Gustav von Ewers

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(Johann Philipp) Gustav von Ewers (1781 - 1830) was a German legal historian and the founder of Russian legal history as a scholarly discipline.

Gustav Ewers was a farmer’s son from the village of Amelunxen in Beverungen, in the district of Höxter in the region of the Weser, North Rhine-Westphalia, who first studied theology and then political science at the University of Göttingen.

His first employment, as was customary for a graduate from a poor background, was as a private tutor. This brought him to the then Russian province of Livonia, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. While teaching, he pursued his scholarly interests, especially regarding Russian political and legal history, which became one of his main fields of study – one indeed of which he is often regarded the founder.

On the basis of his publications, he was offered in 1810 the Chair of History, Statistics, and Geography of the Russian State at the University of Dorpat (now Tartu) in what is today Estonia. He occupied that chair until 1826, when he transferred to the Law Faculty. In 1816, Ewers declined an offer of the Chair of Political Economy at the newly-founded University of Berlin. In the same year, he had become Prorector of the University of Tartu and in 1818, Rector, to which office he was re-elected every year until his death in 1830.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] By Ewers

• Provisorische Verfassung des Bauernstandes in Estland. 1805, 1806.
• Vom Ursprung des Russischen Staats. 1808
• Unangenehme Erinnerungen an August Ludwig Schlözer. 1810.
• Kritische Vorarbeiten zur Geschichte der Russen, 2 vols., 1814.
• Geschichte der Russen, vol. 1. 1816.
• Das älteste Recht der Russen in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung. 1826.
• Rhapsodische Gedanken über die wissenschaftliche Bedeutung des Naturrechts. 1828.

[edit] About Ewers

• Djakonov, M.A. (1903). "Johann Philipp Gustav v. Ewers." In G.V. Levitski, ed. Biografitsheskii Slovar professorov i prepodavatelei imperatorskavo Juerjevskago, byvshago Derptskago Univesriteta sa sto let ego sushestvovania (1802-1902), vol. 2. Jurjev: Mattisen, 510-537.
• Drechsler, Wolfgang (1998). On the Eminence of the Social Sciences at the University of Dorpat. Aula Lectures. Tartu: at the University Press. (Includes the only biosketch in English.)
• Leppik, Lea (2001). Rektor Ewers. Tartu: Eesti Ajalooarhiiv.
• Schevcov, Vladimir (1976). Die Sippentheorie bei Gustav Ewers. Berlin.
• Stupperich, Robert (1975). Gustav Ewers. Paderborn: Westfälische Lebensbilder.