August Franz von Haxthausen
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August Franz Ludwig Maria, Baron von Haxthausen-Abbenburg (February 3, 1792, in Bökendorf, Prince-Bishopric of Paderborn – December 31, 1866, in Hanover) was a
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
agricultural scientist, economist,
lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...
, writer, and collector of
folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...
s, best known for his account of conditions in Russia as revealed by his 1843 visit.


Life

August was the last of eight sons of Werner Adolf, Freiherr von Haxthausen, "a typical prosperous backwater planter," and the Baroness Marie-Anne Wendt Papenhausen, who also had nine daughters. Born on the family estate in Abbenburg, Haxthausen was sent to the
Warburg Warburg (; Westphalian language, Westphalian: ''Warberich'' or ''Warborg'') is a town in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, central Germany on the river Diemel near the three-state point shared by Hessen, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. It ...
estate of his uncle, Baron Kalenberg, to be reared; there he received a traditional Catholic education in rural surroundings. Haxthausen studied in University of Halle, where he joined the
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in 1810. He completed his studies under the Bökendorf priest and at the mining school at Clausthal, where he studied until 1812. In that year the Haxthausen estates were affected by a peasant revolt against the Bonapartist Kingdom of Westphalia, a revolt that was "in some measure a rebuke to the dominant landed class" but that the Haxthausen family chose to interpret "as an act of defiance by true Germans against conditions created by the foreign domination," a view which strongly influenced the young August, who participated in the War of the Sixth Coalition against France. His activities at this time were recorded by his closest friends, the Brothers Grimm, with whom he shared a deep interest in popular legends and fairy tales, which he collected from his fellow soldiers and hoped to publish (selections of this collection were published posthumously). He continued his studies at the University of Göttingen from 1814 to 1818. There he studied old German poetry under the philologist
Georg Friedrich Benecke Georg Friedrich Benecke (10 June 1762, Mönchsroth – 21 August 1844, Göttingen) was a German philologist. Beginning in 1780, he was a student at the University of Göttingen, where he was a pupil of Christian Gottlob Heyne. In 1814 he be ...
, and was introduced by the physiologist and anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach to the study of human beings in their total physical environment (''Totalhabitus''), not just their political or intellectual activities. Most importantly, he studied law with his friend
Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm's law of linguistics, the co-author of th ...
, now a professor who expounded the teachings of
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and Friedrich Carl von Savigny, which held that social processes could be described but not explained; "it required the student to seek the fundamental principles of a society in its historical and everyday existence. Under the influence of this school, legal scholars abandoned ''a priori'' speculations for fieldwork." In 1819 he returned to inherit one of his family's estates at Bökendorf, near Abbenburg. He remained unmarried and continued collecting folklore and publishing folk songs. His niece Annette von Droste-Hülshoff frequently stayed with the family and came to work closely with August; the family documents he provided her gave her the impetus for writing her well-known novella ''
Die Judenbuche ''Die Judenbuche'', translated as ''The Jew's Beech'' or ''The Jew's Beech-Tree'', is a German novella written by Annette von Droste-Hülshoff and first published in 1842. The story about the unsolved murder of a Jewish citizen in a village in t ...
'' (The Jew's beech, 1842). In 1843 he bought the neighboring castle of Thienhausen. August st von Haxthausen died on New Year's Eve 1866 at the home of his sister Anna of Arnswaldt in Hanover. He is buried in the cemetery of Bellersen in
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.


Official career

In 1829 Haxthausen published a slim volume on land tenure called ''Ueber die Agrarverfassung in den Fürstenthümern Paderborn und Corvey und deren Conflicte in der gegenwärtigen Zeit'' n agrarian relations in the princedoms of Paderborn and Corvey and their conflicts in the present timein which he proposed repealing most of the Bonapartist legislation passed since 1806 in order to prevent land from becoming nothing more than a commodity like other forms of capital. His sophisticated antirevolutionary proposals and evident mastery of the new scientific methods of study of economic and social institutions (called ''Statistik'') attracted the attention of the then Crown Prince and later King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who invited him to Berlin and offered him a stipend to conduct a similar analysis for all the provinces of Prussia. For the next decade, he spent each summer traveling throughout Prussia researching the provincial legislation pertaining to land tenure. He was particularly intrigued by "what appeared to be survivals of nancient but non-Germanic tradition of communal peasant organization in those eastern regions once occupied by Slavic peoples." Haxthausen argued that such communes, or ''Gemeinden'', could mediate between classes and between the individual and society, thus allowing integration "by custom alone and not through the legal machinations of meddling bureaucrats and revolutionaries." As a result of his travels and researches, he proposed a series of reforms, urging the Prussian government to reduce the role of the state bureaucracy and allow local forces to play a greater part in rural affairs, but opposition from civil servants, Lutherans, and Prussian nationalists prevented their acceptance, and after state support for his work was cut off in 1842, he returned to Abbenburg. Fortunately, thanks to good management his domains had become some of the most lucrative in the region, so he no longer needed state support for financial security.


Journey to Russia

Some years before, Haxthausen's friend Count Peter von Meyendorff (Petr Kazimirovich Meiendorf, 1796–1863), Russian ambassador to Berlin from 1839 to 1850, had suggested that he continue his research on Slavic communal institutions in Russia, and this now became possible thanks to an essay on tsarist land legislation that reached tsar Nicholas I, who invited him to travel to Russia to study the rural situation there. Though his voyage was supported by the crown, it was hindered by Count von Benckendorff, head of the Russian secret police, who considered Haxthausen a potential threat to state security and had his activities monitored not only in Russia but after his return to Germany (fifteen years later he "was still being warned by his former hosts that he should break off his correspondence with Alexander Herzen"). However, after the spring thaw in 1843, Haxthausen left Moscow for six months of travel in the provinces, accompanied by his assistant, Dr. Heinrich Kosegarten, and a young Russian interpreter provided by the tsar. The group traveled to
Novgorod Veliky Novgorod ( rus, links=no, Великий Новгород, t=Great Newtown, p=vʲɪˈlʲikʲɪj ˈnovɡərət), also known as just Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the ol ...
, the Vladimir- Yaroslavl region, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, and across the steppes to the Caucasus and Crimea; later in the summer he turned north again to
Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
,
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, and Moscow. After some hesitation (caused partly by a feeling of betrayal by the Marquis de Custine, who had written a wittily hostile report on his visit to Russia a few years previously), he was received cordially by Russian society, including
Konstantin Aksakov Konstantin Sergeyevich Aksakov (russian: Константи́н Серге́евич Акса́ков) (10 April 1817 – 19 December 1860) was a Russian critic and writer, one of the earliest and most notable Slavophiles. He wrote plays, social ...
, Herzen, and
Pyotr Chaadayev Pyotr or Petr Yakovlevich Chaadayev (russian: Пётр Я́ковлевич Чаада́ев; also spelled Chaadaev, or Čaadajev; 7 June 7 May Old Style">Old_Style.html" ;"title="7 May Old Style">7 May Old Style1794 – 26 April
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. Haxthausen returned to Germany in the spring of 1844 to write up his impressions. The results were published in ''Studien über die innern Zustände, das Volksleben und insbesondere die ländlichen Einrichtungen Russlands'' (1847-1852, translated into English in drastically shortened form as
The Russian Empire: Its People, Institutions and Resources
', 1856).
S. Frederick Starr Stephen Frederick Starr (born March 24, 1940) is an American expert on Russian and Eurasian affairs, a musician, and a former president of Oberlin College. Founder and chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, he is fluent in Russian a ...
, in his introduction to a modern abridged translation, writes that "two themes resound throughout the ''Studies'': that Russian society still maintained in its peasant communes and other institutions the basis for a unity and cohesion within and among classes that was lacking in western Europe, and that this social cohesion was founded on hierarchical and patriarchal lines that embraced every individual in Russia from tsar to peasant." Haxthausen's full account of the institutions of rural Russia was the first to bring the Russian commune into European social thought, and it was popular with both radicals (who found validation of the ideals of socialism) and conservatives (who approved of Haxthausen's emphasis on harmony within the framework of traditional society); it was well received everywhere but "liberal, industrial England, where it was met with skepticism, criticism, and outright derision." But its greatest impact was in Russia, where intellectuals of every political persuasion read and discussed the ''Studies'', which played a significant role in establishing the framework of the liberation of the serfs and the other reforms of the early 1860s; Haxthausen wrote extensively on those reforms, corresponded with many Russian leaders and intellectuals, and in 1865 published a study of the means of introducing a constitution to Russia without destroying the sovereignty of the tsar.
James H. Billington James Hadley Billington (June 1, 1929 – November 20, 2018) was an American academic and author who taught history at Harvard and Princeton before serving for 42 years as CEO of four federal cultural institutions. He served as the 13th Librarian ...
summarized his influence on Russians thus:
It is a measure of the Russian aristocrats' alienation from their own peoples that they discovered the peasants not on their own estates but in books — above all in the three-volume study of Russian life by Baron Haxthausen.... On the basis of his study, Russian aristocrats suddenly professed to find in the peasant commune (''obshchina'') the nucleus of a better society. Although the peasant commune had been idealized before ... Haxthausen's praise was based on a detailed study of its social functions of regulating land redistribution and dispensing local justice. He saw in the commune a model for "free productive associations like those of the Saint-Simonians"; and the idea was born among Russians that a renovation of society on the model of the commune might be possible even if a political revolution were not.James H. Billington, ''The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture'' (Knopf, 1966), pp. 374-75.


Notes


Works

* ''Über die Agrarverfassung in den Fürstenthümern Paderborn und Corvey und deren Conflicte in der gegenwärtigen Zeit nebst Vorschlägen, die den Grund und Boden belastenden Rechte und Verbindlichkeiten daselbst aufzulösen''. Berlin: Reimer, 1829; reprint Bökendorf: Bökerhof-Ges., 1992
Online text
* ''Die ländliche Verfassung in den einzelnen Provinzen der preußischen Monarchie''. ** Vol. 1: ''Die ländliche Verfassung in den Provinzen Ost- und West-Preussen''. Königsberg: Bornträger, 1839. ** Vol. 2: ''Die ländliche Verfassung in der Provinz Pommern im amtl. Auftr. von Alexander Padberg''. Stettin, 1861. * ''Ueber den Ursprung und die Grundlagen der Verfassung in den ehemals slawischen Ländern Deutschlands im Allgemeinen und des Herzogthums Pommern im Besondern: Eine Einladungsschrift zur Erörterung und litterarischen Besprechung''. Berlin: Krause, 1842. * ''Die Kriegsmacht Rußlands in ihrer historischen, statistischen, ethnographischen und politischen Beziehung''. Berlin: Behr, 1852. ** ''Les forces militaires de la Russie sous les rapports historiques, statistiques, ethnographiques et politiques''. Berlin, 1853. * ''Studien über die innern Zustände, das Volksleben und insbesondere die ländlichen Einrichtungen Russlands''. Hanover: Hahn, 1847–1852. ** ''Etudes sur la situation intérieure, la vie nationale et les institutions rurales de la Russie''. Hanover: Hahn, 1847–53. ** ''The Russian Empire: Its People, Institutions and Resources''. Tr. Robert Farie. Chapman and Hall, 1856; repr. London: Cass, 1968. ** ''Issledovaniya vnutrennykh otnoshenii, narodnoi zhizni, i v osobennosti selskikh uchrezhdenii Rossii barona Gakstgauzena''. Tr. L.I. Ragozin. Moscow, 1870. ** ''Studies on the Interior of Russia''. Tr. Eleanore L.M. Schmidt; ed. and intro. S. Frederick Starr. University of Chicago Press, 1972: . * ''Transkaukasia: Andeutungen über das Familien- und Gemeindeleben und die socialen Verhältnisse einiger Völker zwischen dem Schwarzen und Kaspischen Meer – Reiseerinnerungen und gesammelte Notizen''. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1856; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1985. ** ''Transcaucasia: Sketches of the Nations and Races between the Black Sea and the Caspian''. Tr. John Edward Taylor. London: Chapman and Hall, 1854. ** ''The Tribes of the Caucasus, with an Account of Schamyl and the Murids''. Tr. John Edward Taylor. London: Chapman and Hall, 1855. ** ''Zakavkazskii Krai: Zamietki o semeinoi i obshchestvennoi zhizni i otnosheniiakh narodov, obitaiushehikh mezhdu Chernym i Kaspiiskim moriami''. St. Petersburg: Tip. Glav. Shtaba Ego Imperatorskago Velichestva po Voenno-Uchebnym Zavedenīiam, 1857. ** ''Transcaucasia and the Tribes of the Caucasus''. Tr. John Edward Taylor; ed. and intro. Pietro A. Shakarian; fwd.
Dominic Lieven Dominic Lieven (born 19 January 1952) is a research professor at Cambridge University (Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College) and a Fellow of the British Academy and of Trinity College, Cambridge. Education Lieven was educated at Downside Sch ...
. London:
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, 2016: . * ''Wird Rußlands Kirche das Papstthum anerkennen?: nach La Russie sera-t-elle catholique … ; nebst einem Auszug des Cardinal Baronius über den Ursprung der Russinen von Jean Gagarin. Mit einem Vorw. von August Freiherrn von Haxthausen.'' Münster: Theissing, 1857. * ''Ein Briefwechsel im Hintergrund der russischen Bauernbefreiung 1861''. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1975. * ''Das constitutionelle Prinzip, seine geschichtliche Entwicklung und seine Wechselwirkungen mit den politischen und sozialen Verhältnissen der Staaten und Völker''. Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1864. * ''Die ländliche Verfassung Russlands'', 1866. * ''La question religieuse en Pologne: mémoire rédige en 1856 par feu le Baron Auguste de Haxthausen. Précédé d'une introduction et accompagné de notes par le Jean Gagarin, de la Compagnie de Jésus''. Berlin: Behr, 1877.


Bibliography

* August von Haxthausen, ''Studies on the Interior of Russia''. Tr. Eleanore L.M. Schmidt; ed. and intro. S. Frederick Starr. University of Chicago Press, 1972: . * Bettina K. Beer, ''August von Haxthausen, a conservative reformer: proposals for administrative and social reform in Russia and Prussia 1829 - 1866''. University Microfilms International, 1979. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Haxthausen, August von 1792 births 1866 deaths People from the Province of Westphalia German agronomists Mythographers Knights of Malta Writers about Russia German male writers 19th-century German lawyers German military personnel of the Napoleonic Wars People from Höxter (district)