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George Hüfner
George Hüfner (also known as Yuri Mikhailovich Givner and Yuri Gibner; c. 1630 – 1691) was a German-born teacher who lived in the German Quarter of Moscow and acted as a translator for the Embassy Order. In 1675, he was the director of the court theater for Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Hüfner is credited as the director and possibly the author of one of the earliest Russian plays, the Temir-Aksakov plot (comedy about Tamerlane and Bayezid). Researchers have identified features in Givner's plays that reflect elements of 17th-century English comedy, Western Russian school drama theatre, medieval miracles, and even court ceremonies.
He used historical narratives rather than the Bible as a source for his dramatic works, unlike his predecessor, Pastor Gregory. Temir-Aksakov's Action described the struggle between the Central Asian Emir Timur (Tamerlane) and the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid Lightning, which ended with the defeat of the Ottomans and the capture of the Sultan at the Battle of Ankara in 1402.
According to most sources, George Hüfner was a native of Saxony, although there is a version about his possible origin "from Moscow Germans". In 1649 he went to Poland, where he entered the military service of the hetman Wincenty Gosiewski. During the Russian-Polish war, Hüfner was captured after the capture of Dubrowna and brought to Smolensk in 1656. Prominent members of the Moscow foreign colony, colonels Johann von Hoven and Wilim Bruce, having learned that the prisoner was "a learned man, capable of learning Latin and German", obtained permission for him to go to Moscow and become a teacher in the German Sloboda. Soon Hüfner married the daughter of one of the inhabitants of Sloboda, Andrei Ut, and got his own court. Since the beginning of the 1670s the name of the Saxon was fixed in Russian texts as Yury Givner (Hüfner) or "Yuriy Mikhailov". This variant was reflected in the comedy of A. N. Ostrovsky's comedy Comedian of the 17th century (1872), one of the characters of which is the German teacher Yuri Mikhailov. The Soviet literary scholar P. N. Berkov also noted that Hüfner was called Yakov in a number of documents.
In 1672, Johann Gottfried Gregor, rector of the Church of St. Peter and Paul and master of the University of Jena, was entrusted with the management of the first court theater. Hüfner and his relative —the painter and "master of perspective" Peter Engels (Ingles)— were among the closest collaborators of the pastor. On February 16, 1675, Gregor died, and Hüfner took over the management of the theater. In a short time, he staged several productions, including the three-act Comedy about Tamerlane and Bajazet, compiled from various sources. At the end of 1675, on the recommendation of the Smolensk voivode Prince Mikhail Golitsyn, the management of the theater was transferred to the former teacher of the Kiev-Bratsk college, Stepan Chizhinsky, and Hüfner returned to the post of teacher of Latin and German languages with a salary of "55 rubles, 8 altyns daily".
When in the summer of 1679 Andrew Vinius was promoted to clerk of the Apothecary's Order, Hüfner was invited to fill the vacant position in the Embassy Office on the advice of other translators. On a special examination he showed sufficient knowledge of German, Dutch and Latin languages, as well as the ability to speak and write Russian. The official appointment took place on October 25, 1679, the salary was defined in "65 rubles and 9 altyns daily", — that is, in total, according to the calculation of the order, 163 rubles 55 kopecks a year. In 1683 Givner was sent with stolnik Pyotr Potemkin to France and Spain, but arbitrarily returned to Moscow before the end of the embassy, for which he was temporarily deprived of his salary. The same year he was put on bail for insulting the foreigner Colonel Olaf von Gran.
Being an ardent Lutheran, the translator opposed the mystic writer Quirinus Kuhlmann, who came to Moscow in 1689. According to cultural historian A. M. Panchenko, "the fact that the Jesuits opposed Kuhkmann does not need any comments. Another interesting fact was that Lutherans, pastors Meineke and Bartold, and translator of the Embassy Order Yuri Mikhailovich Hüfner expressed an even harsher opinion about Kuhkmann". Hüfner and another employee of the Embassy Order, clerk Ivan Tyazhkogorsky, familiarized themselves with the papers seized from Kuhkmann and compiled the so-called Translators' Opinion, which was then attached to the search case. The authors of the Opinion wrote about Kuhkmann and his Moscow patron, merchant Conrad Norderman, that they:
"believed in that heresy called Quakory, of which there are many in the Holand and English lands and other places in the region, similar to the schismatics here: they live in a peculiar way, and have everything in common, and do not honor anyone, and before monarchs do not take off their hats, and not only their sovereigns, but also do not call them lords, and they say that the only Lord God reigns over them, and they, monarchs, are people like them".
On October 4, 1689, Kuhlmann and Norderman were executed on Red Square for "hereticism" and disrespect for the tsar's authority. Hüfner's intolerance towards "alien" Europeans led to the fact that in 1690 he was accused of insulting Catholics according to a "klyausa". The Polish resident complained to Tsar Ivan Alexeevich: "He, George, distributed in New German Quarter letters about the expelled Jesuits, of their existence in Moscow by Luther and Calvin, in scolding and in mockery at them, Jesuits". As a result, Hüfner's salary was delayed for six months. A few months later, he died.
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George Hüfner
George Hüfner (also known as Yuri Mikhailovich Givner and Yuri Gibner; c. 1630 – 1691) was a German-born teacher who lived in the German Quarter of Moscow and acted as a translator for the Embassy Order. In 1675, he was the director of the court theater for Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Hüfner is credited as the director and possibly the author of one of the earliest Russian plays, the Temir-Aksakov plot (comedy about Tamerlane and Bayezid). Researchers have identified features in Givner's plays that reflect elements of 17th-century English comedy, Western Russian school drama theatre, medieval miracles, and even court ceremonies.
He used historical narratives rather than the Bible as a source for his dramatic works, unlike his predecessor, Pastor Gregory. Temir-Aksakov's Action described the struggle between the Central Asian Emir Timur (Tamerlane) and the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid Lightning, which ended with the defeat of the Ottomans and the capture of the Sultan at the Battle of Ankara in 1402.
According to most sources, George Hüfner was a native of Saxony, although there is a version about his possible origin "from Moscow Germans". In 1649 he went to Poland, where he entered the military service of the hetman Wincenty Gosiewski. During the Russian-Polish war, Hüfner was captured after the capture of Dubrowna and brought to Smolensk in 1656. Prominent members of the Moscow foreign colony, colonels Johann von Hoven and Wilim Bruce, having learned that the prisoner was "a learned man, capable of learning Latin and German", obtained permission for him to go to Moscow and become a teacher in the German Sloboda. Soon Hüfner married the daughter of one of the inhabitants of Sloboda, Andrei Ut, and got his own court. Since the beginning of the 1670s the name of the Saxon was fixed in Russian texts as Yury Givner (Hüfner) or "Yuriy Mikhailov". This variant was reflected in the comedy of A. N. Ostrovsky's comedy Comedian of the 17th century (1872), one of the characters of which is the German teacher Yuri Mikhailov. The Soviet literary scholar P. N. Berkov also noted that Hüfner was called Yakov in a number of documents.
In 1672, Johann Gottfried Gregor, rector of the Church of St. Peter and Paul and master of the University of Jena, was entrusted with the management of the first court theater. Hüfner and his relative —the painter and "master of perspective" Peter Engels (Ingles)— were among the closest collaborators of the pastor. On February 16, 1675, Gregor died, and Hüfner took over the management of the theater. In a short time, he staged several productions, including the three-act Comedy about Tamerlane and Bajazet, compiled from various sources. At the end of 1675, on the recommendation of the Smolensk voivode Prince Mikhail Golitsyn, the management of the theater was transferred to the former teacher of the Kiev-Bratsk college, Stepan Chizhinsky, and Hüfner returned to the post of teacher of Latin and German languages with a salary of "55 rubles, 8 altyns daily".
When in the summer of 1679 Andrew Vinius was promoted to clerk of the Apothecary's Order, Hüfner was invited to fill the vacant position in the Embassy Office on the advice of other translators. On a special examination he showed sufficient knowledge of German, Dutch and Latin languages, as well as the ability to speak and write Russian. The official appointment took place on October 25, 1679, the salary was defined in "65 rubles and 9 altyns daily", — that is, in total, according to the calculation of the order, 163 rubles 55 kopecks a year. In 1683 Givner was sent with stolnik Pyotr Potemkin to France and Spain, but arbitrarily returned to Moscow before the end of the embassy, for which he was temporarily deprived of his salary. The same year he was put on bail for insulting the foreigner Colonel Olaf von Gran.
Being an ardent Lutheran, the translator opposed the mystic writer Quirinus Kuhlmann, who came to Moscow in 1689. According to cultural historian A. M. Panchenko, "the fact that the Jesuits opposed Kuhkmann does not need any comments. Another interesting fact was that Lutherans, pastors Meineke and Bartold, and translator of the Embassy Order Yuri Mikhailovich Hüfner expressed an even harsher opinion about Kuhkmann". Hüfner and another employee of the Embassy Order, clerk Ivan Tyazhkogorsky, familiarized themselves with the papers seized from Kuhkmann and compiled the so-called Translators' Opinion, which was then attached to the search case. The authors of the Opinion wrote about Kuhkmann and his Moscow patron, merchant Conrad Norderman, that they:
"believed in that heresy called Quakory, of which there are many in the Holand and English lands and other places in the region, similar to the schismatics here: they live in a peculiar way, and have everything in common, and do not honor anyone, and before monarchs do not take off their hats, and not only their sovereigns, but also do not call them lords, and they say that the only Lord God reigns over them, and they, monarchs, are people like them".
On October 4, 1689, Kuhlmann and Norderman were executed on Red Square for "hereticism" and disrespect for the tsar's authority. Hüfner's intolerance towards "alien" Europeans led to the fact that in 1690 he was accused of insulting Catholics according to a "klyausa". The Polish resident complained to Tsar Ivan Alexeevich: "He, George, distributed in New German Quarter letters about the expelled Jesuits, of their existence in Moscow by Luther and Calvin, in scolding and in mockery at them, Jesuits". As a result, Hüfner's salary was delayed for six months. A few months later, he died.