Theodor Opitz

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Theodor Opitz (born November 22, 1820 in Fürstenstein , Province of Silesia , † November 28, 1896 in Liestal , Switzerland ) was a German publicist who distinguished himself through studies on the history of the French Revolution and was active in the 1848 Revolution in Germany. After the Polish uprising in January 1863, he fled Silesia to Switzerland for political reasons , where he worked as a journalist and translator.

Birthplace of Schloss Fürstenstein around 1860

Life

Opitz was born in 1820 at Fürstenstein Castle near Waldenburg as the son of Ernst Opitz and his wife Luise, nee. Seiler, born into a family that had been in the service of the Counts of Hochberg for generations - Prince of Pless since 1848 . His brother Adolph became district judge, his brother Ewald and his sister Luise, like their ancestors, were also in princely services.

Theodor Opitz attended a humanistic grammar school, completed a degree, presumably in Breslau , and then worked as a private tutor. In addition to Latin and Greek, he mastered six modern languages. As a student and at least until the end of the 1840s, he orientated himself on the intellectual avant-garde of the Young Hegelians of the time , above all on Bruno Bauer , with whom he stayed in lively correspondence until his death in 1882.

After Max Stirner's book The Only One and His Property came out in October 1844 , a lengthy controversy arose in the Trier'sche Zeitung , which, among other things, concerned Stirner's criticism of Bruno Bauer. Here Opitz, especially since Bauer himself did not participate, stood up for his ideas as a correspondent "TO, from Upper Silesia". Even before that, he had come out with criticisms of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , when they were still supporters of Ludwig Feuerbach .

Opitz was an admirer of Friedrich Hölderlin , Georg Büchner and Georg Herwegh and a committed advocate of the goals of the revolution of 1848/49 . Despite the trends of the time, he remained so until his death, so that his friend, the Swiss teacher, journalist and writer Joseph Victor Widmann , said in his obituary that it was “a shame that Opitz was so rigid and inflexible on the The viewpoint of the 1848 freedom singers and freedom pushers persisted and did not want to see the great things that had meanwhile been created in Germany. ”After the failure of the revolutions of 1848, Opitz went to Krakow , the center of the re-emerging Poland. When, under the political conditions after 1848, the great philosophical ideas of Vormärz were no longer relevant - Opitz did not want to join the socialist movement - he switched to the literary: his transcriptions of poems by Pushkin , Lermontow and Petőfi were made , for which he received great praise, for example from Joseph von Eichendorff , Adalbert Stifter and Gottfried Keller .

In 1863, shortly after the January uprising in Poland, he left Cracow, presumably for political reasons, and settled in Switzerland. For several years he was editor of the Zurich-based Polish newspaper Der weisse Aar. He then took up residence in Basel and from 1867–73 worked as an editor for the then opposition free-thinking Basler Volksfreund , from which the Basler Nationalzeitung later emerged. For a short time he came up with the plan to give lectures at Basel University, but gave it up on the advice of Jacob Burckhardt . During this time there was also another letter contact with Professor Friedrich Nietzsche , who taught there, thanked him in warm words for his repeated "sign of sympathetic agreement". Opitz had been one of Nietzsche's first admirers and had already written to him about the tragedy on the occasion of his birth and had received a dedicated photo from Nietzsche. Bearing in mind the interest that the young Nietzsche had in the pre-March philosophy, and because of the high esteem he held for Bruno Bauer, it was occasionally assumed that he and Opitz might have met during his time in Basel. However, so far there is no evidence of this.

After the failure of the naturalization plans in Basel, Opitz lived in Liestal from 1873 until his death in 1896, the last few years in great financial hardship, which he also knew how to hide from his close friends. Finally, a few weeks after attempting suicide, he died on November 28, 1896. His estate is kept in the Liestal Poet and City Museum .

Fonts

  • Friedrich Holderlin. In: Wigand's Vierteljahrsschrift, second volume, Leipzig: Otto Wigand 1844, pp. 303-320
  • Bruno Bauer and his opponents. Four critical articles. Breslau: Eduard Trewendt 1846 ( e-book )
  • Contributions to the history of the French Revolution. Leipzig: G. Mayer 1847
  • (Ed.): The heroes of the crowd. Characteristics. Grünberg: Weiss 1848
  • (Ed. And transl.): Proudhon's newest work. Theoretical and practical proof of socialism, or revolution through credit. Leipzig: Fernau 1849
  • Robespierre's triumph and fall. A contribution to the history of the French Revolution. Leipzig: Costenoble & Remmelmann 1850
  • Nikolaus Lenau. A detailed description of the poet based on his works. Leipzig: Costenoble & Remmelmann, 1850
  • (Ed. And transl.): Poems by A. Pushkin and M. Lermontow. Berlin: Hofmann & Comp. 1859
  • (Transl.): Alexander Petöfi. Lyric poems. Pest / Hungary: Gustav Heckenast 1867
  • Alexander Petofi. Bern: Haller'sche Verlagbuchhandlung 1868 (Petöfi's biography; prose, poetry)
  • Maria Stuart - shown according to the latest research - Volumes I and II. Freiburg / Br .: Herder 1879, 1882
  • Poems. Liestal BL / Switzerland: A. Brodbeck 1886
  • (with Alfred Weinhold): Chrestomathie from writers of the so-called silver Latinity. Leipzig: Teubner 1893
  • Gabriela Jelitto-Piechulik (ed.): Theodor Opitz (1820-1896). Poland friend, historian, man of letters and translator. Texts and contexts. Annotated study edition. Berlin: Trafo Wissenschaftsverlag 2009 ISBN 978-3-89626-727-6

literature

  • Justus Stöcklin: A poet's nest. Liestal BL / Switzerland 1922 (about Opitz: Chapter VII, pp. 186–237)
  • Otto Kleiber: the magic of handwriting. Printed by the national newspaper, Basel 1962 (includes list of Opitz's autographs)
  • Max Tüller: From the Opitz estate to the “Poet Festival”. In: Baselbieter Heimatbuch . Volume 12, 1973, pp. 159-168
  • Franz Heiduk : Eichendorff and Theodor Opitz. In: Aurora. Yearbook of the Eichendorff Society . Volume 50, 1990, pp. 165-176
  • Gabriela Jelitto-Piechulik: Theodor Opitz (1820-1896). In: Joachim Bahlcke (Ed.): Schlesische Lebensbilder. Volume IX, Degener, Insingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-7686-3506-6
  • Gabriela Jelitto-Piechulik: France in liberal position determinations. The Silesian writer Theodor Opitz (1820–1896). In: Texts and Contexts 247
  • Gabriela Jelitto-Piechulik: “Heil, Swiss, you and thanks!” - The Silesian Theodor Opitz as editor-in-chief of the Polish exile magazine “The White Eagle” . In: Andrea Rudolph (Ed.): A wide coat. Images of Poland in society, politics and poetry. Dettelbach 2002, pp. 195-223
  • Gabriela Jelitto-Piechulik: Theodor Opitz (1820–1896) - politically committed mediator of European literatures and freelance writer. In: Maria Katarzyna Lasatowicz (Ed.): Prace Germanistyczne / Germanistische Werkstatt. Volume 2, 2004 ( ISSN  1509-2178 ).

Web links

Wikisource: Theodor Opitz  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to Tüller, p. 168, 15 letters 1874-1882 have been handed down
  2. ^ In the editions of August 18, September 10, December 19, 1845 and March 28, 1846; partly reprinted in: Max Stirner's “The Only One and His Property” in the mirror of contemporary German criticism. A selection of texts, ed. v. Kurt W. Fleming, Leipzig 2001
  3. ↑ Summarized in the brochure Bruno Bauer and his opponents (1846)
  4. ↑ Quoted from Stöcklin, p. 234
  5. ↑ Stöcklin, p. 201
  6. ↑ In the letter of December 21, 1874 Nietzsche writes, “that you and I are of one mind about something very important, and that we are both right. It depends on being able to really believe that you are more right with your outdated opinions than with your up-to-date ones all the time. "
  7. ↑ Cf. Bernd A. Laska : Nietzsche's initial crisis . In: Germanic Notes and Reviews, vol. 33, n.2, fall / autumn 2002, pp. 109-133
personal data
SURNAME Opitz, Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publicist
DATE OF BIRTH November 22, 1820
PLACE OF BIRTH Fürstenstein Castle , Province of Silesia
DATE OF DEATH November 28, 1896
Place of death Liestal , Switzerland