Minerva (German magazine)

Minerva was a history and political magazine founded and edited by Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz.^[1][2] Its full title was Minerva: Ein Journal historischen und politischen Inhalts.^[1][3] The magazine was among the most significant history and political magazines published in the 1790s.^[4]

Publication history

Founded and edited by Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz, a former Prussian army captain who became a widely traveled journalist and travel writer, Minerva was launched in January 1792 in Berlin. The first two volumes appeared fortnightly, printed by Johann Friedrich Unger. After a ten-month stay in Paris in 1791, Archenholz settled in Hamburg and in June 1792 moved the periodical there. Starting with its third volume in July 1792, it appeared monthly and was self-published by Archenholz. The magazine's Hamburg run continued to 1810.^[5] Because the first two volumes were issued in Berlin, they fell under Prussian press censorship, whereas Hamburg's oversight was comparatively lenient.^[6] However, Archenholz’s move to Hamburg in 1792 was for personal and practical reasons, not prompted by censorship.^[7]

It ceased publication in 1858.^[1]

Editorial stance

The magazine took a liberal stance, backing the French Revolution’s early constitutional phase while rejecting Jacobin radicalism.^[6]

In the first 1792 Berlin-issued installments, Minerva endorsed the Revolution of 1789 and the 1791 constitution, while rejecting the Revolution's later radicalization. With the opening of the Legislative Assembly on 1 October 1791, it reported signs of decline, judged the chamber's composition very negatively, and pointed to internal disorder and mounting external threats. These issues featured a condemnation of Anacharsis Cloots and praised Mirabeau for rejecting outright republicanism. It showed little sympathy for the clergy or nobility, instead blaming provincial unrest on non-sworn priests and calling aristocrats politically short-sighted. Here, Archenholz also argued for a moderate freedom of the press.^[8]

After the move to Hamburg in 1792, in the third volume Archenholz published a concise "political creed" that once again affirmed the Revolution's abolition of abuses, praised the Constituent Assembly, criticized the Legislative, expressed pity for the king and remaining aristocrats, condemned the émigrés, and explicitly repudiated the Jacobin leaders.^[9]

Reception and influence

Minerva was widely read, including by such people as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.^[10] Friedrich Klopstock was one of the contributors.^[1]

In 1793, Archenholz remarked that popular appetite for political reporting on the French Revolution displaced other reading, reflecting the intense demand his journal addressed.^[11]