Introduction
Danzig
The Kulmus Family
Intellectual Life
Education
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Intellectual Life
Thanks to Gottsched's biography we know the family had
social connections with the intellectual elite in Danzig,
most notably they were familiar enough with Jacob Theodor Klein for him to join them in
their family concerts. From her letters we know one of
her best friends was also from such a family, Anna Renata Breyne. Klein and Johann Philipp Breyne were clearly the most
notable Danzigers of their day. Both had become
scientists, by avocation to be sure, but passionately
nevertheless. Through his travels, correspondence and
trade Johann Philipp Breyne had extensive European
connections, especially in the field of botany. His coin
collection was especially valuable. Klein collected
animals, shells, amber, and more. Both opened their
collections to the public, Breyne in one of his city
dwellings, at Langgasse 30; Klein in museum that he had built especially to house
his naturalia. Both made efforts to systematize their
collections, but when it began to be known rejected the
Linnean categorization. Luise Kulmus was intellectually
curious enough to have taken an interest in the work of
these two men. Surely we are not wrong to believe she
visited their collections repeatedly. The mature Luise
Gottsched was respected for her expertise in numismatics,
and what is more logical than to assume she first learned
about coins with her friend Anna Renata in the Breyne
collection. Similarly she may well have heard arguments
about the classification of plants and animals from two
later opponents of Linnaeus.
On the basis of one of Luise Kulmus's early poems, Auf den Fall eines vornehmen Ministers, it
seems likely the family was also acquainted with Dr. Georg
Remus, who had been Russian Prince Menshikov's physician;
for the poem investigates the moral consequences of a life
like that of the prince. Like her father, Remus had also
studied medicine in Halle. He returned to Danzig with his
own large collection of curiosities, which she may well
have known.
Similarly, she was likely familiar with current
discussions on the relations between the body and the
spirit. Her own father had dedicated his dissertation to
his professor of medicine in Halle, Stahl, a man who
believed the two were intimately connected. The
prescriptions her father administered during the plague
were based on Stahl's remedies. Her uncle, however, had
studied with the famous Boerhaave in Leiden. Boerhaave
had reinstituted the practice of autopsy and notoriously
believed in the duality of human nature: body and spirit.
After his first visit to Danzig, Gottsched sent Johann
Georg Kulmus is own treatise on the subject. In this
treatise he had defended the philosophy of Christian
Wolff.
Most likely Luise Kulmus had also been familiar with
the controversial philosophy of Christian Wolff from
family discussions. Danzig resident and professor at the
Academy (where her brother also taught) Michael Hanow was
an serious advocate of the philsophy of Wolff. Indeed
after the death of Wolff Hanow completed one of his texts.
More particularly, however, she surely heard of Wolff and
his philosophy from acquaintance with the young physicist,
Christian Gabriel Fischer. When forced to
leave Königsberg in 1725 for espousing this
philosophy of rationalism, Fischer had fled to Danzig.
There, with the approval of local authorities, he gave
public (subscription) lectures on physics and rationalism.
He also became the secretary of Jacob Theodor Klein,
helping him to organize his collections. When Klein came
for evening concerts in the Kulmus home, surely there were
discussions about Christian Wolff. No doubt, however,
Fischer was also a guest in the Kulmus home. When he
visited Leipzig, where he traveled with two young Danzig
charges, he was the one who likely first told Gottsched
about the amazing Luise Kulmus of Danzig; for it was after
his visit that Gottsched wrote requesting samples of her
poetry.
Although he had died in 1687, the legacy of Johann Hevelius, was surely still felt.
According to her husband, Luise Kulmus was fond of staring
at the night heavens. She herself reports her interest in
this in her letters to him. The observatory Hevelius had
built might have been gone, but surely not the local
knowledge of his scientific concerns: his account of the
phases of the moon, his description of the lunar surface
and more. Similarly, the young woman Hevelius married
when he was already old, Catharina Elisabeth Koopmann,
might have been dead; but the knowledge of her work on the
posthumous edition of Hevelius's texts might not have
been.
The intellectual disposition of the men of the Kulmus
household, as of Danzig in general, was concrete,
practical and scientific. They were strongly engaged in
the most current scientific discussions of the day. As
for her mother, we know of her fluency in French, that she
was interested in the arts, that she wrote poetry and was
devoutly religious.
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