Tyge Rothe

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Tyge Rothe

Tyge Jesper Rothe (born January 16, 1731 in Randers , † December 19, 1795 in Frederiksberg ) was a Danish writer.

Life and career

Rothe was the eldest son of the German-born regimental quartermaster and chancellor Carl Adolf Rothe (1689–1766) from his second marriage to Kirstine Margrethe, born Tygesen († 1744). Already at the age of 14 (1744) he entered the Latin school in Slagelse and three years later he passed the entrance exam for theology studies. But not theology, but philology and history were his preferred areas of interest. He was also a tutor. He followed the last family in which he was house tutor to Sorø as court master . During that time he received a travel grant for trips abroad according to a prescribed travel plan. In May 1756 he first traveled to Göttingenand studied church history, physics and philosophy there. He then stayed in Geneva for half a year, then in France. In June 1759 he was appointed associate professor at the University of Copenhagen and also became tutor for the six-year-old Prince Friedrich . But his character did not match these activities. He lacked gentleness and patience, and in dealing he was a strict moralist.

So he resigned these functions in 1761 and was advisor in the General Customs Chamber. He married Karen Bjørn, the only daughter of the late rich businessman Andreas Bjørn from Christianshavn . So he came to a great fortune. He bought Tybjerggaard ( Præstø Amt), one of the oldest manors in the country. He resigned his last office and from then on lived as a landlord. Most of his works are from the following years. In 1765 he became deputy magistrate in Sjælland and Møn , and from 1769 he was again a member of the General Chamber of Customs, but without a salary, but also without service. Under Johann Friedrich Struensee , he became mayor of Copenhagen in 1771. There was a rumor that he got this post because of a mix-up with his older brother Casper Peter Rothe (from his father's first marriage). Because he was quite unsuitable for this position. After 1 ½ months he resigned from this position and joined the Finance College, where he was responsible for all of agriculture. But none of his reform plans could be implemented in the few months up to the fall of Struensee and the dissolution of the Finance College. It made a very bad impression that after his fall , he vigorously reviled his sponsor Struensee in his writings Til Folket og til Suhm, om hans Tale til Kongen and Om Dagen on January 17th, tryingkt efter Befaling . But this by no means won him the favor of the new government. His appointment as bailiff in Segeberg in 1772 was viewed by his contemporaries as a kind of punitive transfer. He only held the office for nine months. Then he was retired with 700 Reichsthalers. This ended his career. He retired to his country estate and devoted the rest of his life to writing. He was later given the title of Budget Councilor, but it offended him very much that he was not given a seat in the newly established Finance College in 1786. When his wife died on February 17, 1795, he became a broken man. In the summer he went to Frederiksberg and wrote Karen Bjørns Minde (Memory of Karen Bjørn). On the day the text was published in the newspaper, Rothe himself died.

Literary activity

The importance of Rothes lies not in his professional work, but in his numerous writings. His style is said to be tiresome and it found few readers. His point of view is also contradictory, since on the one hand he praises Danish absolutism, on the other hand he adheres to Rousseau , Montesquieu and the ideas of freedom of the 18th century. This contradiction runs through all of his works, from Tanker om Kjærlighed til Fædrenelandet (1759), which attracted some attention for its patriotic content, to his last writings. However, his cosmopolitan view expressed in this publication, that the fatherland is where one lives, led to violent contradictions from Eiler Hagerup . Most of the texts were about agriculture and Christianity. He wrote important newspaper articles on the need to reform agriculture. His main work was Kristendommens Virkning paa Folkenes Tilstand i Evropa (I – V, 1774–1783, with special titles for the 3rd and 4th volume: Om Hierarkiet og PavemAGEN , and for the 5th volume: Evropas Lensvæsen ). This work had a great influence on Grundtvig in his Verdenskrønnike (1812). In his work Danske Agerdyrkeres Kaar eller vor Landvæsenssystem, som det var 1783 (2 volumes 1784–1786) (The conditions of the Danish peasants or the agricultural system as it was in 1783) he praised the “wonderful freedom of freedom” of early society in contrast to that present dishonorable idea about the peasants.

Rothe looked for examples of free people in the sense of Rousseau and found them in the peasants of Norway. Norway became Rothes ideal country. In his book Om nogle Danmarks og Norges Fordringer til hinanden; i Anledning af Kronprinsens Rejse til Norge (1788) brought Rothe a more in-depth study of the two countries than was ever published before. In doing so, he found the most significant difference in the property relationship between the farmers and the land. He assumed that allodial ownership was originally the rule in all of Scandinavia, but was only preserved in Norway. He also wrote: “The sons of Norway are very proud, and we should not be surprised when we learn that there are still descendants of kings among them.” He attributed the special culture of Norway to the fact that the peasants preserved the allodial right would have.

literature

The article is essentially based on the Dansk biografisk leksikon .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Elviken, p. 42.
personal data
SURNAME Rothe, Tyge
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rothe, Tyge Jesper
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1731
PLACE OF BIRTH Randers
DATE OF DEATH December 19, 1795
Place of death Frederiksberg