Truths. Prodosh Aich

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      CHAPTER 2 WHO IS MAX MÜLLER M.A.?

      His family heredity, childhood and early school days

      Max Müller is born in Dessau, in a small Duchy called Anhalt-Dessau, on December 6, 1823. He was not born as Max Müller. He is Friedrich Maximilian Müller. He changes his name rather late, at sometime in 1847 while staying in England. He marries in England much later. On the marriage testimony, he is registered as Frederick Maximilian Müller. Why does he do this exercise with his name? Why did he try to conceal his identity as Friedrich Maximilian Müller? We do not know yet. We shall try to find out in due course.

      Anhalt-Dessau is a small, prosperous and progressive Duchy. So it is said. Until 1603 Anhalt-Dessau was ruled by the Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, and thereafter Anhalt-Dessau was recreated, being raised to a duchy in 1807. It was located in the north-central Europe, south of Prussia, having Zerbst in between, and between the two “provinces” of Saxony. Territory wise the Duchy was about 630 square-kilometres having a maximum 60,000 in population. Dessau was the administrative town having a population of about 3,000. Frederick Leopold IV succeeded Duke Leopold III in 1817. This is the phase not only in the “German” history when the “nobles” are systematically losing their might and economic hegemony leading to the rise of Capitalism in Europe and all that went and goes with it. Occupation of foreign lands, so-called Colonialism included. A land called Germany was not created yet.

      “Müller” is a traditional surname widely spread in Germany. The “Müllers” in Germany belonged to the lower strata of the “commons” in the society. Traditionally the “Müllers” were grinders of corns and seeds of all sorts.

      Friedrich Maximilian’s parents Wilhelm and Adelheide Müller also gave birth to a daughter, Auguste, on 20. April 1822. Wilhelm Müller was the sixth of seven children of Christian Leopold and of Marie Leopoldine Müller. They were poor. Christian Leopold Müller was a tailor. He was often ill at stretches. Before Wilhelm Müller was three years old, all other children had expired.

      Christian Leopold Müller did not try to train Wilhelm as a tailor. In spite of his poverty, he sent his son to schools. He wanted his only surviving son Wilhelm to prosper more in life by getting education. He lost his wife while Wilhelm was fourteen years old, in 1808. A year later, Christian Leopold Müller married the widow of a well-to-do master-butcher, Marie Seelmann, so that he would be able to ensure his son Wilhelm a good education. So it is told. He succeeded.

      Wilhelm Müller could begin studying literature, history, and philology at the University in Berlin when he was eighteen, in 1812. We take note that Berlin is far off from Anhalt- Dessau and more expensive than the nearer off university at Leipzig. Six months later, however, Wilhelm joined the Prussian army in the “War of Liberation” against Napoleon, who was retreating from his disastrous invasion of Russia. Within a year, Wilhelm Müller became a lieutenant at the age just over nineteen. On his tour of duty, he stayed in Brussels where he got involved in a love affair that ended badly.

      Wilhelm Müller resumed his studies at the University in Berlin in 1814. He completed his studies in 1817 there. While studying he discovered his affinity to cultural activities. He visited literary circles. He wrote also his own verses. He fell in love with the poetess Louise Hensel, who encouraged him in his writer-career but did not return his affections and love. He had also joined the Berliner Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache (Berlin Society for the German language). Thus he got the chance to travel to Greece, Egypt and the Middle East with the Prussian chamberlain Baron Sack. Unfortunately, because of the plague in Constantinople they stopped off in Italy. Around Easter, he parted from Baron Sack because he wanted to stay on in Italy, went to Naples and spent the summer in Rome.

      On his return from Italy, he was appointed as a teacher of classic languages at Dessau in 1818. Then he took up the job of an assistant librarian in the ducal library in Dessau. A year later, he became a librarian of the small Duchy having a population of maximum 60,000 as we remember. As a librarian, however, he became a part of the administration of the Duchy though on the bottom line to begin with. He was then twenty-five.

      Wilhelm Müller, being the son of a poor tailor, thus arrived at the threshold of the entry to the “high society” of Anhalt-Dessau. He made friends in circles engaged in cultural activities also outside Anhalt-Dessau. Franz Schubert will set two of his verses to music: Die Winterreise (The winter trip) and Die schöne Müllerin (The miller's beautiful wife). These two songs are played even today. Max Müller will proudly mention this in his Auld Lang Syne, published by Longmans, Green, and Co., London and Bombay in 1898 (p.42), i.e. two years before his death. Auld Lang Syne is one of our primary sources to reconstruct the real life of Friedrich Maximilian Müller.

      In 1821 Wilhelm Müller, when he was 27 years old, entered into a love-match marriage with Adelheid Basedow. She was then 21 years old. Adelheid belonged to a more prominent family, a few ladder higher in the ranking of social-prestige-scale than Wilhelm, in Anhalt-Dessau. The family Basedow did not approve this love-marriage. The newly married couple got thus socially isolated.

      Adelheid was granddaughter of Johann Bernard Basedow (1723-1790). He was born at Hamburg in 1723, as the son of a barber and wigmaker. However, we do not know how, he managed to come to Leipzig as a student of theology, but gave himself up entirely to the study of philology, i.e. classic-languages. In 1752 he wrote a thesis: "On the best and hitherto unknown method of teaching children of noblemen", and obtained the degree of Master of Arts from the University at Kiel in the northern part of present Germany. Why at Kiel and not at Leipzig, we do not know. The documents kept in the archives are comparatively rather meagre. He was not that important personality as Max Müller will proudly refer to Johann Bernard Basedow after hundred and eighty years in his Auld Lang Syne and in his My Autobiography published by Longmans, Green, and Co., London and Bombay.

      Johann Bernard Basedow evolved to a “pedagogic reformer”. The Duke of Anhalt-Dessau, Wilhelm Leopold III welcomed him to implement his pedagogic ideas in his small Duchy. In 1774 Johann Bernard Basedow СКАЧАТЬ