Georg Gottfried Gervinus

Georg Gottfried Gervinus (20 May 1805 – 18 March 1871) was a German literary and political historian.

Gervinus was born in Darmstadt. He was educated at the gymnasium of the town, and intended for a commercial career, but in 1825 he became a student of the university of Giessen. In 1826 he went to Heidelberg, where he attended the lectures of the historian Schlosser, who became henceforth his guide and his model. In 1828 he was appointed teacher at a private school at Frankfort-on-Main, and in 1830 Privatdozent at Heidelberg.

A volume of his collected Historische Schriften procured him the appointment of professor extraordinarius; while the first volume of his Geschichte der poetischen Nationallitteratur der Deutschen (History of the poetical national literature of the Germans; 1835–1842, 5 vols.) subsequently entitled Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung (History of German poetry; 5th edition, by Karl Bartsch, 1871–1874) brought him the appointment to a regular professorship of history and literature at Göttingen. This work is the first comprehensive history of German literature written both with scholarly erudition and literary skill. In the following year he wrote his Grundzüge der Historik, which is perhaps the most thoughtful of his philosophico-historical productions.

The same year brought his expulsion from Göttingen in consequence of his protest, in conjunction with six of his colleagues, against the violation of the constitution by Ernest Augustus, king of Hanover and duke of Cumberland. After several years in Heidelberg, Darmstadt and Rome, he settled permanently in Heidelberg, where, in 1844, he was appointed honorary professor. He zealously took up in the following year the cause of the German Catholics, hoping it would lead to a union of all the Christian confessions, and to the establishment of a national church. He also came forward in 1846 as a patriotic champion of the Schleswig-Holsteiners, and when, in 1847, King Frederick William IV promulgated the royal decree for summoning the so-called United Diet (German: Vereinigter Landtag), Gervinus hoped that this event would form the basis of the constitutional development of the largest German state. He founded, together with some other patriotic scholars, the Deutsche Zeitung, which certainly was one of the best-written political journals ever published in Germany. His appearance in the political arena secured his election as deputy for the Prussian province of Saxony to the National Assembly sitting in 1848 at Frankfort. Disgusted with the failure of that body, he retired from all active political life.

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