Perspectivia

Herrmann_Christian

Surname

Герман; Hermann

Name

Христиан; Christian

Languages taught

Latin; German

Confession

Lutheran

Place of birth, country

Electorate of Bavaria (“Kurfürstentum Bayern”)

Place of birth, town (province)

Memmingen

Place of death, country

Russia

Place of death, town (province)

St Petersburg

Date of death

1746-04-14

Family relations

1737-09-29, married to Brigitta Besson (widow Utermark)

Career in Russia

Hermann joined the Academy School as Latin and German teacher in June 1732. He taught Latin in class four (also called “quarta”) and supervised the teacher Potapski in teaching German in class five (also called “quinta”). Hermann was also charged with writing fair copies of documents for the Academy Chancellery. In 1737 Hermann is documented as teacher in the German class. He received a salary of 200 roubles per year. According to a decree of May 5, 1743, Hermann was discharged, presumably because he did not know Russian. The Academy Chancellery criticised Hermann for using Latin as medium of instruction and proposed that translators or students should take over Hermannʼs class, so that Russian pupils could understand their teacher more easily.

Institutions in which the teacher has taught in Russia

Academy School (at the Academy of Science, St Petersburg)

Pupils

In the first half of the 18th century, both the Academy School and the Infantry Noble Cadet Corps were the most important schools in Russia. The Academy School’s pupil registers, published by Sukhomlinov, list about 820 pupils attending the Academy School during this period of time. At least two thirds of these pupils learned German. In 1738, Hermann instructed a group of 11 pupils in German; the latter had been sent to the Academy of Science from the Moscow Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy, among them M.V. Lomonosov, N.I. Popov, I.I. Golubtsev and V.I. Lebedev.

Social status of teacher’s pupils

nobility; merchants; clergy; craftsmen

In principle, there were two different categories of students, attending the Academy School: those in receipt of a government scholarship and independent (self-funding) pupils. Schwanwitz’ report (1736) lists 78 independent pupils, among them 54 nobles and 24 non-nobles. 57 pupils received a scholarship, among them 42 children, whose fathers served in the admiralty or in the army and who were sent to the Academy School, especially to learn German. Thus, the family background of the pupils was largely diversified from a wide spectrum of professions: from the higher nobility, army officers and civil servants, such as staff members of the Academy’s chancellery or the Collegia, to merchants, craftsmen, soldiers, farmers and even ordinary servants.

Place of work in Russia, city (province)

St Petersburg

Dates of existence of the school / pedagogical activity

1732-06-20--1743-05-31

Subjects and aspects of subjects taught by the teacher

Latin; German

Hermann taught Latin and German, i.e. reading, writing, spelling, grammar, conversation and vocabulary exercises, and also arithmetic. A report of December 1737 includes the following note: “Teacher in a German class. He teaches his students the fundamental rules of Latin, makes them translate from Latin into German and from German into Latin, teaches them spelling and arithmetic.” (Сухомлинов 1886, v. 3, p. 580f.).

Methods of teaching

In February 1738, Christian Hermann gave a detailed report on the 11 muscovite pupils, whom he instructed in German. He describes the progression of the learning contents as follows: 1. reading and writing in German, 2. declination and conjugation, 3. learning by heart and analysing Latin and German dialogues, 4. learning syntactical rules and translating them from Latin to German. Furthermore, pupils received a specific amount of vocabulary each day and had to memorize the words.

Textbooks and other didactical literature used by the teacher

  • · [Martin Schwanwitz], Немецкая грамматика, из разных авторов собрана и российской юности в пользу издана от учителя немецкого языка при Санкт-Петербургской гимназии, St Petersburg, Tipogr. AN, 1730.
  • · [Ehrenreich Weissmann], Немецко-патинский и русский лексикон купно с первыми началами рускаго языка к общей полъзе при Имп. Академии науке, печатию издан, St Petersburg, Tipogr. AN, 1731.
  • · [Joachim Lange], Школьные разговоры, St Petersburg, Tipogr. AN, 1738.
  • · Азбука на немецком языке (probably: St Petersburg, 1714).
  • · German calendar.
  • These books were used at the Academy School at the time.

Sources

  • Веселовский К.С., Протоколы заседаний Конференции императорской Академии наук с 1725 пo 1803 год: в 4 т., под ред. К.С. Веселовского, St Petersburg, 1897, vol. 1, pp. 193, 259, 361; Сухомлинов М.И., Материалы для истории Академии наук, St Petersburg, 1886, vol. 2, p. 177; 1886, vol. 3, pp. 580f., 612; 1887, vol. 4, p. 490; 1889, vol. 5, p. 703f.; Erik-Amburger-Datenbank. Ausländer im vorrevolutionären Russland [http://dokumente.ios-regensburg.de/amburger/index.php?id=53650&mode=1]; Koch Kristine, 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, p. 179.

Author of the article

Kristine Dahmen