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This page is about the literary character. For other uses, see Münchhausen.
A c. 1740 portrait of the real Münchhausen as an Imperial Russian Army officer in Riga

Hieronymus Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen was born on 11 May 1720 in Bodenwerder, Hanover.[1] He was born into the Münchhausen family,[2] an aristocratic family from Brunswick-Lüneburg.[3] The branch to which he belonged had landed estates in Rinteln and Bodenwerder and belonged to the "Black Line" of the family which was first mentioned in 1183. During his lifetime, his father's second cousin, Gerlach Adolph von Münchhausen (1688–1770),[4] was considered the most important representative of the family; He served as the Hanoverian Prime Minister under George II of Great Britain and initiated the founding of the University of Göttingen which he supervised as a curator.[5][6]

Life

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At a young age, Hieronymus von Münchhausen served as a page in the court of Duke Anthony Ulrich of Brunswick, following the duke to the Russian Empire during the Russo-Turkish War of 1737–1739.[1] The duke's wife Anna Leopoldovna became regent of Russia in 1740–1741 for their newborn son Emperor Ivan VI. Münchhausen was appointed as a cornet in the Brunswick Cuirassiers in 1739, an Imperial Russian Army cavalry regiment.[1] On 27 November 1740, Münchhausen was promoted to the rank of lieutenant.[3] Though he was stationed in Riga, Münchhausen participated in two military campaigns against the Ottoman Empire in 1740 and 1741. However, after the overthrow of the Brunswick ducal family in Russia in 1741, his career stagnated and further promotion to captain (rotmistr) took a whole decade - until 1750 - to arrive.[1] The garrison city of Riga became his main place of residence during these years. In 1744, he married Jacobine von Dunten (1725-1790), the daughter of a Baltic knight. The marriage remained childless. These years in Riga probably influenced his skills as a storyteller, because in the Baltic German noble circles gentlemen tended to tell imaginative stories about hunting or war experiences.[7]

The Bodenwerder manor house

In 1760, he retired and settled down on his estates in Bodenwerder to live as a landowner and Freiherr, remaining there until his death in 1797.[1][8] It was during this period of his life, especially at dinners he would host for local aristocrats, that Münchhausen developed a reputation as an imaginative storyteller, creating witty and highly exaggerated accounts of his military career in Russia. Over the ensuing decades, his storytelling abilities gained such renown that he frequently received visits from travelling noblemen wishing to hear his tales.[9] One guest described Münchhausen as telling his stories "cavalierly, indeed with military emphasis, yet without any concession to the whimsicality of the man of the world; describing his adventures as one would incidents which were in the natural course of events".[10] However, rather than being considered a liar, Münchhausen was seen as an honest man.[1] As another contemporary put it, Münchhausen's unbelievable narratives were designed not to deceive, but "to ridicule the disposition for the marvellous which he observed in some of his acquaintances".[11]

Jacobine von Dunten died in 1790.[12] In January 1794, Münchhausen married Bernardine Friederike Louise Brunsich von Brunn (1773-1839), a woman who was fifty-three years his junior.[12] Von Brunn reportedly became ill soon after the marriage and spent the summer of 1794 in the spa town of Bad Pyrmont, although contemporary gossip claimed that she spent her time there dancing and flirting.[12] She gave birth to a daughter, Maria Wilhemina, on 16 February 1795, nine months after her summer trip. Münchhausen filed an official complaint that the child was not his, and spent the last years of his life in divorce proceedings and alimony litigation.[12] Münchhausen died childless on 22 February 1797.[1]

Fictionalization

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Refer to caption
Portrait of Rudolf Erich Raspe, creator of the fictional Baron

The fictionalized character Baron Munchausen was created by a German writer, scientist, and con artist, Rudolf Erich Raspe.[13][14] Raspe probably met Hieronymus von Münchhausen while studying at the University of Göttingen,[5] and may even have been invited to dine with him at the mansion at Bodenwerder.[13] Raspe's later career mixed writing and scientific scholarship with theft and swindling; when the German police issued advertisements for his arrest in 1775, he fled continental Europe and settled in England.[15]

In his native German language, Raspe wrote a collection of anecdotes inspired by Münchhausen's tales, calling the collection "M-h-s-nsche Geschichten" ("M-h-s-n Stories").[16] It remains unclear how much of Raspe's material comes directly from the Baron, but the majority of the stories are derived from older sources,[17] including Heinrich Bebel's Facetiæ (1508) and Samuel Gotthold Lange's Deliciæ Academicæ (1765).[18] "M-h-s-nsche Geschichten" appeared as a feature in the eighth issue of the Vade mecum für lustige Leute (Handbook for Fun-loving People), a Berlin humor magazine, in 1781. Raspe published a sequel, "Noch zwei M-Lügen" ("Two more M-Fibs"), in the tenth issue of the same magazine in 1783.[16] The hero and narrator of these stories was identified only as "M-h-s-n", keeping Raspe's inspiration partly obscured while still allowing knowledgeable German readers to make the connection to Münchhausen.[19] Raspe's name did not appear at all.[16]

In 1785, while supervising mines at Dolcoath in Cornwall, Raspe adapted the Vade mecum anecdotes into a short English-language book, this time identifying the narrator of the book as "Baron Munchausen".[20] Other than the anglicization of Münchhausen to "Munchausen", Raspe this time made no attempt to hide the identity of the man who had inspired him, though he still withheld his own name.[21]


References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g Krause 1886, p. 1.
  2. ^ See: Münchhausen family (German article)
  3. ^ a b Carswell 1952b, p. xxvii.
  4. ^ cf. Gerlach Adolph von Münchhausen (German article)
  5. ^ a b Carswell 1952b, p. xxv.
  6. ^ Levi 1998, p. 177.
  7. ^ Werner R. Schweizer: Münchhausen und Münchhausiaden, Werden und Schicksale einer deutsch-englischen Burleske (Münchausen and Münchausiads, the development and fate of a German-English burlesque). Francke Verlag, Bern/Munich 1969.
  8. ^ Olry 2002, p. 53.
  9. ^ Fisher 2006, p. 251.
  10. ^ Carswell 1952b, pp. xxvii–xxviii.
  11. ^ Kareem 2012, pp. 495–496.
  12. ^ a b c d Meadow & Lennert 1984, p. 555.
  13. ^ a b Seccombe 1895, p. xxii.
  14. ^ Carswell 1952b, p. x.
  15. ^ Seccombe 1895, pp. xvi–xvii.
  16. ^ a b c Blamires 2009, §3.
  17. ^ Krause 1886, p. 2.
  18. ^ Olry 2002, p. 54.
  19. ^ Blamires 2009, §8.
  20. ^ Seccombe 1895, p. xix.
  21. ^ Fisher 2006, p. 252.

See also

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