinger (around 1620 - 1677), originally a poet and writer, who published it until his death. The Nordic Mercurius was continued by Greflinger's sons, Friedrich Conrad and Conrad (?) (Other sources say Franz Ludwig, afterwards his widow took over the publication of the paper) until 1713 inclusive, before it disappears from the market. The reasons for this are unknown.

The title of "Nordic Mercuirius" is inconsistent, the annual title "Nordic Mercurius" (from 1665) always has additions or changes, for example "Freytagischer Nordic Mercurius". - The newspaper had a high frequency of publication: in 1664 it appeared twice a week with a length of 12 pages each, in 1665 monthly, from 1666 to mid-1672 again twice a week, then four times a week. Only gradually, however, did the “Nordic Mercurius”, a “richly designed paper”, take on the usual form of newspaper. At first it had the design of a yearbook with the year title, month title pages and continuous pagination with year and month information; Preface, introductory verses, attached annual and semi-annual overviews are also to be recorded. Only from 1679 is a visible number record available. Continuous pagination ceases to exist from 1683. While the symbol of the newspaper, the Mercur, was initially only included on the annual title page and month front page, it can now also be seen on every single issue. A printing date is also added.

As usual in the 17th century, the newspaper was composed of reports from different places. In addition to regions, the reports are broken down by country of origin, and the newspaper reports on events across Europe. In addition to his "standard correspondence", Greflinger apparently tried harder to get news from other places. The individual reports contain both descriptive descriptions and comments. It reports in detail on relevant topics and less on individual events. The newspaper had two intentions: to inform and entertain its readers.

Time and again, researchers assumed a special position of the "Nordic Mercury": The reader could learn more about festivities at court than in other newspapers or the news about seafaring would have taken up a particularly large space. It should be emphasized that the newspaper contains a number of eyewitness accounts as well as poems, verses and advertisements. Sometimes the "Nordic Mercury" was referred to as the (first) newspaper with columnar or literary elements. In addition, there are approaches from rubrics such as “Big Death Cases” in 1665 or in 1698 prefaces; Blühm sees this as the first step on the way to the leading article. It is unclear whether Greflinger edited the reports of his correspondents. In any case, the newspaper is given an outstanding position compared to the other newspapers of the 17th century.

literature

  • Blühm, Elger (1972): Nordic Mercurius (1665-1730), in: Fischer, Heinz-Dietrich (ed.): German newspapers from the 17th to the 20th century, Pullach near Munich. Pp. 91-102.
  • Bogel, Else / Elger Blühm (ed.): The German newspapers of the 17th century. An inventory. Bremen 1971, supplementary volume 1985.
  • Gieseler, Jens / Elke Kühnle-Xemaire: "The" Nordic Mercurius "- a special 17th century newspaper? A linguistic study of the Hamburger Zeitung". In: Publizistik, Vol. 40 (1995), Heft 2, pp. 163-185.
  • Foreword to the first edition of the Nordic Mercurius from January 6, 1664: http://greflinger.hypotheses.org/teilprojekte/teilprojekt-iii-nordischer-mercurius

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Bogel, Else / Elger Blühm (ed.): The German newspapers of the 17th century. An inventory. Bremen 1971, supplement 1985, here p. 184
  2. ↑ See http://greflinger.hypotheses.org/77
  3. ↑ Bogel / Blühm, p. 183.
  4. ↑ Bogel / Blühm, p. 182
  5. ↑ Gieseler, Jens / Elke Kühnle-Xemaire: "The" Nordic Mercurius "- a special newspaper of the 17th century? A linguistic study of the Hamburger Zeitung". In: Publizistik, Jg. 40 (1995), Heft 2, pp. 163-185, here p. 170
  6. ↑ Gieseler / Kühnle-Xemaire, p. 173
  7. ↑ Blühm, Elger (1972): Nordischer Mercurius (1665-1730), in: Fischer, Heinz-Dietrich (Ed.): German newspapers from the 17th to the 20th century, Pullach near Munich. P. 91 - 102, here P. 101