Travels and Works of Michael Kosmeli (1773–1844): A Forgotten Key Figure in the Transottoman Corridor and Context

Dirk Sangmeister

The Silesian Michael Kosmeli (1773–1844) was a law graduate, a versatile man of letters, a multilingual translator, a gifted musician and holder of a PhD in botany, but during his whole life he never obtained a regular and permanent position. He did not even bother to settle down anywhere, instead he spent his whole life wandering around as an itinerant scholar and vagrant musician, crisscrossing numerous countries of Europe and even parts of Asia. As an individual he embodied the exact opposite of a classical bookish scholar. Kosmeli preferred to ramble in a traversal corridor, which linked East Germany and Eastern Europe with the Ottoman Empire. He frequently made stop-overs in Berlin, Breslau (Wroclaw), Riga, Reval (Tallinn), St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tiflis, Jassy and Constantinople, where loosely knit networks of scholars and friends provided him with shelter and advice. Some of his journeys even led him to Persia (Isfahan, Shiraz); according to contemporaries he considered to convert to Islam. Often years passed, before Kosmeli resurfaced and returned to Germany. He did not only cross geographical, political and religious borders with an astonishing ease and confidence but rather considered the Transottoman corridor his natural habitat.
As the author of the travelogues “Rhapsodische Briefe auf einer Reise in die Krim” (1813) and “Harmlose Bemerkungen auf einer Reise über Petersburg, Moskau, Kiew nach Jassy” (1822), as a translator primarily of poetry (from Polish, Russian, Modern Greek, Persian and other languages), as a man of letters being acquainted with some of the most renowned contemporary scholars and writers (among them Hammer-Purgstall, Goethe, Chamisso and Jean Paul) and as a musician frequently appearing on both national and international stages, Kosmeli can be considered the most mobile and versatile German agent in the Transottoman field in the early 19th century. He adopted and transferred a variety of texts, ideas and tunes between the West and the East, acting as an influencer in both directions. Despite his far reaching journeys, his wide stretched relations and his numerous publications, Kosmeli is a completely forgotten figure nowadays on whom only a single scholarly article has been published. By embedding his life in the broader context of Transottomanica, this research project has two goals: In a first step, it aims at a coherent reconstruction of Kosmeli’s adventurous life and travels by means of a biography in combination with an annotated bibliography and a critical edition of his correspondence. Based on this bio-bibliographical foundation, I will then undertake a second step by defining and analyzing his role in the transfer of knowledge within the Transottoman corridor and context by profiling his relations and interactions with scholars, writers and musicians in both West and East as well as highlighting his merits in adopting and transferring knowledge, texts, ideas, tones and tunes.