“Lived a lot, wrote a little! Better than the other way round.” (Johan Gottfried Seume)
This man experienced more than almost any of his contemporaries: the good fortune of being pushed academically although only the highly gifted son of farmers; the bad fortune of being a destitute scholarship student, treated as second-class and expected to show eternal gratitude; and the misfortune of being conscripted and shipped off to war in America, of deserting three times and being recaptured twice, and of being condemned to (literally) run the gauntlet. It was only thanks to good luck that he survived the Polish uprising in Warsaw, hidden behind barrels in an attic, without food, for three days.
Johann Gottfried Seume became famous because of an audacious journey: without a cent in his pocket, he set out on foot in the winter of 1801, walking all the way to Syracuse. One of his fellow travelers soon abandoned him, convinced that the trip was too dangerous, but Seume walked on. He was held up and robbed at knifepoint twice. Once back home, he wrote Voyage to Syracuse. Germany’s first major reportage became a celebrated success and Seume has inspired countless imitators, including, most recently, Wolfgang Büscher, who walked all the way to Moscow.
But some of Seume’s other books also have the makings of classics: whether in Schreiben aus America (Letters from America), Aufstand in Polen (Uprising in Poland), Mein Sommer (My Summer) or Mein Leben (My Life), Seume wrote so frankly, directly and openly – about himself, his adventures, his fellow humans and the world in which he lived – that he made many people uncomfortable, sometimes downright upsetting them. More than a few of his works were banned.
A man whose guiding principle in life was to expose himself and write about it. A man from the bottom rungs of society who came, saw, and got involved – Germany had never seen anyone like him before and wouldn’t again for a long time after his death.
