Rudolph Zacharias Becker

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Rudolph Zacharias Becker, after a painting by Johann Friedrich August Tischbein ( Jakob Christian Schlotterbeck , 1799)

Rudolph Zacharias Becker (* 9. April 1752 in Erfurt ; † 28. March 1822 in Gotha ) was a German folk writer , teacher , journalist and publisher bookseller of the Enlightenment .

As the author of the Aid and Aid Book for Farmers (1788), which had numerous editions and of which around half a million copies were printed, Becker was the author of the most popular secular book in Germany in the 18th century and a leading "popular enlightener" of his time, who introduced the ideas of the Enlightenment to broader strata of the people.

Life

Rudolph Zacharias Becker was the son of Johann Balthasar Becker , a teacher at the girls' school in Erfurt. Becker was of the Lutheran denomination , attended the Evangelical Ratsgymnasium Erfurt and studied philosophy and theology in Jena . He then became court master in Erfurt, where he frequented Karl Theodor von Dalberg , who exerted a significant influence on his education. In 1782 he came to teach at the Philanthropinum in Dessau , which was co-founded by Johann Bernhard Basedow . In the same year the Enlightenment Freemason in the Gotha lodge " Zum Kompass " and Illuminat under the religious name Henricus Stephanus . Towards the end of 1784 he was accepted into the Minervalen Magistrate in the Order of the Illuminati and later became at least “Regent”. In 1786 and 1789/1790 he was the speaker in the “Zum Kompass” lodge. On the occasion of Duke Ernst's birthday party in 1790, he was the keynote speaker in the Gotha Masonic Lodge, which was run by the Illuminati, and demanded that a “bricklayer” should not remain indifferent to what was happening in France, but should take the party of freedom.

In 1782 he also published the weekly Dessauische Zeitung for the youth and their friends (until 1786), which he moved to Gotha in 1784 and continued under the title Deutsche Zeitung for the youth and their friends and which was one of the first to exist Youth magazines, existed until 1787. In 1786 he intervened with his text Principles, Constitution and Fates of the Illuminati Order decisively for the side of the supporters of the Illuminati in the press war over the secret societies . In 1796 he raised the Deutsche Zeitung for the youth and their friends to the national newspaper of the Germans . In 1791, in addition to the Deutsche Zeitung, he also published an information sheet under the title Anzeiger , which in the following year was elevated to the title of Allgemeine Reichs-Anzeiger under an imperial privilege and finally received the title of Allgemeine Anzeiger der Deutschen (until 1829, from 1830 to 1848 under the title Allgemeine Anzeiger und Nationalzeitung der Deutschen ).

In 1792, Friedrich Schiller wanted the publicist Becker to translate his defense text for Ludwig XVI. that must be considered lost. He had met Becker in 1788 in Rudolstadt through the mediation of the family of his future wife (see: letter from Schiller to Körner of December 21, 1792, in which he expressly confesses that he was working on a speech in defense for Louis XVI).

In 1797 Becker founded the Becker'sche Buchhandlung in Gotha in order to be able to sell his magazines and books better and continued it until his death.

In the Becker'schen Buchhandlung he published the Seeberg observatory's writings , of which the monthly correspondence on the promotion of geography and celestial studies, edited by Franz Xaver von Zach , became of European importance from 1800 onwards.

In 1802 Becker was appointed Princely Councilor of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen . On November 30, 1811 him, the French arrested police because of an article in the national newspaper , and brought him to Magdeburg , where he remained until April 1813 until his intercession of Duke August of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg at Napoleon Bonaparte again Brought freedom.

family

Rudolph Zacharias Becker married in 1787 Sophie Karoline Döbling (1765–1828), the daughter of the pastor in Elleben and Wülfershausen Johann Christoph Döbling. The couple had three sons and four daughters, including:

  • Friedrich Gottlieb (1792–1865) took over the bookstore after his death. He had studied in Leipzig and Göttingen, where he mainly dealt with linguistics and history, and had participated in his father's journalistic and bookselling work since 1814. In 1830 he combined the two journals he published and the Nationalzeitung der Deutschen and Allgemeine Anzeiger under the title Allgemeine Anzeiger and Nationalzeitung der Deutschen and changed the title to Reichsanzeiger der Deutschen in 1849 . In 1848 and 1849 he represented the Duchy of Gotha as a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly in Frankfurt am Main , where he belonged to the so-called Gotha Party. He also dedicated his work to the management of the fire insurance bank in Gotha.
  • Amalie Wilhelmine (1787–1879) ⚭ June 17, 1823 Johann Franz Encke (1791–1865), astronomer
  • Charlotte Friederike (1794–1874)
⚭ April 29, 1814 Christoph Heinrich Hornbostel (1785–1819), merchant and silk manufacturer in Vienna
⚭ May 13, 1825 Friedrich Christoph Perthes (1772–1843), bookseller and publisher in Gotha

Honors

  • The Zacharias-Becker-Straße in the east of Gotha was named after him.

Works

In addition to the magazines mentioned, he wrote:

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holger Böning : Press and Enlightenment - intelligence papers and people enlightenment. In: Sabine Doering-Manteuffel , Josef Mancal, Wolfgang Wüst (eds.): Enlightenment press activities. Periodic writings in the Old Kingdom. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3050036346 , p. 115.
  2. ↑ Gerhard Seib: The spook in the Castle of Heaven. A lesson in popular enlightenment efforts, communicated by Rudolph Zacharias Becker (1752-1822). Messages of the Mindener Geschichtsverein, year 57 (1985), pp. 141–146.
  3. ↑ a b Paul Kummer: clans around Rudolph Zacharias Becker . CA Starke, Görlitz 1938.

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Becker, Rudolph Zacharias
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Becker, Rudolf Zacharias
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author, enlightener and theologian
DATE OF BIRTH April 9, 1752
PLACE OF BIRTH Erfurt
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 1822
Place of death Gotha