August Ludwig von Schlözer
August Ludwig von Schlözer (5 July 1735, in Gaggstatt – 9 September 1809, in Göttingen) was a German historian and pedagogist who laid foundations for the critical study of Russian medieval history.
August Ludwig von Schlözer was born at Gaggstatt, Hohenlohe-Kirchberg (today Kirchberg an der Jagst), Württemberg.
In 1762, a quarrel with Müller placed him in a position of some difficulty from which he was delivered by an introduction to Count Rasumovski, who procured his appointment as adjunct to the Academy.
He settled at Göttingen, where in 1764 he had been made professor extraordinarius, and doctor honoris causa in 1766, and in 1769 he was promoted to an ordinary professorship.
[1] Schlözer was acknowledged a brilliant professor who drew crowds of students, among whom were Arnold Heeren, Karl Friedrich Eichhorn and Johannes von Müller.
He translated a pedagogical piece by the Frenchman La Chalotais in 1771, as well as a travel book about Jamaica for children and an introductory work on world history (Vorbereitung zur Weltgeschichte für Kinder, 1779).
Schlözer's activity was enormous, and he exercised great influence by his lectures as well as by his books, bringing historical study into touch with political science generally, and using his vast erudition in an attempt to solve practical questions in the state and in society.
Hundreds of articles and books addressed this question in the second half of the 18th century, drawing famous intellectuals including Herder and Schiller.
He continued to improve this piece in the following decades, until finalising the Weltgeschichte nach ihren Haupttheilen im Auszug und Zusammenhange (Main elements of world history in excerpts and context), 2 vols (2nd ed., Göttingen, 1792–1801).
(Schlözer, Weltgeschichte I, 66) – "The life-style determines, climate and nutrition creates, the sovereign forces, the priest teaches, and the example inspires."
Schlözer also developed a structure for a universal history, separating it in six epochs: This classification was not new, except for setting the Middle Ages between 476 and 1492, which he as well as his colleague and rival in Göttingen Johann Christoph Gatterer suggested roughly at the same time.
According to the philosopher Hannah Arendt, this new method enabled man to look back "into an indefinite past to which one can add at will and into which we can inquire further as it stretches ahead".
His daughter Dorothea, born on 10 August 1770, was one of the most beautiful and learned women of her time, and received in 1787 the degree of doctor.
Schlözer's son Christian (1774–1831) was a professor at Bonn, and published Anfangsgründe der Staatswirthschaft (1804–1806) and his father's Öffentliches und Privat-Leben aus Originalurkunden (1828).
The youngest son, Karl von Schlözer, a merchant and Russian consul-general at Lübeck, was the father of Kurd von Schlözer (1822–1894), the historian and diplomatist, who in 1871 was appointed German ambassador to the United States and in 1882 to the Vatican, when he was instrumental in healing the breach between Germany and the papacy caused by the May Laws.
