Rotteck-Welckersches Staatslexikon

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The Staatslexikon - Encyklopaedie der Staatswissenschaften (in later editions under the title: Das Staats-Lexikon. Encyclopedia of all political sciences for all classes ) is today named after the editors and authoritative authors of the first edition from 1834, Karl von Rotteck and Carl Theodor Welcker as Rotteck- Welckersches Staatslexikon .

Authors, content and frequency of publication

Staats-Lexikon edition 1845–1848

In addition to the two editors, many of Germany's “most respected publicists” were involved in the work that was originally initiated by Friedrich List . Among them were many liberal and democratic politicians and publicists: Friedrich Daniel Bassermann , Carl Joseph Anton Mittermaier , Georg Waitz , Georg Friedrich Kolb , Jacob Venedey , Karl Mathy , Karl Jaup , Friedrich Wilhelm Schulz , Friedrich Bülau , Johannes Weitzel , Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus , Friedrich Murhard , Paul Pfizer , Gustav von Struve and Wilhelm Heyd . It appeared in its first edition from 1834 to 1843 in 15 volumes. The volumes tried to collect the politically relevant knowledge of the time and make it accessible to the bourgeois public. The contributions clearly reflected the standpoint of early liberalism , especially in its Baden variety . The lexicon advocated a liberal state on a constitutional basis. It was widely distributed among the bourgeois public, saw several editions and made a major contribution to the political discourse in Vormärz . The historian Franz Schnabel even referred to it as the “land register of pre-March liberalism”; others speak of the "Bible" of German early liberalism.

Despite (or rather because of) their partisan standpoint, most of the often long contributions were of a high academic standard. The central article “Liberalism” by Paul Achatius Pfizer comprises significantly more than ten double-column printed pages. The work owes its possibility of origin to the relatively permissive censorship regulations in the Grand Duchy of Baden, despite the Karlsbad resolutions . The lexicon appeared in Altona , which at that time belonged to the Duchy of Holstein and thus to Denmark . Since Johann Friedrich Hammerich's publishing house was also based in Leipzig , it was published under Saxon supervision. In Prussia and Austria the censors forbade the volumes and their importation was forbidden. After Rotteck's death in 1840, the second edition was published by Welcker alone. A third edition, edited by Welcker and Heinrich Brockhaus , appeared in Leipzig with 14 volumes from 1856 to 1866. This edition no longer achieved the political impact of its predecessors.

From an ideological point of view, later editions of the Staats-Lexikon competed with the German State Dictionary by Johann Caspar Bluntschli and Karl Brater (11 volumes, 1857–1870), among others . The state lexicon of the Görres Society (5 volumes, 1889–1897), which was published by Herder Verlag , was much later Catholic-oriented .

swell

  • The State Lexicon. Encyclopedia of all political sciences for all classes. Published by Carl von Rotteck and Carl Welcker in association with many of Germany's most respected publicists. New, improved and increased edition. With an introduction to the reprint by Hartwig Brandt and a directory of the employees of Helga Albrecht, 12 vols., Keip, Frankfurt am Main 1990.
  • Legal philosophy at Rotteck / Welcker. Texts from the State Lexicon 1834-1847. Ed. U. with an appendix by Hermann Klenner, Haufe, Freiburg / Br. u. a. 1994 (Haufe series of publications on basic legal research, 6).

literature

  • Hans-Peter Becht , Ewald Grothe (eds.): Karl von Rotteck and Karl Theodor Welcker. Liberal professors, politicians and publicists. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2018, ISBN 3-8487-4551-8 (=  understanding of the state. Vol. 108).
  • Ralf Gießler: "Science follows life". Constitutional thinking and realpolitik in the third edition of the “Staatslexikons” , 1856–1866. In: Jahrbuch zur Liberalismus-Forschung 11 (1999), pp. 135–148.
  • Rolf Grawert : The political science of the Rotteck-Welcker "Staats-Lexikon". In: Der Staat 31 (1992), pp. 114–128.
  • Wolfgang von Hippel : The picture of the Middle Ages in political drafts of the 1st half of the 19th century. The State Lexicon by Rotteck and Welcker. In: Hansmartin Schwarzmaier: The 19th century image of the Middle Ages on the Upper Rhine. Stuttgart 2004, pp. 189-212.
  • Frank Nägler : From the Idea of ​​Peace to the Apology of War. An investigation of intellectual currents in the area of ​​the Rotteck-Welcker State Lexicon (=  Nomos-Universitätsschriften, Geschichte , Vol. 4). Nomos, Baden-Baden 1990, ISBN 3-7890-2213-6 (dissertation University of Bonn 1990).
  • Gertrud Savelsberg : Encyclopedia, social science. In: Concise dictionary of the social sciences. Vol. 3, Stuttgart a. a. 1961, pp. 258-262.
  • Rudolf Vierhaus / Rudolf Walter: Liberalism. In: Otto Brunner u. a. (Ed.): Basic historical concepts . Historical lexicon on political and social language in Germany. Vol. 3, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1982, pp. 741-815.
  • Eva-Maria Werner: The Rotteck-Welckersche Staatslexikon. In: Forum Vormärz-Research 15 (2009), pp. 205–219.
  • Hans Zehntner: The State Lexicon of Rotteck and Welcker. A study on the history of German early liberalism (=  List studies , volume 9), G. Fischer, Jena 1929, DNB 361347227 (dissertation University of Basel, Philosophical-Historical Faculty, [1929]).
  • Thomas Zunhammer: Between nobility and rabble. Middle class and middle class ideal in the state lexicon of Karl von Rotteck and Karl Theodor Welcker. A contribution to the theory of liberalism in Vormärz. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1994, ISBN 3-7890-3607-2 .

Web links

Wikisource: Staats-Lexikon  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. Excerpt from the Staats-Lexikon, 2nd edition, 1845-1848 on the keyword Constitution ( Memento from May 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Dieter Langewiesche : Liberalism in Germany. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-518-11286-4 , p. 13.
  3. See Helga Albrecht: List of the articles of all editions of the "State Lexicon". In: Hans-Peter Becht, Ewald Grothe (eds.): Karl von Rotteck and Karl Theodor Welcker. Liberal professors, politicians and publicists. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2018, pp. 157–212.