KOTZEBUE, August Friedrich Ferdinand von (1761-1819), German dramatist, was born on the 3d of May 1761, at Weimar, where his father was a councillor of legation. Having attended the gymnasium of Weimar, he went in his sixteenth year to the university of Jena, and afterwards studied about a year in Duisburg. In 1780 he completed his legal studies, and was admitted an advocate. Through the influence of Count Görtz, Prussian ambassador at the Russian court, he became secretary at St Petersburg to the governor-general Von Baur, by whom he was recommended to the empress. In 1783 he received the appointment of assessor to the high court of appeal in Revel, where he married a daughter of lieutenant-general Von Essen. He was ennobled in 1785, and became president of the magistracy of the province of Esthonia. Before leaving Germany he had published some unimportant writings; in Revel he acquired a considerable reputation by his Leiden der Orteηbergischeη Familie (1785), his Kleine Gesammelte Schriften (1787-91), and his two plays, Menschenhass und Reue and Die Indianer in England (1789). The good impression produced by these works was almost effaced by a cynical book, Doctor Bahrdt mit der eisernen Stirn, which appeared with the name of Knigge on the title page. After the death of his first wife Kotzebue retired from the Russian service, and resided for some time in a country house which he had built near Narva. At this time he manifested extraordinary literary activity, publishing within a few years, besides Die jüngste Kinder meiner Laune (in 5 volumes), upwards of twenty plays. In 1798 he accepted the office of dramatist to the court theatre of Vienna, resigning it in about two years with a pension of 1000 florins. On his way to St Petersburg, where his sons were being ...educated, he was arrested in April 1800, and sent to Siberia. Fortunately he had written a comedy which flattered the vanity of Paul I.; and a translation of this play so delighted the emperor that Kotzebue was brought back, received an estate from the crown lands in Livonia, and was made director of the German theatre in St Petersburg. He returned to Germany when the emperor Paul died, and in 1802 was admitted into the Academy of Sciences at Berlin. Here, in association with Merkel, he edited Der Freimuthige, and began his Almanach dramatischer Spiele, which he continued to issue until his death. He also wrote several plays in Berlin, and made some enemies by the bitterness with which he attacked Goethe. Towards the end of 1806 he was again settled in Russia, and in the security of his estate in Esthonia wrote many satirical articles against Napoleon in Die Biene and Die Grille. As councillor of state he was attached in 1816 to the department for foreign affairs in St Petersburg, and in 1817 he went to Germany as a sort of spy in the service of Russia, with a salary of 15,000 roubles. In his weekly journal (the Literarisches Wochenblatt') he scoffed at the pretensions of those Germans who demanded free institutions, and became an object of such general dislike that he was obliged to leave Weimar for Mannheim. He was especially detested by young enthusiasts for liberty; and one of them, Karl Ludwig Sand, a theological student, formed a deliberate resolution to kill him. On the 23d of March 1819 Sand called at Kotzebue’s house in Mannheim, and stabbed him to the heart, crying, “Here, thou betrayer of the Fatherland!” The assassin was executed, and the Government of Germany made his crime an excuse for placing the universities under strict supervision. Besides his plays and the other works already mentioned, Kotzebue wrote a history of the German empire and a book on the ancient history of Prussia, neither of which has solid merit. He was also the author of Erinnerungen aus Paris (1804), and Erinnerungen von einer Heise aus Livland nach Pom und Neapel (1805). He wrote more than one hundred plays, the majority of which are now forgotten. Although destitute of poetic insight, he had remarkable facility in the invention of effective situations; and a respectable place in German literature is secured for some of his comedies by the liveliness with which their characters are portrayed, and by the sprightliness of their dialogue. There is a complete edition of his dramatic works in 28 volumes (1797-1823), another in 44 volumes (1827-29), and a third in 40 volumes (1840-41).
KOTZEBUE, Otto von (1787-1846), Russian navigator, sou of the subject of last notice, was born at Revel on December 19, 1787. After being educated at the St Petersburg school of cadets, he accompanied Krusenstern on his voyage of 1803-6. After his promotion to lieutenant, Kotzebue was placed in command of an expedition fitted out at the expense of the imperial chancellor, Count Rumantsoff, in the brig Rurick. In this vessel, with only twenty-seven men, Kotzebue set out on July 30, 1815, to find a passage across the Arctic Ocean, and explore the less known parts of Oceania. Proceeding by Cape Horn, he reached on April 16, 1816, Schouten and Lemaire’s Isle of Dogs. After cruising about the Pacific for some time, and discovering various islands and groups,—as the Krusenstern group, and the Kutusoff and Suwaroff Islands in the east of the Caroline archipelago, —Kotzebue made for Kamchatka, and on June 29 reached New Archangel. In the middle of July he proceeded northwards, coasting along the north-west coast of America, discovering and naming Kotzebue Gulf or Sound and Krusenstern Cape. Returning by the coast of Asia, he again sailed to the south, sojqurned for three weeks at the Sandwich Islands, and on January 1, 1817, discovered New Year Island. After some further cruising in the Pacific he again proceeded north, but, a severe attack of illness compelling him to return to Europe, he reached the Neva on August 3, 1818, bringing home with him a large collection of previously unknown plants and much new ethnological information. In 1823 Kotzebue, now a captain, was entrusted with the command of a new expedition, in two ships of war, the main object of which was to take reinforcements to Kamchatka. There was, however, a staff of scientific men on board, who collected much valuable information and material in geography, ethnography, and natural history. The expedition left Cronstadt on August 23, and, proceeding by Cape Horn, visited the Radak and Society Islands, reaching Petropavlovsk in July 1824. Many positions along the coast were rectified, the Navigator Islands visited, and several discoveries made. The expedition returned by the Mariannes, Philippines, New California, and Sandwich Islands, reaching Cronstadt on July 10, 1826. There are English translations of both Kotzebue’s narratives: —A Voyage for the, Puιpose of Exploring a North-East Passage, undertaken in the years 1815-18, 3 vols. (1821); and A New Voyage Round the World in the years 1823-26 (1830). The narrative of the second voyage is generally considered to be rather highly coloured, while in the first Kotzebue animadverts in strong terms on the conduct of the English missionaries in the Society and Sandwich Islands, who, however, were defended both by Ellis and Mr Charles Darwin. Three years after his return from his second voyage, Kotzebue retired to his estate in Esthonia, where he died February 15, 1846.
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