Friedrich Johann Justin Bertuch
A successful entrepreneur and a man of the C18th Enlightenment. Orphaned at 15 he lived with his uncle and pursued an education in theology and law. He eventually became a publisher and the largest employer in his home town of Weimar. This image is from the first pictorial encyclopedia for children which was a landmark in educational publishing
Date
1828
Artist
14 October 2006 Bertuch BERTUCH: WEIMAR'S LITERARY MIDWIFE On the west side of the Karl-Liebknecht-Straße, one of the busiest and dustiest streets in Weimar, stands the Bertuch-Haus, a building with an imposing classical façade almost one hundred yards long, and the visitor, hurrying past on his way from the station to the historic town centre, may do no more than wonder briefly at the significance of the beehive and cornucopia which adorn its gable. For this building is not on the itinerary of those who visit the National Research and Memorial Places of Classical German Literature in Weimar (NFG for short), disparagingly called VEB Goethe und Schiller (Goethe and Schiller plc) by the inhabitants of Weimar. [See note.] Nevertheless the buildings in the care of the NFG, which include Goethe's House, Schiller's House, Wieland's estate in nearby Oßmannstedt, as well as important libraries and archives, do underline the way the town of Weimar became the intellectual capital of Germany in the late eighteenth century. Plan of Weimar showing main places mentioned That it achieved this position is largely due to a remarkable woman, the Duchess Anna Amalia (1739-1807). Left a widow by the death of Duke Ernst August Konstantin in 1758, she became Regent on behalf of her young son Karl August (1757-1828) and was influential in bringing a series of glittering talents to the capital of the Duchy of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach. Notable among these was Christian Martin Wieland (1733-1813). After a pietistic upbringing he had discovered the works of the French encyclopaedists in Zurich, and between 1762 and 1766 had published the first German translation of Shakespeare. He became famous for his psychological novel Agathon (1766-7). From 1769 to 1772 he was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Erfurt, only twelve miles from Weimar, where his writings attracted the attention of Anna Amalia who invited him to tutor her sons Karl August and Konstantin. In 1775 the eighteen year old Karl August took over the government of the Duchy and one of his first acts was to invite Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749- 1832) to Weimar. Goethe, then only twenty-six, was already a national celebrity from such works as Götz von Berlichingen, an historical drama of the Storm and Stress movement which appeared in 1773, and Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, a sentimental novel in letter form which took Europe by storm in 1774. Wieland was delighted by Goethe's arrival. Three days afterwards, on 7 November 1775 he wrote to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi: "If it is possible that any sense can be knocked into Weimar, then his presence will effect it." The young Duke saw that Goethe had gifts as an administrator as well as a writer and he was rapidly placed in a range of official posts from President of the Treasury to Overseer of the Mines. It was at Goethe's suggestion that Johann Friedrich Herder (1744-1803) came to Weimar as chief pastor in 1776. Goethe had met him in Straßburg where Herder had introduced Goethe to the writings of Shakespeare and the glories of Gothic architecture. His essay The origin of language (1772), his work on folk songs and his evolutionary view of human history were to be further developed during his years in Weimar. Around these three luminaries - the dramatist and historian Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) was to join them in 1787 - there revolved a cluster of lesser literary lights and the Duchess at her round table gatherings brought together representatives of the court and the town to exchange ideas on art, literature and science. Gussfeld's Map of Weimar, published by Bertuch's Geographisches Institut in 1808 This active cultural life took place in a town of only 6,000 inhabitants, remote from the large centres of population. Adam Henß, formerly the manager of Bertuch's bindery in Weimar, writing in 1837[1] notes that until relatively late no post route led through Weimar, parcels being taken on a handcart to the nearest posting station at Buttelstedtt and only in the first years of the nineteenth century was Weimar connected to the rest of Germany by good highways. It was the capital of a Duchy of 100,000 inhabitants scattered in two separate tracts of land totalling little more than 1,000 square miles in area and a dozen or more smaller areas, some only a mile or two square. The whole made up an area a little smaller than the county of Cornwall. It was predominantly an agricultural region, the main industries being glass manufacture and copper and silver mining in Ilmenau and stocking weaving in Apolda. Map of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach It was into this mixture of an intellectual centre and a sleepy market town that our hero Friedrich Johann Justin Bertuch (1747-1822)
