The history of this kind goes back centuries, when in 1183 a certain knight Rembert is mentioned in historical documents. A hundred years later, his descendant Heino ended up in the crusading army of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (III Crusade, 1189-1192). Knight Heino was more fortunate than Emperor Frederick: he, as you know, drowned on June 10, 1190 in the Selif River, never reaching Palestine. And Heino survived and left offspring, the male part of which, as was expected in those years, fought and died in countless wars until it practically dried up. And only one offspring of Heino was still alive, but only because in his youth he rejected the military path, deciding to become a monk. As a sign of respect for the old Germanic family, by a special decree, he was stripped of his hair so that he could, having married, have children. This is how a new noble surname appeared in Germany - Munchhausen (Munchausen), which means "Monk's House".
It was a monk with a staff and a book that was depicted on the coat of arms of this family.
Coat of arms of the Münghausen
In the 15th century, the Munchausen family split into two lines: “white” (a monk in white clothes with a black stripe) and “black” (a monk in black clothes with a white stripe). And in the 18th century, the Munchausen received the title of baron. Among the descendants of this monk were many soldiers, the most famous of whom was Hilmar von Munchausen, who lived in the 16th century, a condottiere in the service of Philip II of Spain and the Duke of Alba. But even in the civil line, some of his descendants achieved great success. Gerlach Adolf von Munchausen, minister of the Hanoverian court and cousin of our hero, went down in history as the founder of the famous University of Göttingen (1734), in which many Russian nobles later studied, and Pushkin assigned Lensky there.
University of Göttingen in 1837
Otto II von Munchausen was a famous botanist, one of the families of Indian flowering shrubs was even named after him. But the glory of our hero overshadowed all the achievements of his ancestors, although it was so dubious and scandalous that it became the curse of an old and well-deserved family.
Jerome Karl Friedrich Baron von Munchausen was born in 1720 on the Bodenwerder family estate, which can still be seen in Germany - it is located on the banks of the Weser River 50 km from the city of Hanover.
In the two-story house where Jerome was born, a memorial room dedicated to him was opened in 1937, but in 2002 the exhibits were moved to the stone hayloft (also, once belonging to the baron). The building now houses the burgomaster. In front of him is the famous monument-fountain: the baron sits on the front half of the horse, which drinks, but cannot get drunk.
Bodenwerder, monument-fountain at the burgomaster's office
Jerome Karl Friedrich was the fifth child of Colonel Otto von Munchausen, who died as soon as the boy was 4 years old. At the age of 15, the young man was lucky - he managed to get a job with Ferdinand Albrecht II - Duke of Braunschweig, whose residence was located in Wolfenbütel. Fate, it seemed, was favorable to the offspring of the ancient family, since in 1737 he managed to get the post of page of the younger brother of the Duke - Anton Ulrich. However, if we recall the circumstances under which this seemingly "dustless" vacancy for the prince's page opened up, the favor of fate should be recognized as very relative. Anton Ulrich lived in Russia from 1733, commanding the III cuirassier regiment, later called Braunschweig. In 1737, during the next war with Turkey, he was in the army. During the storming of the Ochakov fortress, a horse was killed under the prince, two of his pages were mortally wounded. In fact, the desperate guy was this Anton Ulrich, a real combat general. And he fought well - both with the Turks and the Tatars. Not at all a silly stutterer and a goof, as our Dumas Pere portrayed him - V. Pikul.
Anton Ulrich, Duke of Braunschweig-Bevern-Luneburg
And now, as a replacement for the dead pages, Jerome went to Russia. The war with Turkey continued, and the chance to share their fate was very high. Our hero has never been a court shaker, he never ran away from danger, in 1738 and we see him in the Russian-Turkish war. At that time, of course, he did not fly on the core, but he fought regularly. He also fell in love with Russian hunting, which later, to his misfortune, talked a lot in Germany - slightly lying, as it should be. In 1739, Anton-Ulrich married Anna Leopoldovna, niece of the Russian Empress Anna Ioannovna, who was appointed regent of the unborn male child. This boy will be the unfortunate Emperor John VI, another victim of the Age of Palace Revolutions.
During the wedding, Jerome met with a certain princess Golitsina. The fleeting romance ended with the birth of an illegitimate child, so the descendants of the famous baron still live in Russia. Perhaps it was this scandalous connection that caused the young baron to suddenly leave Anton Ulrich's retinue and even leave Petersburg for Riga - he entered the Braunschweig Cuirassier Regiment in the rank of a cornet. But, as the saying goes, "whatever fate doesn't do - it's all for the best." Subsequent events showed that refusal from court service and departure from St. Petersburg was an exceptionally correct decision. At the new place, the baron was doing quite successfully, in 1740 he received the next rank - lieutenant, and the prestigious position of commander of the 1st company of the regiment. After another palace coup, organized in favor of Elizabeth (1741), the "Braunschweig family" was under arrest for some time in the Riga Castle - this is an occasion to reflect on the fickleness of happiness and the vicissitudes of fate. I wonder if Munchausen met with his former master and patron then? And did they find the strength to say something to each other?
In February 1744 Jerome again touched upon history: at the head of his company, for 3 days he accompanied and guarded the bride of the heir to the throne, the German princess Sophia Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst, on her way to St. Petersburg. The one that does not have the slightest rights to the Russian throne, nevertheless, usurps it after the murder of her husband in 1762, and will go down in history under the name of Catherine II. It is curious that the mother of the German princess in her diary especially noted the beauty of the officer who met them. Who knows what would have happened if fate had brought Munchausen and the future Catherine II together later. Perhaps, surrounded by the loving empress, a new favorite has appeared? But what was not, that was not. Instead of "cupids" with a German adventurer, the baron in the same 1744 married another young German woman - from local, Courland: the daughter of a local judge, Jacobine von Dunten. This marriage could be called happy if it were not childless. Munchausen continued to serve in the once Braunschweig regiment, but now renamed the Riga regiment, but the former page of the deposed emperor's father did not enjoy the trust of the new authorities. But even though they did not imprison and exile, thanks for that. In general, despite his impeccable service, Jerome received the next officer's rank (captain) only in 1750. However, almost immediately, the newly-made captain Munchausen learns about the death of his mother. Since his brothers by that time, according to family tradition, had died in the European wars, Jerome asks for a year's leave and leaves for Germany. He never returned to Russia, and in 1754 he was expelled from the regiment. But he could not achieve resignation and pension, since for this he had to personally appear at the military department. Correspondence with the bureaucrats was not successful, as a result, Münghausen was listed as a Russian officer until the end of his life and even signed himself as a "captain of the Russian service." On this basis, during the Seven Years War, his house was freed from standing during the occupation of Bodenwerder by the French army - allied Russia. In his hometown, Munchausen was disliked, considering (and calling) "Russian". This is not particularly surprising: after 13 years in Russia, everyone becomes "Russian" - Germans, French, Swedes, Italians, British, Irish, Arabs, even natives of "black" Africa. Some of them become "a little bit Russian", others - "quite Russian", but they never return to their previous state - a fact that has been repeatedly verified and proven.
Even a young and full of strength man is bored, forced to lead a modest life of a poor provincial landowner. He enjoys hunting and trips to Hanover, Göttingen and Hameln (the one who became famous for the legend of the Pied Piper). But the baron's favorite place was still the Göttingen tavern on Judenstrasse 12 - they say that R. E. Raspe, who studied at the local university, visited there. It was here that the baron most often told his acquaintances about his Russian adventures: playing to the audience, and, under the influence of alcohol, a little, exaggerating and insinuating, naturally (otherwise, what interest?). The problem was that Munchausen turned out to be too good a storyteller with extraordinary acting skills: his stories, unlike many others like them, were remembered by the audience, were not forgotten the very next day. Today, the Baron would become a super successful video blogger, the creator of countless "memes" - with millions of subscribers and tens of thousands of "likes". There is a story about how this happened:
"Usually Munchausen began to talk after dinner, lighting his huge foam pipe with a short mouthpiece and placing a steaming glass of punch in front of him … After drinking a lot of wine, he gestured more and more expressively, twisted his dandy wig with his hands on his head, his face became more and more animated and reddened and he, usually a very truthful person, at these moments he played out his fantasies remarkably."
And all would be fine, but in 1781 in the magazine "Guide for Merry People" someone suddenly published 16 small stories entitled "Stories of M-G-Z-NA". This publication has not yet done much harm to the reputation of the baron, since only close friends understood whose name was hidden under mysterious letters. And there was nothing particularly scandalous in those stories. But in 1785, R. E. Raspe, a professor at the University of Kassel, having lost (or appropriated) some valuable artifacts, decided that the climate of Foggy Albion suits him better than the German one. Having settled a little in England, on the basis of those magazine stories, he wrote and published in London the famous book "The Story of Baron Munchausen about his travels to Russia". It was then that the literary baron became Munchausen - Munchausen, the English transcription of the German word Munchhausen: the letter in the middle is lost.
Raspe's book in German with illustrations by Gustave Dore
In 1786 this book was translated into German by Gustav Burger, adding a number of new, completely fantastic episodes: "Amazing travels, hikes and funny adventures of Baron Munchausen on water and on land, which he usually talked about over a bottle of wine with his friends" … It was Burger who became the author of the "canonical" literary version of our hero's adventures.
Gustave Burger
The success of the book in Europe was overwhelming, and already in 1791 it was translated into Russian - and in Russia some of the old acquaintances of the baron also had the pleasure of familiarizing themselves with it. The title of the first Russian translation became a proverb: "If you don't like it, don't listen, but don't bother lying."Since Raspe and Burger did not put their names on the books, and did not even receive a fee (they both died in poverty - both in 1794), many decided that all these funny and incredible stories were written from the words of Münghausen himself. And for our hero "black" times have come. It got to the point that Bodenwerder became a place of pilgrimage for those wishing to see the famous baron, and the servants had to literally drive these "tourists" away from their homes.
The nickname Lügen-Baron (liar baron or liar) literally stuck to the unfortunate Munchausen (and even now in Germany he is called that). Pay attention to how evil this nickname is: not a dreamer, not a storyteller, not a joker, not a merry fellow, and not an eccentric - a liar. Even the grotto, built on his estate by Münghausen, was called by contemporaries the "pavilion of lies": they say, it was in it that the baron "hung noodles on his ears" to his narrow-minded naive friends. Some researchers suggest that this was partly a reaction to the "unpatriotic" character - all his adventures take place far from home, and he even fights for Russia. If the baron performed his incredible feats "for the glory of the Reich" (not the Third, of course - still the First), in extreme cases, not with the Russians, but with the Austrians, the Turks, the reaction could be completely different.
The most notorious "patriots" began to release "sequels" of the Baron's adventures, in which the action took place in Germany. New stories were pretty much spiced up with the plots of traditional German "Schwanks" and the hero in them looked like a complete idiot. Heinrich Schnorr especially distinguished himself in this field, who did not hesitate to accompany his book "Supplement to the Adventures of Munchausen" (1789) with many real facts from the personal life of the baron. It was with the publishers of these one-off and long-forgotten books that the offended Münghausen tried to sue.
Family troubles were added to all this. Widowed in 1790, the baron, at 73, suddenly married 17-year-old Bernardine von Brun, who immediately became pregnant - not from her husband, but from a clerk from a neighboring city. The baron did not recognize the child and filed a divorce lawsuit. The process dragged on and ended with the complete ruin of the unlucky husband. In 1797, at the age of 77, the former gallant Russian captain, the soul of the companies of Hanover, Göttingen and Hamelin, and now the hero of offensive anecdotes, died, lonely and no longer interesting to anyone. He was buried in the Münghausen family crypt - in the church of the village of Kemnade. At a reburial attempt, undertaken 100 years later, it was found that the face and body of the baron were practically untouched by decay, but crumbled when fresh air was available. This made such an impression on everyone that they put the tombstone back - out of harm's way, and left everything as it is. Soon there were no people left in Bodenwerder who could remember where the famous native of their city lay, and the last resting place of the baron was lost.
It seems strange, but only at the end of the twentieth century in the homeland of the famous baron they realized that their fellow countryman could become an excellent "brand" that attracts tourists to the city. They erected the aforementioned monument in front of the burgomaster, then another, where the baron sits on a cannonball flying out of a cannon, set up the production of souvenirs. And now Bodenwerder is part of the so-called "German Street of Fairy Tales". Bremen (understand why?), Hameln (which was described in the article), Kassel (the city of the brothers Grimm), and some others are located on this "street". Not a bad addition to the budget of a small (population - about 7000 people) city.
They also decided to make a little money on the baron in Latvia, where Jerome Karl von Munchausen lived in the town of Dunte, near Riga. Even the fact that the brave baron was an officer of the Russian "occupation" army did not confuse the enterprising Latvians. The former museum in the old tavern burned down, but in 2005 a new one was built, at which a restaurant and a hotel work.
Munchausen Museum, Latvia
From the museum to the sea there is the "Munchausen Trail" with various sculptures dedicated to the baron's adventures.
"Munchausen trail"
There are images of Münghausen on the stamp and the coin.
Russia also has small museums dedicated to the literary baron, and quite a few monuments in different cities. Such a sculpture dedicated to our hero can be seen in Kaliningrad.
But what did the famous baron look like? The vast majority of people imagine a thin old man with a large nose, curls, a dashingly curled mustache and a goatee goatee. This is how Munchausen usually appears in films, cartoons, and this is how the sculptors of numerous monuments depict him. Not everyone knows that the author of this image is Gustave Dore, who illustrated the book so well in 1862 that he created a kind of "parallel reality" in which "fantasy on a theme" began to be perceived as a real portrait.
G. Dore, "Baron Munchausen", 1862
However, there is reason to believe that this famous bust with the Latin motto "Mendace veritas" ("Truth in Lies") is a caricature of the Emperor Napoleon III. Goatee beards at the time of the real Munchausen were not in vogue - they cannot be found in any portrait of those years (meanwhile, G. Dore is always attentive to details). It was Napoleon III who made the goatee popular. And the three ducks on the fictional Munchausen coat of arms are a clear allusion to the three Bonopart bees. But there is a lifetime portrait of our hero, written by G. Bruckner in 1752, in which Munchausen is depicted in the form of a Russian cuirassier. This painting, unfortunately, died during the Second World War, but its photographs have survived. So, what was the actual appearance of Munchausen? We remember that the mother of the future Empress Catherine II noted in her diary the beauty of the officer accompanying them. And many of the baron's acquaintances speak of his high physical strength, characteristic of all men of this kind. And in the portrait we see a well-built young man with a regular face, whose nose does not stand out at all. No mustache, no beard, a small wig on his head.
Hieronymus Karl Friedrich Baron von Munchausen, portrait by G. Bruckner in 1752
Nothing caricature, it is absolutely impossible to recognize in this man Munchausen Raspe and Burger. But the character of the books that are offensive to the real Munchausen has been living his own life for a long time, constantly getting involved in new adventures for him. However, it must be remembered that, in addition to the literary Munchausen, there is also the real Baron Jerome Karl Friedrich von Munchausen - a brave and honest officer of the Russian army, an excellent storyteller, a cheerful and witty person who in vain returned to ungrateful Germany.
