A German Professor’s Stopover in Riga, 1810
Kazan (population in 2024: 1,329,825) is the largest city on the Volga River. The city is located in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan. As the republic’s capital and one of Russia’s largest cities, it is also one of Russia’s most important industrial centers. The city is characterized by a high proportion of Tatar and Muslim residents.
The Baltic States is a region in the north-east of Europe and is composed of the three states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Baltic States are inhabited by almost 6 million people.
Saint Petersburg (population in 2024: 5,645,943, of which 4,732,198 live in the city proper) is a metropolis in northeastern Russia. It is the country’s second-largest city after Moscow. The city was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great at the mouth of the Neva River in the Baltic Sea. From 1712 to 1918, it was the capital of Russia. Alongside Moscow, St. Petersburg is Russia’s most important site for industry, education, culture, and trade, as well as one of its most important ports. From 1914 to 1924, the city was known as Petrograd, and from 1924 to 1991, as Leningrad.
During World War II, the city was besieged by the German Wehrmacht from September 8, 1941, to January 27, 1944—a total of 871 days. Over one million civilians died in the city, which had been systematically cut off from all supplies.
Riga is the capital of Latvia (population 2025: 588,911) and by far the largest city in the country. It is located in the southwest of the historical landscape of Livonia near the mouth of the Daugava River in the Gulf of Riga. Riga was an important trading and Hanseatic city with a multi-ethnic, but largely German-speaking population for centuries, whose political supremacy changed repeatedly. Until the end of the Middle Ages, it was mainly spiritual rulers (Archbishopric of Riga, Teutonic Order) who claimed the city and surrounding area for themselves, but after a brief period of Polish-Lithuanian rule, the city came under Swedish control in 1621. A century later, Riga became part of the Russian Empire and the capital of the Baltic governorate of Livonia.
In 1918, Riga became the capital of an independent Latvian state. After the German occupation during the Second World War in 1941, the Jewish population of Riga (8% of the total population) was mainly imprisoned in the ghetto, where numerous Jewish people from the territory of the German Reich at the time were also deported. In the same year, the Wehrmacht organized mass shootings of the Jewish population in the area of today's city. After the Second World War, the ethnic structure of Riga changed - the Jewish, German and Polish populations disappeared and were replaced by Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian populations. The Latvian population lost its majority in the city and fell to almost a third by the time the Soviet Union collapsed. They now make up 47% of the total population.
The Russian Empire (or Empire of Russia) was a state that existed from 1721 to 1917 in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and North America. The country was the largest contiguous empire in modern history in the mid-19th century. It was dissolved after the February Revolution in 1917. The state was regarded as autocratically ruled and was inhabited by about 181 million people.
The importance of such social encounters is clearly illustrated by two travel accounts that Bronner almost certainly read. Editions of both works, which were available at the time, have been preserved in the Aargau Cantonal Library: Johann Bernoulli's account of his journey from Berlin to St. Petersburg in 1777–1778 and Johann Gottfried Seume's My Summer 1805.1 In both accounts, local acquaintances play a central role. They introduce travelers to their own circles, leading, in turn, to further invitations, while walks and excursions to local sights are considered an essential duty of one's hosts. Seume even claims that, without any effort on his part, his stay in St. Petersburg culminated in an audience with the Empress Dowager and an invitation to the Imperial Court Theatre.
Booksellers: Courting Kazan’s New Professor
Johann Friedrich Meinshausen (1782–1835), who had taken over his bookshop only a year and a half earlier, proved far more accommodating. He went to considerable lengths to cultivate Bronner's acquaintance. Among other things, Meinshausen invited him to dinner at his home together with the city librarian, Gotthard Tobias Tielemann (1773–1846), no doubt hoping that Tielemann would recommend him as a reliable supplier of books. Before long, Meinshausen would also become Tielemann's publisher.
Meinshausen also introduced Bronner to Friedrich Eberhard Rambach (1767–1826), a professor at the University of
Tartu (population 2024: 96,506) is the second largest city in Estonia. It is located in the southeast of the country and thus in the north of the historical landscape of Livonia. Tartu lies roughly halfway between the country's two largest lakes, Võrtsjärv and Peipus, the latter of which Estonia shares with the Russian Federation.
Tartu has been for centuries an important transportation hub and traditional center of learning. It is famous for its university, which was founded in 1632, under Swedish rule. It is still the largest university in Estonia and a member of the Coimbra Group, a network of particularly traditional and internationally outstanding European universities. Tartu is also home to numerous museums, including the Estonian National Museum and the Estonian Literature Museum.
In June 1810, Meinshausen had acquired the University Bookshop in Dorpat and thereafter regarded himself as the university's bookseller and a member of its academic community. As court records show, however, this proved somewhat premature. A legal dispute with his predecessor dragged on until at least 1817, and even afterward his Dorpat branch never truly prospered. Unlike his rival Hartmann, Meinshausen never became embroiled in legal disputes with Dorpat professors—including Rambach—over unpaid book accounts. This speaks to his more conciliatory and personable character, though not necessarily to his abilities as a businessman, something Bronner, too, appears to have recognized. In any case, Hartmann ultimately secured Bronner's book orders from Kazan, as we know from a letter Bronner wrote to Bertuch in Weimar in 1811.
A Guest of Riga’s Educated Elite
Karl Leberecht Albanus, Karl Gottlob Sonntag, and the Girls' Schools
At Albanus's house, Bronner met the Livonian General Superintendent, Karl Gottlob Sonntag (1765–1827). In the Lutheran state church system, this office was roughly equivalent to that of a bishop. The extensive papers of this remarkable figure, now dispersed among archives in Riga and Tartu, still await comprehensive scholarly study. Sonntag was a fearless opponent of serfdom in
Livonia (Livonija in Latvian, Liivimaa in Estonian) is a historical landscape in the Baltic States. It comprises the southern part of present-day Estonia and the part of present-day Latvia north of the Daugava River. The landscape was named after the Livonians, a population group that hardly exists today.
Historically, the name Livonia can refer to other, different contexts. The governorate of the same name, which was one of the three Baltic Sea governorates of the Russian Empire, is particularly influential for today's understanding of the historical region. It existed from the beginning of the 18th century until 1918 and its capital was Riga, located at the mouth of the Duna.
Livonia had previously given its name to other states and confederations, most notably the Livonian Confederation, which had existed since the High Middle Ages. The Livonian part of the Teutonic Order as well as regional ecclesiastical states belonged to the confederation. The confederation also included large parts of the present-day states of Latvia and Estonia. After the dissolution of the confederation and the Teutonic Order state in the 16th century, sovereignty changed several times. Without the southern and northern areas, Livonia initially came under Polish-Lithuanian rule, later also under Swedish suzerainty, before coming under Russian rule in the course of the Great Northern War (1700-1721). Until the beginning of the 20th century, the central role of the landowning German-speaking nobility was particularly influential in the internal social organization of the rural area.
Around the turn of the nineteenth century, educational reform across Europe led to the establishment of new schools and the reorganization of existing ones. In the Russian Empire, this resulted in the founding of new universities, including those in Dorpat and Kazan, as well as the creation of educational districts under university supervision. In Riga, a particularly strong movement in support of girls' education had already emerged in the 1790s. It led to the establishment of girls’ schools for the daughters of upper-class families and free elementary schools for girls from the lower social classes. These institutions were either private schools that charged tuition or were financed through public subscriptions, whereby private individuals pledged to contribute a fixed sum over a specified number of years. Among the leading advocates of these initiatives were Albanus, Sonntag, and Parrot.
Carl August Jacobi and Schools for the Deaf
Moscow (population 2024: 13,146,907) is the capital of the Russian Federation and the most populous city located entirely in Europe. It is situated in the west of the country. Moscow is also the capital of the Central Russian Federal District. The administrative unit “City of Federal Significance Moscow” includes several other towns and has a population of 13,258,262. The city is by far the most important political, economic, scientific, and cultural center of the country.
Moscow was founded around the 11th/12th century. The construction of the fortification (Kremlin) is dated to the beginning of the second half of the 12th century. In the 13th century, Moscow became the capital of a sub-principality of the Grand Duchy of Vladimir. In the 14th century, the princes of Moscow established themselves as rulers of the entire Rus. However, from 1247 to 1480, it was required to pay tribute to the Golden Horde, which devastated Moscow in 1238. In 1571, the city, which was almost entirely built of wood, was burned down by Tatar troops. By this time, however, Moscow was already the undisputed center of power in Russia. In 1687, the city's first college was opened, followed by its first university in 1775. Peter the Great moved the capital to Saint Petersburg in 1712. Weakened by unrest and plague, Moscow's development lagged behind that of the new capital. The invasion of Napoleon's troops in 1812 brought a deep cut in Moscow's development, with the city's population setting their houses on fire to repel them. The rapid reconstruction gave Moscow a modern cityscape.
After the October Revolution and the relocation of the capital back to Moscow in 1918, the city experienced an enormous expansion of its public infrastructure, and numerous prestigious buildings were erected until World War II. However, the expansion of residential space was never able to keep pace with population growth. This growth could not be slowed down, even by various restrictions on in-migration, some of which are still in force today. However, the city also grew through incorporations, particularly in 1960 and 2012.
In 1980, Moscow hosted the Summer Olympics. In the years that followed, however, the growing crisis in the Soviet Union also affected the city, which, following decentralization movements in the republics and unrest in Russia itself, was ultimately directly affected by the attempted coup in 1991. After the final collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, Moscow remained the capital of Russia. Since then, the city center in particular has been increasingly characterized by modern, prestigious buildings. Other features of the city's development in the post-Soviet era include the reconstruction of churches destroyed or repurposed during the Soviet era, the renovation of pre-Soviet buildings in the city center, and the expansion of transport infrastructure on the outskirts.
At Friebe's house, Bronner met “two stout professors' wives from Vilnius, Schwarz and Lobenwein,” along with “a Mademoiselle Langwitz and four other ladies of his acquaintance.” The first three women had arrived together in Riga on June 29 from the spa town of Baldohn (Latvian: Baldone), traveling from the direction of Vilnius. Of the women described as professors' wives from Vilnius, however, only Sophia Margarete Lobenwein, née Langewitz of Riga, can be identified with certainty. Mademoiselle Langewitz was almost certainly a younger relative, while Mrs. Schwarz (more accurately, Mrs. Schwartz) was the wife of the Riga city councilor Johann George Schwartz, who had long been associated with the city's educational circles.
Also present was a certain “Mr. Lorenzi,” who claimed to have seen Bronner in a Swiss bookshop and, much to Bronner's annoyance, proceeded to lecture him about Switzerland. He was probably Heinrich Karl Laurenty (1780–1840), who, after completing his law studies at Göttingen in 1801, had spent three years as a private tutor on the shores of Lake Geneva. He had only recently arrived in Riga via
Kaliningrad (Bevölkerungszahl 2024: 488.690) ist die einzige Großstadt in der russischen Exklave Oblast Kaliningrad, die ungefähr dem nördlichen Teil der preußischen Provinz Ostpreußen vor 1945 entspricht. Königsberg war nicht nur die Hauptstadt der Provinz und die nordöstlichste Großstadt Preußens, sondern ab 1724 auch Königliche Haupt- und Residenzstadt in Preußen. Heute ist Kaliningrad ein wichtiger Hafen- und Industriestandort sowie ein bedeutender Ort für Kultur und Wissenschaft.
Lithuania is a Baltic state in northeastern Europe and is home to approximately 2.8 million people. Vilnius is the capital and most populous city of Lithuania. The country borders the Baltic Sea, Poland, Belarus, Russia and Latvia. Lithuania only gained independence in 1918, which the country reclaimed in 1990 after several decades of incorporation into the Soviet Union.
Friebe may have intended to introduce the five young—or, more precisely, “younger”—ladies not only to Laurenty but also to Bronner. Bronner himself was certainly interested in finding a wife—but not in this case. Before leaving Zurich for Russia, the woman he had long courted had rejected him, and in Weimar he had subsequently, and unsuccessfully, sought the hand of one of Wieland's daughters.
