Olof Hermelin (historiographer)

Olof Hermelin

Olof Hermelin (* 1658 in Filipstad , † around 1709 or 1712 probably near Moscow ) was a Swedish civil servant, nobleman and diplomat. He held the post of Reich historiographer .

Life

Hermelin was the son of Mayor Nils Manson and Karin Andersdotter Skragge. He enrolled at Uppsala University under the maternal name of Skragge. In 1687 he returned from a trip abroad and initially got a job at the Reichsarchiv and in 1689 an appointment as professor of rhetoric and later also of law in Dorpat . In this capacity, Hermelin greeted the new Swedish Governor General of Livonia , Count Erik Dahlberg , on August 31, 1696 with the words:

"Put aside your unrest, Livonia, lift your head bowed with worries! You have found favor before your king, who has sent you a brave helmsman. "

Livonia suffered at the time from the consequences of Charles XI. initiated repayment of the crown property ("reduction"), and the Livonians had the hope that the successor, the young King Charles XII. would alleviate hardships.

Hermelin was, in succession from Lagerlöfs, Swedish imperial historiographer since 1699 and in this capacity accompanied the Swedish army under Charles XII. in the Northern War in Livonia, Poland, Saxony and Russia to Poltava . During the winter quarters, Hermelin treated almost every day, together with Count Piper and the king, "in the most careful manner the affairs of the empire and the army, as well as questions of war." On behalf of the king he had several pamphlets go out, including pamphlets directed against the Poles such as Die Truth Saved by Lies, the Rightful Answer, on the part of Yourself. Kings Maj. To Sweden, in which the King of Pohlen ... Frauds u. Insults, with which he sought to gloss over his highly unjust ... war ..., put before the eyes of the world as well as investigation of the clocks / with which From the general of the so-called Saxon troops his accidental and faithless invasion of Liefland In some letters given to Liecht want to be glossed over: Translated from the Latin original . In addition, he wrote in Swedish and also on behalf of the king, a refutation of the manifesto of the Russian tsar, which was perceived as insulting, which the latter is said to have taken very personally (refuting the blasphemies, which the Muscowite Czaar den Krieg, with which he the Swedes, again to gloss over his Eyd and shortly before assured loyalty and faith; after the Latin Germanized) . In 1703 he was raised to the nobility and in 1705 promoted to State Secretary and Chancellery.

Hermelin took part in the negotiations for the peace of Altranstädt on the Swedish side in 1706 , together with Count Carl Piper , the Royal Privy Council and Colonel-Marshal. He was still a Royal Secretary of State and Councilor at the time. Almost at the same time he wrote the "Resolution regarding the Paykull case" on behalf of the king , who as a Livonian was in the service of the Saxons and after the Battle of Warsaw was in Swedish captivity. She closes with the fateful words for Paykull: “Hence - if one weighs the laws and orders against the reasons and circumstances which have been described by the court as 'mitigating', one cannot see anything that could give reason, Paykul of the guilt to acquit - to have fought against the king and the fatherland. ”Paykull was finally executed on Brunkeberg near Stockholm on February 4, 1707 on the orders of the king.

In his letters to Samuel Barck, Hermelin shows his criticism of King Karl XII when he writes that he “does not dare to write what I know and think. There is no hope here; everything is getting worse every day. I am completely desperate, but am nevertheless satisfied that it cannot be otherwise. You are happy that you do not see or hear what we see ... and who is the cause other than the one who does not want to take advice? ”After the fall of Narva in 1704, Livonia was gradually lost to Sweden.

When the Swedish army was defeated near Poltava in 1709 , the entire Swedish field chancellery as well as ermine fell into the hands of the Russians. Some historians believe reports that Hermelin was killed with his bare hands by Peter I in revenge in Moscow prison . 1709 is therefore assumed to be the year of death. In the Russian description of Peter the Great's triumphal procession through Moscow from 1710, ermine is no longer mentioned.

Act

In his time, Hermelin was considered a great scholar, he was friends with the scholar Urban Hjärne. So posthumously (1717) his Latin work about the natives of Livonia De Origine Livonorum Disquisitio was published in Leipzig. Kymmel published a German copy in Riga in 1857 under the title: Drey little writings on the history of Livonia by Thomas Horner, Augustinus Eucaedius and Dionysius Fabricius, and two studies on the descent of the natives of Livonia by Fridericus Menius and Olaus Hermelin . During his time as a professor in Dorpater, numerous dissertations by his students were published under his direction. His largest project was the drafting of the text for Dahlberg's Suecia antiqua et hodierna , but his duties in the field chancellery prevented him from carrying out it thoroughly, so that this magnificent work of Dahlberg's views was published without the explanatory text.

literature

• Olof Hermelin . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape 1 : A-K . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 488 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
• Sven Olsson: Olof Hermelin. En karolinsk culture personlighet och statsman . tape XIII . Lund 1953.
• Max Schürer von Waldheim: Prince Maximilian Emanuel von Württemberg . Greifswald 1938.
• Maj Odelberg: Med portfölj och ritstift. Olof Hermelin, en fornforskningens tjänare . Atlantis, 1993.
• Ermine, Olaus. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 12, Leipzig 1735, column 1729.
• Martin Ottow: Otto Arnold von Paykul . In: Baltisches Jahrbuch , 1975. Lüneburg, pp. 51–62.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Olof Hermelin . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape  1 : A-K . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 489 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).
2. ↑ Ernst Seraphim: History of Liv, Estonia and Courland . tape 2 . Reval 1896, p. 368 f .
3. ↑ The reduction of goods, which did not only affect Livonia, was decided by the Swedish Diet in 1680 and resulted in large parts of the crown fiefs being returned to them. This large-scale expropriation of large parts of the nobility meant that the financial situation of the Swedish crown was greatly improved. On the other hand, parts of the nobility became impoverished and dependent on the crown, in whose service many aristocrats then had to go to in order to earn their keep. In particular, parts of the nobility in Livonia were very angry about the actions of the Swedish government. In addition to personal ambitious motives, the injured sense of justice may have contributed significantly to the anti- Swedish activities of Patkul and other Livonian nobles. Literature: Nottbeck, Eugen von: The Swedish goods reduction. In: Contributions to the customer of Est, Liv and Courland. Vol. 4. Reval 1894, pp. 83-100
4. ↑ Schürer von Waldheim 1938, p. 38
5. ↑ According to the Swedish legal opinion, the Livonians were Swedish subjects
6. ^ Martin Ottow: Otto Arnold von Paykul . In: Baltisches Jahrbuch 1975. Lüneburg, p. 60.
7. ^ Jörg-Peter Findeisen: Karl XII. of Sweden . Berlin 1992, p. 92 .
8. ↑ Only Hamilton, Stackelberg, Rose, Cruse, Creutz, Schlippenbach, Graf Löwenhaupt, Rhenskiöld and Graf Piper are mentioned in the 1710 published: Mars Moscoviticus: Or the Moscowite War Fortune, as finally your Czaarian Majesty Petrum Alexiowitz handsomely secundiret, and after the magnificent victorie, received at Pultawa, who triumphantly introduced it to the Residentz Moscow ... p. 50. On page 49, “The Royal Cantzley” is also mentioned as a loot component.
9. ↑ Nordberg proves that ermine was counted among the prisoners: “That, after the battle, as a prisoner of war, he was alive in the power of the Czarn; can be seen from De Neederlandse Maandelyke Postryder, in the August month of the 1709th year, where on the 403rd page of Czarn's own letter to Field Marshal Goltz, the following figure is cited: 'De Generals Rehnschild, Schlippenbach, Hamilton en Rosen, nevens the first Minister Piper , en de 2 Secretarissen, Hermelin en Cedershelm zyn onder de Gevangene & c. .... '. According to a report also cited by Nordberg, Hermelin is said to have lived as a prisoner in a monastery in Astrakhan at the end of 1712. Nordberg does not know how to praise Hermelin enough, since his chronicle is largely based on a diary found in 1736 by Hermelin: 'I publicly confess that I made use of a whole lot of special news from it that would otherwise never have come to light with all praise and thanksgiving, and will praise it as long as I live '”(Nordberg 1751 (vol. 3 life of Carl the twelfth), p. XIII, fn *).
10. ^ Martin Ottow: Otto Arnold von Paykul . In: Baltisches Jahrbuch 1975. Lüneburg, p. 62.
11. ↑ Carl Gustav Holtz hot: Bibliotheca Historica Sueo-Gothica . tape 1 , no. 207 . Stockholm 1782, p. 61 f .