‘Find of the century’ in a fruit box: An American researcher has unearthed a medium sensation in the library of the State Museum in the Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck. In box 142 – there were 289 in total – he discovered five previously unknown letters from the German writer Heinrich von Kleist.
“Those were the most exciting weeks of my research life,” said 87-year-old literary scholar Hermann F. Weiss on Thursday.
Part of the estate since 2007 in the library of the Tyrolean State Museum
This extensive estate of the Austrian diplomat Joseph von Buol-Berenberg has been in the library of the Tyrolean State Museum since 2007.
“I started my research on this in the summer of 2022,” Weiss, from the University of Michigan, who was attending from the US, explained at a hybrid press conference of the Tyrolean State Museums, which was also attended by scientists from the Heinrich von Kleist Association in Berlin.
Largest discovery of Kleist signatures in over 100 years
First, “a letter appeared,” which “would have been a sensation in itself,” and four more letters finally sealed the “find of the century” from the life of the famous writer who died in 1811. It is the largest discovery of Kleist signatures in more than 100 years.
“The crowning achievement of my scientific work”
It was simply “amazing to find something buried like that,” Weiss said of his discovery in the partial estate, which originally found its way from South Tyrol to Innsbruck to the State Museum Library via a donation agreement. “I felt like a literary detective,” is how the literary scholar, who approached the state museums about two years ago, described his feelings during his journey of discovery, which ultimately led to the “crowning achievement of my academic work.”
289 fruit crates in a cellar
Roland Sila, head of the State Museum Library, described the “bizarre circumstances in 2007” under which the partial inheritance arrived in the state capital and into his hands. “I was originally called to South Tyrol on another estate,” he reported. Ultimately, “289 fruit crates in a cellar” contained “several thousand documents,” which were immediately apparent as being “of great importance.”
Kleist committed suicide in 1811
Sila’s judgment was finally confirmed when Weiss began his research work. The letters date from May 22, 1809 to January 28, 1810 and can therefore be attributed to the late life of Kleist, who committed suicide in 1811.
That’s in the letters
The letters are addressed directly to the Austrian diplomat Joseph von Buol-Berenberg. Buol was the center of a circle of patriots who urged Prussia to join the war against Napoleon. In one letter, Kleist complained that there was “no salvation for Germany” and no “hope for the publication of his political writings.” The fifth and final letter remains enigmatic: Kleist reports in it the consequences of an unspecified failed project that led him to Frankfurt am Main.
When asked by journalists, Sila did not want to mention the monetary value of this ‘sensational find’. “For us as a memorial institute, it is mainly about the documentary and scientific value,” he emphasized. The goal now is to make the find available for “scientific access” and for “further research,” says Sila. The wider public also has access to it: the find will be published in the ‘Kleist Yearbook 2024’.
Source: Krone
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