Johann Georg Rist

Johann Georg Rist (23 November 1775 - 5 February 1847) was a Danish author, diplomat and statesman, originally from Holstein.

Life

Johann Georg Rist was born in Niendorf, at that time a prosperous village on the edge of Altona in Holstein, and today a quarter in Hamburg. His father was the minister-preacher at the Lutheran Ninedorf Market Church, Johann Christoph Friedrich Rist (1735-1807). They were both directly descended from the poet-dramatist Johann Rist 1607-1667.

Rist received his education at home from his father until 1794 when for a year he attended the prestigious Johanneum (school) in Hamburg. In the Easter term of 1795 he moved to the University of Jena where he studied Law and where contemporaries whom he got to know included , Johann Diederich Gries and Johann Friedrich Herbart. He also found time for frequent visits to the theatre in nearby Weimar, where he often encountered Goethe, already a celebrity, who made a great impression on Rist. An entry to the home of Schiller (who by this time was unwell and keeping out of the limelight) was also negotiated through well placed mutual acquaintances.

After just a year, in 1796 Rist moved on from Jena to the University of Kiel where he pursued his studies and his networking. Those whose lectures he attended included August Christian Niemann and Dietrich Hermann Hegewisch. Like-minded new friends included Henrik Steffens. In 1797, invited by another of his student friends, he visited Copenhagen where he made the acquaintance of the Danish Finance Minister, Ernst Heinrich von Schimmelmann. This led to an appointment as von Schimmelmann's private secretary, a post he retained till 1801. (It is not clear that he ever graduated with a university degree.)

At this time, to the frustration of more enthusiastic belligerent nations, Denmark and Russia were both navigating a path through the shifting alliances of the Napoleonic Wars based on armed neutrality, as a result of which they were allied with each other. In 1801 Rist joined the Danish diplomatic service as legation secretary to Saint Petersburg. His next posting was to the Madrid embassy where he remained till 1806. In 1804 he was appointed chargé d'affaires, which in the absence of an ambassador made him Denmark's senior diplomatic representative.

In 1806 he was transferred to London, again as the Danish chargé d'affaires. His time in charge was dominated by a diplomatic breach between Denmark and the newly launched United Kingdom after British naval commanders, fearful that the Danish fleet might fall into French hands, bombarded Copenhagen and seized the Danish fleet. In Denmark Rist was blamed for not having foreseen or averted the development, and by 1808 he had left London. In that year he was sent as commercial attaché (in some sources identified as General Commissar and General Consul) to Hamburg, a potentially profitable posting, but also a difficult one in the middle of a major war.

The complexities of the French occupation enforced his resignation in 1813 which was also the year of his marriage. He relocated briefly to Hadersleben

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