Kotzebue, August von (1761-1819)

Kotzebue, August von

PLAYWRIGHT (GERMANY)

BORN 3 May 1761, Weimar, Thüringen - DIED 23 Mar 1819, Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg
CAUSE OF DEATH murdered by stabbing
GRAVE LOCATION Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg: Hauptfriedhof, Röntgenstrasse (Abteilung II.2 (Grab 138))

August von Kotzebue was born in Weimar into a family of merchants and councillors. He studied law in Jena and Duisburg and from 1781 until 1790 he held official posts in St. Petersburg and Estland. After travels to Mainz, Mannheim and Paris he lived for several more years in Russia.

In 1798 he went to Vienna to work as a theatre poet, but in 1800 he returned to Russia once more. There he was suspected of being a Jacobin and he was sent to Siberia. After four months he was pardoned and he became director of the Deutschen Hofschauspiel in St. Petersburg.

After the czar was murdered in 1801 he moved to Weimar. There he quarreled with Goethe and he left for Paris and then moved to Berlin. He published the magazine "Der Freimütighe" in which he agitated against Goethe and the Schlegel brothers. When Napoleon invaded Germany he fled to Estland. After Napoleon's defeat in 1813 he became the manager of the theatre in Königsberg.

In 1817 he returned to Weimar where he founded the Litterarische Wochenblatt in which he spoke against democracy and freedom of the press. He was hated for his reactionary writings and after he ridiculed the young Germans he was stabbed to death by the student Karl Ludwig Sand in 1819 in front of his young son. Sand was executed in 1820. His murder led to the Carlsbad Decrees in which the German student movements were suppressed.

Von Kotzebue wrote over 200 plays. Beethoven, Schubert and Von Weber all set his libretto's to music and some of his work remained popular throughout the nineteenth century.

Family
• Son: Kotzebue, Alexander von

Related persons
• was opponent of Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
• was painted by Kügelgen, Gerhard von
• was murdered by Sand, Karl Ludwig
• quarreled with Schlegel, August Wilhelm von

Events

21/11/1776	Premiere of Goethe's "Die Geschwister" in Weimar. It was a four-person play in one act that Goethe wroter in October 1776 in the garden house on the Ilm in Weimar. Goethe played Wilhelm and August von Kotzebue played the postman. [Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von]
6/5/1806	Caroline Schelling attends a performance of Kotzebue's "Fanchon, das Leyermädchen". It was on the birthday of the new ruler Ferdinand III of Tuscany. Joachim von Schwarzkopf accompanied her to the theatre.