A Baltic-German Lessing? Johann Friedrich Recke's Mitau Dramaturgy

Abstract

The and Baltic-German librarian Johann cultural Friedrich journal Recke of the (1764-1846) scholar, was collector called and l brarian Johann Friedrich Recke (1764-1846) was called Wochentliche Unierhaltungen fur Liebhaber deutscher Lekture in Rusland. At first, it appeared during 1805-1807 in three volumes, then in two subsequent volumes during 1807-1808 as the Neue Wochentliche Unterhaltungen (Pistohlkors 297). This little, short-lived journal has survived as a typical product of the Enlightenment. It brought informative articles by Recke as well as many reports sent in by correspondents about various topics of German-Baltic cultural life in the Russian Baltic Provinces, notably Courland, now a part of Latvia. Recke was a leading personality in Mitau; in 1816 he founded the learned society Kurlandische Gesellschaft fur Literatur und Kunst. He was its secretary since 1 827 and became director of the Kurlandisches Museum, established in 1818. Together with Eduard Napiersky he compiled an extensive biography and bibliography of Baltic-German writers and scholars, the Allgemeine Schriftsteller und Gelehrtenlexikon der Provinzen Livland, Esthland und Kurland (Bd. 1-4, 1827-1861). The work remains an indispensable handbook for the contemporary researcher about the history of the Baltic provinces. I am concerned primarily with the of German-language stage performances in Courland's more important cities: Goldingen, Libau, Riga, and Mitau, especially the latter (now Jelgava, Latvia), as reflected in Recke's thoughtful reviews of summer season theatrical presentations in German by visiting troupes and artists. Taken together, one could say Recke's essays in the Wochentliche Unterhaltungen constitute a Mitau Dramaturgy, much in the enlightened manner of that seminal German theatre critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (17291781) in his Hamburgische Dramaturgie. By the term reception I mean in the following how the critic Recke assessed these summer season performances from the perspective of a normative view and concept of an artistic ideal, in contrast to popular by a subjective and uncritical audience. The structure of this study consists of two sections: an appreciation of Recke's ideas, followed by a selection of illustrative examples of his criticism. The question: Why bother with Recke's accounts of an early nineteenth century Riga theatre troupe? can be answered simply: His writings have intrinsic historical value as