Rudolf Koepke

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Rudolf Köpke (born August 23, 1813 in Königsberg ; † June 10, 1870 in Berlin ) was a German historian and publicist .

origin

His parents were the Germanist Friedrich Karl Köpke (1785-1865) and his second wife Johanna Dorothea Colon (1795-1875). His uncle Gustav (1773-1837) became director of the grammar school for the gray monastery.

life and work

Köpke studied theology in Berlin from 1832, but turned to history in 1834 under the influence of the historian Leopold von Ranke . With Georg Waitz , Wilhelm von Giesebrecht and Siegfried Hirsch he was one of the first followers of the Ranke School, for whose yearbooks of the German Empire , which are still important today, he worked on the first half of Otto I's history , the years between 936 and 951. Between 1838 and 1842 Köpke was a teacher at the Joachimsthalschen Gymnasium , then he worked at the Monumenta Germaniae Historica and completed his habilitation in Berlin in 1846. In 1856 he became an associate professor, at the same time he taught history at the War Academy from 1850 .

Köpke was also politically active. During the March Revolution of 1848 he fought for the unity of Germany. In 1866 he wrote a number of political newspaper articles that also appeared as a special brochure ( Das Ende der deutschen Kleinstaaterei ).

One of Köpke's most important publications is the extensive two-volume biography of the poet Ludwig Tieck . It appeared in 1855 and is still one of the most important Tieck sources to this day, since Köpke spoke a lot with the poet in the last years of Tieck's life and often reproduces these conversations verbatim. That is why he was, half jokingly, referred to as "Tiecks Eckermann ", alluding to Goethe's famous conversation recorder . In addition, Köpke published two sensational estate volumes with unknown Tieck writings, on the one hand containing the legendary, never finished Shakespeare book, on the other hand one of his best texts, a parody of Goethe's Faust (Anti-Faust or the story of a stupid devil) . Both publications are antiquarian rarities and, as there are no reprints, are now very expensive.

In 1902 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

Works (selection)

  • Yearbooks of the German Empire under the rule of King Otto I, 936 to 951. Berlin 1838. Full text
  • Ludwig Tieck: Memories from the life of the poet according to his oral and written communications . 2 volumes, Leipzig 1855 (reprint 1970). Full text vol. 1
  • The beginnings of kingship among the Goths . Berlin 1859, 226 pages ( full text ).
  • The founding of the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin (1860)
  • Widukind of Korvei (1867)
  • Hrotsuit by Gandersheim (1869)
    • from it: The oldest German poet. Cultural and historical image from the tenth century. Berlin 1869. Full text
  • Small writings on history, politics and literature (posthumously 1872)
  • (with Ernst Dümmler ) Emperor Otto the Great (1876; reprint 1962). Full text

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Rudolf Köpke  - sources and full texts

annotation

  1. ↑ Köpke tells about Roswit and means Roswitha von Gandersheim .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 137.
personal data
SURNAME Köpke, Rudolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tiecks Eckermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1813
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 1870
Place of death Berlin