Izvorni znanstveni članak
Tomo Baseljić in Göttingen
Žarko Muljačić
; Freie Universität, Berlin, Njemačka
Sažetak
After almost forty years since the author of this paper published his thesis on Tomo Baseljić-Bassegli (1958), he has decided to concentrate once again upon this talented man of letters and great personality in terms of Croatian political thought. The author indulges in one of the four Western European intellectual environments which have had direct impact upon the work of Baseljić (France being the fifth, which he had barely visited). The country in question is the Hannover electorate (at the time under the common ruler of Great Britain) and its university center Göttingen, where Baseljić pursued four semesters of law and natural sciences at the newly opened Georgia Augusta in 1737. His stay in Göttingen was preceded by a somewhat longer period of study in two other foreign states geographically closer to Dubrovnik: following three months’ preparations and accompanied by A. Fortis, Baseljić spent two academic years in Italy (Venice, Padua), and engaged in cabinet and field research work in Bern, Lausanne, and elsewhere in Switzerland (1781-1783). According to Baseljić’s own nostalgic remarks, Switzerland had become the country where “his heart lies”, for apart from its being the place of his first serious Lehrjahre, it was also the inescapable setting of his education sentimentale. Baseljić was to experience his decisive initiation into the new European thought (the Enlightenment and the early years of pre-Romanticism) in the very Josephinian Vienna where he aboded from 1785 until the summer of 1792, except for two longer interruptions. Owing to the (un)successful marriage to Maria von Born, Baseljić entered the cultural elite (including Mozart and other freemasons who gathered in the house of his father-in-law), while he failed to join the government circles which manipulated the aforementioned “avant garde” for their own political purposes. Baseljić was to return home for good.
In this paper, the author focusses on a number of obscure and controversial issues, as follows: (1) the date and character of Baseljić’s matriculation; (2) Baseljić’s being on friendly terms with G. Ch. Lichtenberg, who lectured on theoretical and experimental physics as well as the relationship between this “heretic of German spirit”, Baseljić and A. Volta; (3) the contribution of Baseljić to the history of Dano-Croatian cultural links (the intermediary role of F. Munter); (4) The letters to his sister Desa Gučetić and Swiss acquaintances written from Göttingen, illustrative of Baseljić’s impressions of Germany and
Göttingen, and holding at the same time the key to understanding of his psychogram; (5) Croatian students in Göttingen in the period from 1742 (Ragusan Lujo Obradović) to 1880-1881 (Đuro Arnold).
It is worthwhile to note that Croatian cultural history would benefit greatly if it were provided with analogous data concerning other foreign universities.
Ključne riječi
Tomo Baseljić; Dubrovnik; Göttingen
Hrčak ID:
239412
URI
Datum izdavanja:
20.7.1998.
Posjeta: 714 *