Gottfried Groddeck im Netz: Historische Konstellationen, Gelehrtennetzwerke und Wissenstransfer in Mittelosteuropa an der Schwelle vom 18. zum 19. Jahrhundert

Abstract

Summary The classicist scholar Gottfried Ernst Groddeck (1762–1825) came into literary history thanks to his students, mainly Adam Mickiewicz. Although a gifted pupil of Christian Gottlieb Heyne, he gained only local fame; neither he nor any of his works was broadly known. Groddeck’s professional career, however, deserves careful attention, for it is a conspicuous example of increasing academic mobility in Central Europe at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The paper looks at the biography and work of Groddeck from the network perspective in order to examine the various mechanisms characteristic of networks of savants. In the first part, an analysis of some structuring features of scientific networks is provided. In the second part, the author presents the different roles and spheres in which Groddeck acted, for between 1782 and 1786 he was a student of Heyne in Göttingen, then a librarian and private teacher at the Court of the Prince Czartoryski in Puławy, and eventually Professor for Greek and Latin Languages and Literature at the Imperial University of Vilnius (1803–1825). In all these positions he stayed in contact with other men of letters in Göttingen, Berlin, Leipzig, Wien as well as in Puławy, Vilnius, Dorpat, Moscow and Paris. Among them, there were personal friends, employers as well as pen partners personally unknown to him. Groddeck’s correspondence enables us to reconstruct the various dimensions of the international and local networks in which he participated. What is at stake are rules regulating relations, obligations and hierarchies within both informal and more formalized scientific coalitions.