- Adam Olearius
Adam Olearius (born Adam Ölschläger or Oehlschlaeger) (ca.
August 16 1603 –February 22 1671 ) was a German scholar,mathematician ,geographer andlibrarian . He became secretary to the ambassador sent byFrederick III, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp , to theShah of Persia, and published two books about the events and observations during his travels.Travels
He was born at
Aschersleben , nearMagdeburg . After studying at Leipzig he became librarian and court mathematician to Frederick III, and in 1633 he was appointed secretary to the ambassadorsPhilip Crusius ,jurisconsult , andOtto Bruggemann or Brugman, merchant, sent by the duke toMuscovy and Persia in the hope of making arrangements by which his newly-founded city ofFriedrichstadt should become the terminus of an overlandsilk -trade. This embassy started fromGottorp onOctober 22 1633 , and travelled byHamburg ,Lübeck ,Riga ,Dorpat (five months' stay),Reval ,Narva , Ladoga, andNovgorod toMoscow (August 14 ,1634 ). Here they concluded an advantageous treaty with TsarMichael of Russia , and returned forthwith to Gottorp (December 14 ,1634 –April 7 ,1635 ) to procure the ratification of this arrangement from the duke, before proceeding to Persia.With this accomplished, they started afresh from Hamburg on
22 October 1635 , arrived at Moscow on29 March 1636 ; and left Moscow on30 June forBalakhna nearNizhniy Novgorod , to where they had already sent agents (in 1634/1635) to prepare a vessel for their descent of theVolga . Their voyage down the great river and over theCaspian Sea was slow and hindered by accidents, especially by grounding, as nearDerbent on14 November 1636 ; but at last, by way ofShemakha (three months' delay here),Ardabil ,Soltaniyeh andKasvin , they reached the Persian court at Isfahan (August 3 ,1637 ), and were received by the shah (August 16 ).Negotiations here were not as successful as at Moscow, and the embassy left Isfahan on
21 December 1637 , and returned home byRasht ,Lenkoran ,Astrakhan ,Kazan ,Moscow , and other places. At Reval, Olearius parted from his colleagues (April 15 ,1639 ) and embarked directly for Lübeck. On his way he had made a chart of theVolga , and partly for this reason Michael wished to either persuade or compel him to enter his service. Once back at Gottorp, Olearius became librarian to the duke, who also made him keeper of hiscabinet of curiosities , and induced the tsar to excuse his (promised) return to Moscow. Under his care the Gottorp library and cabinet were greatly enriched in manuscripts, books, and oriental and other works of art: in 1651 he purchased, for this purpose, the collection of the Dutch scholar and physician,Bernard ten Broecke ("Paludanus"). He died at Gottorp on22 February 1671 .Books
It is by his admirable narrative of the Russian and the Persian legation ("Beschreibung der muscowitischen und persischen Reise", (Schleswig, 1647, and afterwards in several enlarged editions, 1656, etc.) that Olearius is best known, though he also published a history of
Holstein ("Kurtzer Begriff einer holsteinischen Chronic", Schleswig, 1663), a famous catalogue of the Holstein-Gottorp cabinet (1666), and a translation of the "Gulistan" ("Persianisches Rosenthal", Schleswig, 1654), to which was appended a translation of the fables ofLokman . A French version of the "Beschreibung" was published byAbraham de Wicquefort ("Voyages en Moscovie, Tartarie et Perse, par Adam Olearius", Paris, 1656), an English version was made byJohn Davies of Kidwelly ("Travels of the Ambassadors sent by Frederic, Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy and the King of Persia", London, 1662; and 1669), and a Dutch translation byDieterius van Wageningen ("Beschrijvingh van de nieuwe Parciaensche ofte Orientaelsche Reyse", Utrecht, 1651); an Italian translation of the Russian sections also appeared ("Viaggi di Moscovia", Viterbo and Rome, 1658).Paul Fleming the poet andJ. A. de Mandelslo , whose travels to theEast Indies are usually published with those of Olearius, accompanied the embassy. Under Olearius' direction the celebratedglobe of Gottorp andarmillary sphere were executed between 1654 and 1664; the globe was given to Peter the Great of Russia in 1713 by Duke Frederick's grandson,Christian Augustus . Olearius' unpublished works include a "Lexicon Persicum" and several other Persian studies.By his lively and well-informed writing he introduced Germany (and the rest of
Europe ) toPersian literature and culture. Montesquieu depended on him for local color in writing his satiric "Lettres Persanes" ("Persian Letters ", 1721), though he used the French translation, "Relation de voyage de Moscovie, Tartarie et de Perse." Among his many translations of Persian literature into German areSaadi 's "Golistan": "Persianischer Rosenthal. In welchem viel lustige Historien ... von ... Schich Saadi in Persianischer Sprache beschrieben," printed in Schleswig by Holwein in 1654.See also
*
Globe of Gottorf
*Jürgen Ovens painted his portraitReferences
*1911
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