Samuel Ludvigh

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Samuel Gottlieb Ludvigh (born February 13, 1801 in Kőszeg , Hungary, † February 14, 1869 in Cumminsville (Ohio), since 1873 district of Cincinnati ) was a German-speaking writer, journalist and poet.

Life

Hungary

Samuel Ludvigh was born as the son of the bookseller Samuel Gottlieb Ludvigh and his wife Theresia, a wealthy furrier daughter from the Schöpf family. After attending normal school , he learned at a Calvinist school and then the Hungarian language at various seminars in Ödenburg / Sopron . Having trained as a bookseller by his father, he opened a bookstore in Raab / Győr , which, however, did not satisfy him. So he learned law and settled as a lawyer in Pest after completing his studies .

Then he felt the urge to travel. In Constantinople he met Prince Friedrich zu Schwarzenberg (1800–1870), the eldest son of Field Marshal Karl Prince von Schwarzenberg, and accompanied him as his secretary from Turkey via Greece, Wallachia to Transylvania. After a trip through Hungary, which was plagued by cholera in 1832, he published a critical book about his travel impressions in 1833. In it he denounced the poverty of the rural population and called for reforms such as the abolition of serfdom. He also opposed a predominance of the Magyars in the multi-ethnic state of the Austrian Empire , as demanded by Count Stephan Szechenyi . The book was confiscated by Metternich's censorship , as did other of his ten mostly German-language works in Hungary. High indebtedness and dissatisfaction with the political system caused him to emigrate to the United States with financial support from Schwarzenberg, with whom he remained in correspondence for over two decades . On June 6, 1837, he left Bremerhaven by ship.

United States

Due to a vacant position, he was able to take over the Philadelphia- based German-language people's newspaper for politics, trade and commerce, “ Old and New World ” (1834–1843), as editor shortly after his arrival . In New York in 1843 he founded a “Rationalist Association” and gave many speeches to German immigrants, which he published in the new newspaper “ Die Fackel. Literature sheet for the promotion of intellectual freedom ” published. Until his death in 1869 he published this newspaper in succession in New York , Baltimore , St. Paul and Cincinnati , the last volume (issues 3 and 4) being completed by his wife Sarah.

Ludvigh traveled regularly to the United States to analyze and write about its development. For him they were the land of the future. The American republican constitution was a guarantee for freedom and equality for him, but he also recognized the danger that an unlimited exercise of the legally guaranteed freedom would create more poor than rich in the long run and a monetary and intellectual aristocracy would arise. To this he counted officials, soldiers, lawyers, doctors and priests. He often traveled to cities populated by German immigrants and gave lectures. He encouraged the newcomers and was particularly keen to bring his reform ideas in the core areas of politics and economy, nature, and culture and religion closer to the audience. He advocated a social democracy that was supposed to curb the egoism of the individual through state regulation measures in favor of education and social security for all social classes. He saw the Germans as an outstanding ethnic group in the USA because of the spirit and diligence they were given. In the USA he published 30 works and seven travel guides in addition to his newspaper.

Ludvigh was a free thinker and, after the rational believer was founded in 1838 , published The Truth Seeker in 1839 .

Works

In Hungary

  • a total of 10 monographs in small editions, almost all in German, some banned or withdrawn from circulation
  • Poems from adolescence. 1827.
  • Journey in Hungary in 1831: in the Comitats a) on the other side of the Danube ... b) on the other side of the Danube ... c) on the other side of the Tisza. Eggenberger, 1832. ( Online ).
  • Picturesque journey from Pesth via Semlin, Belgrade, Mehadia to Orsowa. (Part I), 1835.
  • From Orsowa via Temesvár, Debreczin, Erlau, through the mining towns to Presburg and Güns. (Part II), 1835.

In the United States

  • a total of 30 works (selection):
  • Ludvigh's English language teaching for beginners. In addition to reading book, exercises in translating from English into German and from German into English, conversations for ordinary life, and an appendix of forms for promissory notes and receipts. Excellent for use by the Germans in America. 1843.
  • Ludvigh's trip on foot to Syracuse: from Vienna via Graetz, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples and Palermo, 1827. 1844.
  • The sword of the revolution. Memorable time picture of a trip from New York to Paris, Hamburg, Leipzig, Berlin, Vienna and Pesth 1847–49. 1848.
  • Light and shadow images of republican conditions. Sketched by Samuel Ludvigh during his trip to the United States of North America in 1846/47. Wilhelm Jurany, Leipzig 1848; Helmich and Co., New York 1848. ( Online ; review in Blätter für literary entertainment in the Google book search).
  • Kossuth, or, The Fall of Hungary: Historical Drama in Five Acts. 1853.
  • The fire torch. Or: Memorable apparitions in 1848 and 1849. 1st edition 1849; 2nd edition 1857.
  • The novel of my life in Europe. 1858.
  • Fresh and Free: A Collection of Prosaic Essays. 1866.
  • Old and new. Exercises for mental gymnastics. Propaganda against church and clergy. 1868.
  • in addition 7 travel descriptions, u. a .:
    • Ludvigh's travel journal. 1847.
    • Frederic Trautmann (Ed.): Maryland through a traveler's eyes: a visit by Samuel Ludvigh in 1846. 1983 (5 pages).
  • Die Fackel newspaper (published in series in New York, Baltimore, St. Paul and Cincinnati from 1843–1869).
  • Samuel Ludvigh's speeches, lectures and prose essays in the fields of religion, philosophy and history. Author's Publishing House, Baltimore 1830. ( Internet Archive )

literature

  • Peter Berninger: The picture of America in the travel reports of Samuel Gottlieb Ludvigh. Saulheim 1983 (admission thesis, University of Mainz 1984).
  • Franz Brümmer: Lexicon of German poets and prose writers. Reprint Nendeln / Liechtenstein 1975.
  • Bertalan Judith Csernake: Samuel Ludvigh, a forgotten travel writer. (Dissertation) o. O. 1987.
  • Carl Petersen, Otto Scheel, Paul Hermann Ruth and Hans Schwalm (eds.): Concise dictionary of border and foreign Germanism. Volume 2, pp. 58ff., Breslau 1936.
  • Siegmar Muehl: Samuel Ludvigh: New York's radical German-American newspaper publisher, 1843-1848. 1994, 38 pages.
  • Siegmar Muehl: The Torchbearer: a short biography of Samuel Ludvigh (1801–1869), publisher of the German-language newspaper, the Fackel (Torch). 1997. 34 pages.
  • Christine Schuster: Samuel Ludvigh: Kossuth or the fall of Hungary. In: Horst Fassel , András F. Balogh, Dezső Szabó (eds.): Between utopia and reality. German-Hungarian literary relations in flux. German Institute, Budapest 2001, ISBN 963-463-449-4 ( Budapest Contributions to German Studies. 36), pp. 160–170.

Web links

Wikisource: Samuel Ludvigh  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Horst Belke: Autobiography and Critique of Time (Volume 3 of Literature in Society ), Bertelsmann Universitätsverlag, Düsseldorf 1971, ISBN 3-571-09292-9 . P. 111
personal data
SURNAME Ludvigh, Samuel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ludvigh, Samuel Gottlieb (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-speaking writer, journalist and poet
DATE OF BIRTH February 13, 1801
PLACE OF BIRTH Kőszeg , Hungary
DATE OF DEATH February 14, 1869
Place of death Cincinnati , United States