Perspectivia

Brettschneider_Peter_Daniel

Surname

Бретшнейдер; Brettschneider

Name

Петер Данил; Peter Daniel

Languages taught

German; Latin; Swedish

Confession

Lutheran

Place of birth, country

Anhalt-Zerbst

Place of birth, town (province)

Zerbst

Family relations

Married in January 1710. Father of Christian Gottlieb Brettschneider (born in 1710), who was enrolled as a pupil at the Academy School in St Petersburg in 1727. Father-in-law of Johann Apitz (Иван Христофорович Апис), teacher at the School of the Lutheran New Community in Moscow in the 1740s.

Education

Brettschneider matriculated as a student of Halle University on August 4th, 1698.

Initial profession

tutor

Career in Russia

Together with his colleagues Johann Christian Büttner and Michael Ruttich, Peter Daniel Brettschneider was sent to Moscow by A.H. Francke. He arrived in Moscow in December 1705 and became a German and Latin teacher (upper class, prima) at the Moscow Foreign Language School (annual salary: 100 roubles plus 46 roubles for food, from January 1709 on, 110 roubles). Later, from 1711 on, Brettschneider also taught Swedish. He left the school in August 1712 due to the declining number of students. In 1714, he is documented cantor of the court orchestra/chapel. Until 1732, he was a German teacher at the school of the Lutheran New Community in the German Quarter.

Institutions in which the teacher has taught in Russia

Moscow Foreign Language School

Pupils

Fedor Butkovskii; Maksim Butkovskii; Ivan Chebotarev; Stepan Chebotarev; Petr Glebov; Ivan Kartsov; Alexei Khrushchev; Andrei Khrushchev; Boris Khrushchev; Ivan Khrushchev; Semen Khrushchev; Ivan Ladyzhenskii; Matvei Lovzin; Prince Fedor Meshcherskii; Prince Petr Obolenskii; Leontei Ostrovskoi; Iakov Rubinov; Vasilii Samarin; Artemii Solovetskii; Semen Tarasov; Ivan Ushakov; Ignatii Yudin (Белокуров/ Зерцалов 1907, p.113, 126, 178f.).

The complete list of pupils studying at the Moscow Foreign Language School between 1703 and 1715 was published by Белокуров/ Зерцалов, 1907, p.XXII-XL.

Social status of teacher’s pupils

nobility; civil servants; soldiers; merchants; craftsmen

At the very beginning of the Moscow Foreign Language School, pupils almost always came from the administration or (in some cases) from the higher nobility. The pupils had to learn foreign languages for service in the administration and the ministries (collegia) or diplomatic service. Quite soon, the social background of the pupils was significantly extended and sons of soldiers and craftsmen also enrolled. There were two different categories of students: those who received a government scholarship and independent (self-funding) pupils. To attract more pupils, in the first years of the existence of the school, students were exempted from military service.

Place of work in Russia, city (province)

Moscow

Dates of existence of the school / pedagogical activity

1705-1712

Subjects and aspects of subjects taught by the teacher

German; Latin; Swedish

Methods of teaching

In July 1712, Brettschneider gave a report about the progress of his students. After one-and-a-half years of instruction, the student Матвей Ловзин could “talk and translate” in German, but his translation skills were not yet perfect, which was documented by his translation of a book, given to him by Fedor Polikarpov (Белокуров/ Зерцалов 1907, p.178). Polikarpov was the author of the “Slavonic-Greek-Latin Primer”, published at the Moscow Print Yard in 1701, but it is not clear, which books Brettschneider gave to his pupils. Another pupil, Fedor Butkovskii, developed the same translation skills as Matvei Lovzin. Other pupils, who had studied German for half a year, namely Iakov Rubinov, Semen Tarasov and Ivan Kartsov could read and write and to some extent also talk (Белокуров/ Зерцалов 1907, p.178f.).

Textbooks and other didactical literature used by the teacher

  • · Comenius, Johann Amos, Vestibulum linguae latinae […].
  • · Comenius, Johann Amos, Januae linguarum reseratae […].
  • · Comenius, Johann Amos, Orbis sensualium pictus […] Die sichtbare Welt […] (possibly: Nürnberg, 1698).
  • It is not quite sure which editions of Comeniusʼ books were used at the Moscow Foreign Language School. What we know is that J.E. Glück translated Comeniusʼ “Vestibulum”, “Januae” and “Orbis pictus” into Russian. The “Vestibulum” was completed by the end of 1703 and Glück applied to the tsar with a petition to publish it as “Преддверие к познанию русскаго, немецкаго, латинскаго и францускаго языков” (Белокуров 1907, p.47). However, all the manuscripts remained unpublished.
  • Other texts used in language classes at the Moscow Foreign Language school: various nomenclatures (primer, азбука) in German; proverbs; compilations of dialogues (possibly the Latin-German dialogues of Johann Georg Seybold); the Lutheran bible; the Lutheran catechism; German chants hymns.

Sources

  • Белокуров С.А., Зерцалов А.Н., О немецких школах в Москве в первой четверти ХVIII в. Документы Московских архивов. 1701-1715, in: Чтения в Императорском обществе истории и древностей российских, при Московском университете, bk. I, part 1, vol. 220, Moscow, 1907, pp. XIX, 13, 23, 27, 113, 115-120, 122-127, 178f.; Erik-Amburger-Datenbank. Ausländer im vorrevolutionären Russland [http://dokumente.ios-regensburg.de/amburger/index.php?id=7506&mode=1]; Koch K., Deutsch als Fremdsprache im Russland des 18. Jahrhunderts. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Fremdsprachenlernens in Europa und zu den deutsch-russischen Beziehungen, Berlin, New York, 2002, S. 177; Kovrigina V.A., Die deutschen Lehrer in Moskau in der zweiten Hälfte des 17. und im ersten Viertel des 18.Jahrhunderts, Lüneburg, 2000, S. 28, 37, 39; Winter Eduard, Halle als Ausgangspunkt der deutschen Russlandkunde im 18. Jahrhundert, Berlin, 1953, S. 70, 387.

Author of the article

Kristine Dahmen