Background

August was born on February 3, 1792 in Bökendorf, Prince-Bishopric of Paderborn, the last of eight sons of Werner Adolf, Freiherr von Haxthausen, a backwater planter, and the Baroness Marie-Anne Wendt Papenhausen, who also had nine daughters.

Education

Having studied at the school of mining at Klausthal, and having served in the Hanoverian army, August von Haxthausen entered the university of Gottingen in 1815 and finished his course there in 1818.

Career

Von Haxthausen was engaged in managing his estates and in studying the land laws. The result of his studies appeared in 1829 when he published Ueber die Agrarverfassung in den Fürstenthümern Paderborn und Corvey und deren Conflicte in der gegenwärtigen Zeit, a work which attracted much attention and which procured for its author a commission to investigate and report upon the land laws of the Prussian provinces with a view to a new code. After nine years of labour he published in 1839 an exhaustive treatise, Die ländliche Verfassung in den einzelnen Provinzen der preußischen Monarchie, and in 1843, at the request of the emperor Nicholas, he undertook a similar work for Russia, the fruits of his investigations in that country being contained in his Studien über die innern Zustände, das Volksleben und insbesondere die ländlichen Einrichtungen Russlands (Hanover, 1847-1852). He received various honours, was a member of the combined diet in Berlin in 1847 and 1848, and afterwards of the Prussian upper house. Von Haxthausen died at Hanover on the 31st of December 1866. In addition to the works already mentioned he wrote Die ländliche Verfassung Russlands (Leipzig, 1866). His Studien has been translated into French and into English by R. Farie as The Russian Empire (1856). Other works of his which have appeared in English are: Transcaucasia; Sketches of the Nations and Races between the Black Sea and the Caspian (1854), and The Tribes of the Caucasus (1855).

Achievements

• Von Haxthausen was a German agricultural scientist and writer, best known for his account of conditions in Russia as revealed by his 1843 visit.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Transcaucasia and the Tribes of the Caucasus

    (In the spring of 1843, German Baron August von Haxthausen...)

  • Die la?ndliche Verfassung in den Provinzen Ost und Westpreußen (German Edition)

    (Die la?ndliche Verfassung in den Provinzen Ost und Westpr...)

  • The Russian Empire, Vol. 1 of 2: Its People, Institutions and Resources (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Russian Empire, Vol. 1 of 2: Its People,...)

  • Studies on the Interior of Russia

Membership

Member of the combined diet (Berlin, 1847)

Connections

August von Haxthausen remained unmarried.

Father:

Werner Adolf, Freiherr von Haxthausen

Mother:

Marie-Anne Wendt Papenhausen

niece:

Anna Elisabeth Franziska Adolphine Wilhelmine Louise Maria, Freiin von Droste zu Hülshoff

She was a 19th-century German writer and composer.

Uncle:

Baron Kalenberg

Friend:

Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm

References

• August Freiherr von Haxthausen (1792-1866): Sammler von Ma?rchen, Sagen und Volksliedern, Agrarhistoriker und Russlandreisender aus Westfalen : ... Mu?nster) (German Edition)