Otto Hermann von Vietinghoff

Jean-Antoine Houdon : Portrait bust of Otto Hermann von Vietinghoff, 1791 (Bode Museum Berlin)

Otto Hermann von Vietinghoff called Scheel (* 3rd December ^July / 14th December  1722 ^reg. In Riga , Livonia ; † 24 June ^July / 5th July  1792 ^reg. In Saint Petersburg ) was General Director under Catherine II of Russia of the All-Russian Medical College, which today corresponds to the office of Minister of Health.

Life

He began his career as an officer in the Russian army . Under the orders of Field Marshal Count Lacy , he took part in a campaign against the Turks . During the reign of Empress Elisabeth , he took part in campaigns against Sweden and Prussia . He was then a member of the Livonian government in Riga and was politically active in many areas of great influence. As director of the Russian medical college, he held the position of minister of health. In addition, he worked as a very successful and enormously wealthy entrepreneur. Because of his position of power, successes, possessions, generosity and his appearance, he was (unofficially) referred to as the "half-king of Livonia ".

In addition to his seat in Marienburg (today Alūksne ) in Livonia, he owned several factories (distilleries, tanneries, weaving mills) and 30 manors . As a patron of the arts , he founded a theater in Riga (today Wagner's Theater in Riga ) out of his own pocket , which was one of the best German-speaking theaters, and maintained an orchestra.

He was an avowed Freemason and, as a staunch rationalist, turned towards the ideas of the (French) Enlightenment . Otto Hermann von Vietinghoff was in correspondence as well as personal contact with Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon , Denis Diderot , D'Alembert and Melchior Grimm .

One of the most important portrait sculptors of his time, Jean-Antoine Houdon , made a marble bust of him in 1791, which was shown in a Berlin exhibition in 1918, later sold and acquired for the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in 1925 , relocated during World War II , 1945 was transported to the Soviet Union and returned to East Berlin in 1958. Since the reopening of the Bode Museum on Museum Island in Berlin in 2006, it has been accessible to the public again together with another bust by the same sculptor in room 258 on the upper floor.

family

Otto Hermann v. Vietinghoff called Scheel was an Evangelical Lutheran, married to Anna Ulrike Countess von Münnich (1741-1811) and had 7 children, including

• Otto Ernst (1758–1780), Guard Lieutenant, stabbed to death in a duel in St. Petersburg.
• Dorothea Friederike Helena (1761–1839), learned to read, write and speak as a deaf and mute in the institute of the famous Samuel Heinicke in Eppendorf near Hamburg . Returned to Livonia in 1777 and died unmarried in Hamburg.
• (Beate, Barbara) Juliane (1764–1824), married Burckhard Alexius Constantin von Krüdener , the Imperial Russian envoy , on September 29, 1782 . She wrote novels and helped shape the Congress of Vienna .
• Burchard Christoph (1767–1829), Imperial Russian Chamberlain and Privy Councilor, Lord of Marienburg and other estates.
• Anna Margarete (1769–1803), later also Annette Margarethe, married the Imperial Count Johann Georg von Browne (1767–1827), the Russian colonel and son of the Governor General of Estonia and Livonia, Georg Imperial Count von Browne (1698–1792). Active on a diplomatic mission in Vienna , her husband was considered a friend and patron of Ludwig van Beethoven , who dedicated some of his piano sonatas and variations to her.

Web links

• Literature by and about Otto Hermann von Vietinghoff in the catalog of the German National Library
• Baltic Historical Commission (ed.): Entry on Otto Hermann von Vietinghoff. In: BBLD - Baltic Biographical Lexicon digital
• Genealogical handbook of the Baltic knighthoods part 1.1: Livonia, Görlitz 1929

Individual evidence

1. ^ General encyclopedia of writers and scholars of the provinces of Livonia, Esthland and Courland . Volume 4, Mitau 1832, pp. 433-434 .