Everything about Adam Olearius totally explained
Adam Olearius (born
Adam Oehlschlaeger) (ca.
August 16 1603–
February 22 1671),
German scholar,
mathematician,
geographer and
librarian. He became secretary to the ambassador sent by
Frederick III of Holstein-Gottorp, duke of
Holstein-Gottorp to the
Shah of
Persia, and published two books about the events and observations during his travels.
Travels
He was born at
Aschersleben, near
Magdeburg. After studying at
Leipzig he became librarian and court mathematician to Duke Frederick III of Holstein-Gottorp, and in 1633 he was appointed secretary to the ambassadors
Philip Crusius,
jurisconsult, and
Otto Bruggemann or Brugman, merchant, sent by the duke to
Muscovy and
Persia in the hope of making arrangements by which his newly-founded city of
Friedrichstadt should become the terminus of an overland
silk-trade. This embassy started from
Gottorp on
October 22 1633, and travelled by
Hamburg,
Lubeck,
Riga,
Dorpat (five months' stay),
Revel,
Narva,
Ladoga, and
Novgorod to
Moscow (
August 14,
1634). Here they concluded an advantageous treaty with
Michael Romanov, 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 on
29 March 1636; and left Moscow on
30 June for
Balakhna near
Nizhniy Novgorod, to where they'd already sent agents (in 1634/1635) to prepare a vessel for their descent of the
Volga. Their voyage down the great river and over the
Caspian Sea was slow and hindered by accidents, especially by grounding, as near
Derbent on
14 November 1636; but at last, by way of
Shemakha (three months' delay here),
Ardabil,
Soltaniyeh and
Kasvin, 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 by
Rasht,
Lenkoran,
Astrakhan,
Kazan,
Moscow, and other places. At
Reval, Olearius parted from his colleagues (
April 15,
1639) and embarked directly for Lubeck. On his way he'd made a chart of the
Volga, and partly for this reason Tsar 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 his
cabinet 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 on
22 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 of
Lokman. A French version of the
Beschreibung was published by
Abraham de Wicquefort (
Voyages en Moscovie, Tartarie et Perse, par Adam Olearius, Paris, 1656), an English version was made by
John 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 by
Dieterius 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 and
J. A. de Mandelslo, whose travels to the
East Indies are usually published with those of Olearius, accompanied the embassy. Under Olearius' direction the celebrated
globe of Gottorp and
armillary 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) to
Persian 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 are
Saadi's
Golistan:
Persianischer Rosenthal. In welchem viel lustige Historien ... von ... Schich Saadi in Persianischer Sprache beschrieben, printed in Schleswig by Holwein in 1654.
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