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Georg Forster

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Human Scientists

   Portrait of Georg Forster at age 26, by J. H. W. Tischbein, 1781
   Enlarge
   Portrait of Georg Forster at age 26, by J. H. W. Tischbein, 1781

   Johann Georg Adam Forster ( November 27, 1754 – January 10, 1794) was a
   German naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist, and
   revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father on several
   scientific expeditions, including James Cook's second voyage to the
   Pacific. His report from that journey, A Voyage Round the World,
   contributed significantly to the ethnology of the people of Polynesia
   and remains a respected work among both scientists and ordinary
   readers. As a result of the report Forster was admitted to the Royal
   Society at the early age of twenty-two and came to be considered one of
   the founders of modern scientific travel literature.

   After his return to continental Europe, Forster turned towards
   academics. From 1778 to 1784 he taught natural history at the Collegium
   Carolinum in Kassel and continued later at Academy of Vilna (1784-1787)
   until he accepted the position of head librarian at the University of
   Mainz in 1788. Most of his scientific work during this time consisted
   of essays on botany and ethnology, but he also prefaced and translated
   many books about travels and explorations, including a German
   translation of Cook's diaries.

   Forster was a central figure of the Enlightenment in Germany, and
   corresponded with most of its adherents, including Georg Christoph
   Lichtenberg, who was a close friend of his. His ideas and personality
   influenced strongly one of the greatest German scientists of the 19th
   century, Alexander von Humboldt. When the French took control of Mainz
   in 1792, Forster became one of the founders of the Jacobin Club there
   and went on to play a leading role in the Mainz Republic, the earliest
   republican state in Germany. During July 1793 and while he was in Paris
   as a delegate of the young Mainz Republic, Prussian and Austrian
   coalition forces regained control of the city and Forster was declared
   an outlaw. Unable to return to Germany and separated from his friends
   and family, he died in Paris of illness in early 1794.

Early life

   Forster was born in the small village of Nassenhuben ( Polish: Mokry
   Dwór) near Danzig (Gdańsk), in the Polish province of Royal Prussia.

   He was the oldest of seven surviving children of Johann Reinhold
   Forster and Justina Elisabeth (née Nicolai). His father was a
   naturalist, scientist and a Reformed pastor. In 1765, the Russian
   tsarina Catherine II gave the pastor an assignment to travel in Russia
   on a research journey and investigate the situation of a German colony
   at the Volga River. Georg, then ten years old, joined him. They reached
   the Kirghiz steppe at the lower Volga. On the journey, they discovered
   several new species. The young Forster learned there how to conduct
   scientific research and how to practise cartography. He also became
   fluent in Russian.

   The report from this journey, which included sharp criticism of the
   governor of Saratov, was not well-received at the court, and the
   Forsters did not obtain fair payment for their work and had to move
   house. They chose to settle in England in 1766. The father took up
   teaching at the Dissenter's Academy in Warrington and also translation
   work. The young Forster, only thirteen years old, published his first
   book: an English translation of Lomonosov's history of Russia, which
   was well-received in scientific circles.

Around the world with Captain Cook

   James Cook, portrait by Nathaniel Dance, c. 1775, National Maritime
   Museum, Greenwich
   Enlarge
   James Cook, portrait by Nathaniel Dance, c. 1775, National Maritime
   Museum, Greenwich

   In 1772, Forster's father Johann became a member of the Royal Society.
   This and the withdrawal of Joseph Banks resulted in his invitation by
   the British admiralty to join James Cook's second expedition to the
   Pacific (1772–1775). Georg Forster joined his father in the expedition
   again and was appointed as a draughtsman to his father. Johann
   Forster's task was to work on a scientific report from the journey that
   was to be published after their return.

   They embarked on the HMS Resolution on July 13, 1772 in Plymouth. The
   route led first to the South Atlantic, then through the Indian Ocean
   and the Southern Ocean to the island of Polynesia and finally around
   Cape Horn back to England, where the expedition arrived on July 30,
   1775. During the three-year journey, the explorers visited New Zealand,
   the Tonga islands, New Caledonia, Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands and
   Easter Island. They went further south than anybody before them, almost
   discovering Antarctica. The journey conclusively disproved the Terra
   Australis Incognita theory, which claimed there was a big, habitable
   continent in the South.

   Supervised by his father, Georg Forster first took up the studies of
   zoology and botanics of the southern seas, mostly by drawing animals
   and plants. However, Georg also pursued his own interests which led to
   completely independent explorations in comparative geography and
   ethnology. He quickly learned the languages of the Polynesian islands.
   His reports on the people of Polynesia are approved even to this day,
   as they show Forster's endeavours to describe the habitants of the
   southern islands with empathy, sympathy and largely without Western or
   Christian prejudices.
   Resolution and Adventure in Matavai Bay by William Hodges
   Enlarge
   Resolution and Adventure in Matavai Bay by William Hodges

   Unlike Louis Antoine de Bougainville, whose reports from a journey to
   Tahiti a few years earlier had initiated uncritical noble savage
   romanticism, Forster had a very sophisticated picture of the societies
   of the south Pacific islands. He described various social structures
   and religions that he encountered on the Society Islands, the Easter
   Island and in Tonga and New Zealand, and ascribed this diversity to the
   difference in living conditions of these people. At the same time he
   also observed that the languages of these fairly widely-scattered
   islands are quite similar. About the habitants of the Nomuka islands
   (in the Ha'apai island group of present-day Tonga), he wrote that their
   languages, vehicles, weapons, furniture, clothes, tattoos, style of
   beard, in short all of their being matched perfectly with what he had
   already seen while studying tribes on Tongatapu. However, he wrote, "we
   could not observe any subordination among them, though this had
   strongly characterised the natives of Tonga-Tabboo, who seemed to
   descend even to servility in their obeisance to the king."

   The ethnographical items that were collected by Georg and Reinhold
   Forster are currently presented as the Cook-Forster-Sammlung
   (Cook-Forster Collection) in the Sammlung für Völkerkunde
   anthropological collection in Göttingen. Another collection of items
   collected by the Forsters is on display at the Pitt Rivers Museum in
   Oxford.

   The journey was rich in scientific results. However, the relations
   between the Forsters and Captain Cook and his officers were often
   problematic, both due to the elder Forster's fractious temperament and
   Cook's refusal to allow more time for botanizing and other scientific
   observation. Cook refused scientists on his third journey after his
   experiences with the Forsters.

A founder of modern travel literature

   These conflicts continued after the journey when the problem of who
   should write the official account of the travels arose. Lord Sandwich,
   although willing to pay the promised money, was irritated with Johann
   Reinhold Forster's opening chapter and tried to establish an editor
   over him. However, Forster did not want to have his writing corrected
   "like a theme of a School-boy," and stubbornly refused any compromise
   in this direction. As a result, the official account was written by
   Cook, and the Forsters were deprived of the right to compile the
   account and did not obtain payment for their work. During the
   negotiations, the younger Forster decided to release an unofficial
   account of the travel. In 1777, the book A Voyage round the World in
   His Britannic Majesty's Sloop Resolution, Commanded by Capt. James
   Cook, during the Years, 1772, 3, 4, and 5 was published. This report
   was the first account of Cook's second voyage (it appeared six weeks
   before the official publication) and was intended for the general
   public. The English version and his own translation to German
   (published 1778-1780) earned the young author real fame. The poet
   Christoph Martin Wieland praised the book as the most important one of
   his time, and even today it remains one of the most important journey
   descriptions ever written. The book also had a significant impact on
   German literature, culture and science. For instance, Alexander von
   Humboldt was under its great influence and it inspired many
   ethnologists of later times.

   Forster wrote well-polished German prose, which was not only
   scientifically accurate and objective, but also exciting and easy to
   read. His work was distinguished from conventional travel literature in
   so far as it did not just present a mere collection of data, instead
   demonstrating coherent, colourful and reliable ethnographical facts
   that resulted from detailed and sympathetic observation. He often
   interrupted the description to enrich it with philosophical remarks
   about the observations. His main focus was always on the people he
   encountered: their behaviour, their customs, habits, religions and
   forms of social organisation. In A Voyage round the World he even
   presented the songs sung by the people of Polynesia, complete with
   lyrics and notation. The book is one of the most important sources
   concerning the societies of the Southern Pacific from the times before
   European influence had become significant there.

   Both Forsters also published descriptions of their South Pacific
   travels in the Magazin von merkwürdigen neuen Reisebeschreibungen
   ("Magazine of strange new travel accounts") in Berlin, and Georg
   published a translation of "A Voyage to the South Sea, by Lieutenant
   William Bligh, London 1792" in 1791-1793.

Forster at universities

   The publication of A Voyage round the World brought Forster scientific
   recognition all over Europe. The respectable Royal Society nominated
   him as a member on 1777- 01-09 although he was not even 23 years old.
   He was granted similar titles from Academies ranging from Berlin to
   Madrid. These achievements did not give him money though. In 1778, he
   went to Germany to take a teaching position as a Natural History
   professor at the Collegium Carolinum in Kassel, where he met Therese
   Heyne, a classical philologist's daughter. She later became one of the
   first independent female writers in Germany. They married in 1785
   (which was after he left Kassel) and had three children, but their
   marriage was not happy. From the time in Kassel on, Forster was in
   active correspondence with important figures of the Enlightenment,
   including Lessing, Herder, Wieland and Goethe. He also initiated
   cooperation between the Carolinum in Kassel and the University of
   Göttingen where his friend Georg Christoph Lichtenberg worked.
   Together, they founded and published the scientific and literary
   journal Göttingisches Magazin der Wissenschaften und Litteratur.
   Forster's closest friend, Samuel Thomas von Sömmering, arrived in
   Kassel shortly after Forster, and both were soon involved with the
   Rosicrucians in Kassel.

   However, by 1783 Forster saw that his involvement with the Rosicrucians
   not only led him away from real science, but also deeper into debt (he
   had never been very good at managing his own expenses); for these
   reason Forster was happy to accept a proposal by the Polish Komisja
   Edukacji Narodowej (Commission of National Education) and became Chair
   of Natural History at Vilnius University in 1784. Initially, he was
   accepted well in Vilnius, but he felt more and more isolated with time.
   Most of his contacts were still with scientists in Germany; especially
   notable is his dispute with Immanuel Kant about the definition of race.
   In 1785, Forster travelled to Halle where he submitted his thesis about
   the plants of the South Pacific for a doctorate in medicine. Back in
   Vilnius, Forster's ambitions to build a real natural history scientific
   centre could not get appropriate financial support from the Polish
   authorities. Moreover, his famous speech on natural history in 1785
   went almost unnoticed and was not printed until 1843. These events led
   to high tensions between him and the local community. Eventually, he
   broke the contract six years short of its completion as Catherine II of
   Russia had given him an offer to take part in a journey around the
   world for a high honorarium and a position as a professor in Saint
   Petersburg. This resulted in a conflict between Forster and the
   influential Polish scientist Jędrzej Śniadecki. However, the Russian
   proposal was withdrawn and Forster left Vilnius. He then settled in
   Mainz, where he became head librarian of the University of Mainz, a
   position his friend Johannes von Müller had held before, who made sure
   Forster would succeed him when Müller moved to the administration of
   Elector Friedrich Karl Josef von Erthal.

   Forster regularly published essays on the scientific and discovery
   expeditions of his times and continued to be a very prolific
   translator; for instance, he wrote about Cook's third journey to the
   South Pacific, and about the Bounty expedition, as well as translating
   Cook's and Bligh's diaries from these journeys into German. From his
   London years, Forster was in contact with the private scholar Sir
   Joseph Banks, the initiator of the Bounty expedition and a participant
   in Cook's first journey.

   Another field of his interest was indology (One of the main goals of
   his failed expedition to be financed by Catherine II had been to reach
   India). He translated the Sanskrit play Shakuntala using a Latin
   version provided by Sir William Jones: this strongly influenced Herder
   and triggered German interest in the culture of India.
   One of the entrances of Cologne cathedral, which was praised in
   Ansichten vom Niederrhein.
   Enlarge
   One of the entrances of Cologne cathedral, which was praised in
   Ansichten vom Niederrhein.

Views from the Lower Rhine

   In the spring of 1790, Forster and the young Alexander von Humboldt
   started from Mainz on a long journey through the Southern Netherlands,
   Holland, and England, which eventually finished in Paris. The
   impressions from the journey were described in a three volume
   publication Ansichten vom Niederrhein, von Brabant, Flandern, Holland,
   England und Frankreich im April, Mai und Juni 1790 (Views of the Lower
   Rhine, from Brabant, Flanders, Holland, England, and France in April,
   May and June 1790), published 1791-1794. Goethe said about the book:
   "One wants, after one has finished reading, to start it over, and
   wishes to travel with such a good and knowledgeable observer." The book
   includes considerations in the field of the history of art that were as
   influential for the discipline as A Voyage round the world was for
   ethnology. Forster belongs, for example, to the first writers who gave
   just treatment to the Gothic architecture of Cologne Cathedral, which
   was widely perceived as "barbarian" at that time.

   Forster's main interest, however, was again focused on the social
   behaviour of people, as 15 years earlier in the Pacific. The national
   uprisings in Flanders and Brabant and of course the revolution in
   France sparked his curiosity. The journey through these regions,
   together with the Netherlands and England, where citizens' freedoms
   were equally well developed, in the end helped him to sort out his own
   political judgements. From that time on he started to be a confident
   opponent of the ancien régime. Similarly to other German scholars, he
   welcomed the outbreak of the revolution as a clear consequence of the
   Enlightenment. As early as July 30, 1789, shortly after he heard about
   the Storming of the Bastille, he wrote to his father-in-law,
   philologist Christian Gottlob Heyne that it was beautiful to see what
   philosophy had nurtured in people's minds and then had realized in the
   state. To educate people about their rights in this way, he wrote, was
   after all the surest way; the rest would then result as if by itself.
   Liberty pole at the border to the Republic of Mainz. Watercolor by
   Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
   Enlarge
   Liberty pole at the border to the Republic of Mainz. Watercolor by
   Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Life as a revolutionary

Foundation of the Mainz Republic

   The French revolutionary army under General Custine gained control over
   Mainz on October 21, 1792. Two days later, Georg Forster joined others
   in establishing a Jacobin Club called "Freunde der Freiheit und
   Gleichheit" ("Friends of Freedom and Equality") in the Electoral
   Palace. From early 1793 he was actively involved in organizing the
   Mainz Republic. This first republic located on German soil was
   constituted on the principles of democracy, and encompassed areas on
   the left bank of the Rhine between Landau and Bingen. Forster became
   vice-president of the republic's temporary administration and a
   candidate in the elections to the local parliament, the
   Rheinisch-Deutscher Nationalkonvent (Rhenish-German National
   Convention). From January to March of 1793, he was an editor of Die
   neue Mainzer Zeitung oder Der Volksfreund (The new Mainz newspaper or
   The People's Friend). In his first article he wrote:


   Georg Forster

     Die Pressefreiheit herrscht endlich innerhalb dieser Mauern, wo die
                      Buchdruckerpresse erfunden ward.


   Georg Forster

   ("The freedom of the press finally reigns within these walls where the
   printing press was invented.) The freedom did not last too long,
   though. The Mainz Republic existed only until the retreat of the French
   troops in July 1793 after the Siege of Mainz.

   Forster was not present in Mainz during the siege. As representatives
   of the Mainz National Convention, he and Adam Lux had been sent to
   Paris to apply for Mainz — which was unable to exist as an independent
   state — to become a part of the French Republic. The application was
   accepted, but had no effect, since Mainz was conquered by Prussian and
   Austrian troops, and the old order was restored.
   The Pinnacle of liberty, A satire by James Gillray
   Enlarge
   The Pinnacle of liberty, A satire by James Gillray

Death in revolutionary Paris

   Based on a decree by Emperor Francis II inflicting punishments on
   German subjects who collaborated with the French revolutionary
   government, Forster was declared an outlaw in the name of the Emperor
   (under the Reichsacht), a prize of 100 ducats was set on his head and
   he could not return to Germany. Devoid of all means of making a living
   and without his wife, who had stayed in Mainz with their children and
   her later husband Ludwig Ferdinand Huber, he remained in Paris. At this
   point the revolution in Paris had entered the stage of the Reign of
   Terror introduced by the Committee of Public Safety under the rule of
   Maximilien Robespierre. Forster had the opportunity to experience the
   difference between the promises of the revolution of happiness for all
   and its cruel practice. In contrast to many other German supporters of
   the revolution, like for instance Friedrich Schiller, Forster did not
   turn back from his revolutionary ideals under the pressure of the
   terror regime. He viewed the events in France as a force of nature
   which could not be slowed down and which had to release its own
   energies to avoid being even more destructive.

   Yet before the reign of terror reached its climax, Georg Forster died
   of a stroke after a rheumatic illness in his small attic apartment at
   Rue des Moulins in Paris in January 1794, at the age of 39.

Views on nations and their culture

   Forster had partial Scottish roots and was born in Polish Royal
   Prussia. He worked in Russia, England, Poland and in several German
   countries of his times. Finally, he finished his life in France. He
   worked in different milieus and travelled a lot from his youth on. It
   was his view that this, together with his scientific upbringing based
   on the principles of the Enlightenment, gave him a wide perspective on
   different ethnic and national communities:
   Johann Reinhold Forster and Georg Forster in Tahiti, by John Francis
   Rigaud (1742-1810), 1780.
   Enlarge
   Johann Reinhold Forster and Georg Forster in Tahiti, by John Francis
   Rigaud (1742-1810), 1780.


   Georg Forster

    All peoples of the earth have equal claims to my good will..., and my
           praise and blame are independent of national prejudice.


   Georg Forster

   In his opinion all human beings have the same abilities with regard to
   reason, feelings and imagination, but these basic ingredients are used
   in different ways and in different environments, which gives rise to
   different cultures and civilisations. According to him it is obvious
   that the culture on Tierra del Fuego is at a lower level of development
   than the European culture, but he also admits that the conditions of
   life there are much more difficult and this gives people very little
   chance to develop a higher culture. Based on these opinions he was
   classified as one of the main examples of 18th century German
   cosmopolitanism.

   In contrast to the attitude expressed in these writings and to his
   Enlightenment background, he used insulting terms expressing prejudices
   against Poles in his private letters during his stay in Vilnius and in
   a diary from the journey through Poland, but he never published any
   manifestation of this attitude. These insults only became known after
   his death, when his private correspondence and diaries were released to
   the public. Since Forster's published descriptions of other nations
   were seen as impartial scientific observations, Forster's disparaging
   description of Poland in his letters and diaries was often taken at
   face value in Imperial and Nazi Germany, where it was used as a means
   of science-based support for a purported German superiority. The
   spreading of the "Polnische Wirtschaft" (Polish economy) stereotype is
   most likely due to the influence of his letters.

   Forster's attitude brought him into conflict with people of different
   nations he encountered and made him welcome nowhere, as he was too
   revolutionary and antinational for Germans, proud and opposing in his
   dealings with Englishmen, too unconcerned about Polish science for
   Poles, and too insignificant politically and ignored while in France.

Heritage

   After Forster's death his works were mostly forgotten, except in
   professional circles. This was partly due to his involvement in the
   French revolution. However, his reception changed with the politics of
   the times, with different periods focusing on different parts of his
   work. In the period of rising nationalism after the Napoleonic times he
   was regarded in Germany as a "traitor to his country", overshadowing
   the perception of his work as an author and scientist. This attitude
   rose even though the philosopher Friedrich Schlegel wrote about Forster
   at the beginning of 19th century:


   Georg Forster

   Among all those authors of prose who are justified in laying claims to
    a place in the ranks of German classics, none breathes the spirit of
                   free progress more than Georg Forster.


   Georg Forster

   Some interest in Forster's life and revolutionary actions was revived
   in the context of the liberal sentiments leading up to the 1848
   revolution.

   Remembering Forster was ostracised in the Germany of Wilhelm II and
   more so in the Third Reich, where interest in Forster was limited to
   his stance on Poland from his private letters. Later, the GDR, in turn,
   tried to profit from his memory by connecting him to its tradition as a
   scientist and revolutionary. For instance, the GDR research station in
   Antarctica that was opened on 1987- 10-25 was named after Forster. In
   West Germany, the search for democratic traditions in German history
   also lead to a more diversified picture of him in the 1970s. A
   scholarship program of the Alexander von Humboldt foundation for
   foreign scholars from developing countries is named after him. His
   reputation as one of first and most outstanding German ethnologists is
   indisputable, and his works are seen as crucial in the development of
   ethnology in Germany into a separate branch of science.

Works

     * A Voyage round the World in His Britannic Majesty's Sloop
       Resolution, Commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the Years, 1772,
       3, 4, and 5 (1777)
     * Journal of travels in Poland (August-November, 1784), The Warsaw
       Voice, 1990 31 8-9
     * Dissertatio botanico-medica de plantis esculentis insularum oceani
       Australis (1785)
     * Essays on the moral and natural geography, natural history and
       phylosophy (1789-1797)
     * Views of the Lower Rhine, Brabant, Flanders (three volumes,
       1791-1794)
     * Letters (posthumous compilation of his correspondence, 1828)
     * Werke in vier Bänden, Gerhard Steiner (editor). Leipzig 1971
     * Ansichten vom Niederrhein, Gerhard Steiner (editor). Frankfurt am
       Main: Insel, 1989. ISBN 3-458-32836-X
     * Reise um die Welt, Gerhard Steiner (editor). Frankfurt am Main:
       Insel, 1983. ISBN 3-458-32457-7
     * Über die Beziehung der Staatskunst auf das Glück der Menschheit und
       andere Schriften, Wolfgang Rödel (editor). Frankfurt am Main:
       Insel, 1966. – A little collection of political essays, notes, and
       speeches of republican thinkers and writers.
     * Georg Forsters Werke, Sämtliche Schriften, Tagebücher, Briefe,
       Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, G. Steiner et al.
       Berlin: Akademie 1958
     * Georg Forster, Revolutions-Briefe, Kurt Kersten, Athenaeum Verlag,
       1981

   The standard author abbreviation G.Forst. may be used to indicate this
   person in citing a botanical name.
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