The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is one of the most famous book of tall tales. It is based on stories told by Karl Friedrich von Münchhausen, a retired army captain, who was noted for his exaggerated and fantastic accounts of his war adventures and hunting experiences. The German scientist and librarian Rudolf Erich Raspe produced the first, small book based on these and some other stories. His work was followed by enlarged collections, composed by other authors, of whom Gottfried Bürger (1747-1794) is the most notable.
"I made a balloon of such extensive dimensions, that an account of the silk it contained would exceed all credibility; every mercer's shop
and weaver's stock in London, Westminster, and Spitalfields contributed to it: with this balloon and my sling I played many tricks, such as taking one house from its station, and placing another in its stead, without disturbing the inhabitants, who were generally asleep, or too much employed to observe the peregrinations of their habitations. When the sentinel at Windsor Castle heard St. Paul's clock strike thirteen, it was through my dexterity; I brought the buildings nearly together that night, by placing the castle in St. mGeorge's Fields, and carried it back again before daylight, without waking any of the inhabitants; notwithstanding these exploits, I should have kept my balloon, and its properties a secret, if Montgolfier had not made the art of flying so public." (from The Surprising Adventures of Baron Muchausen, 1895)
Rudolf Erich Raspe was born in Hannover, Hanover. He studied philology and natural sciences at the universities of Göttingen and Leipzig, and worked as a librarian in university libraries (1762-1766). Raspe then moved to Kassel where he became a teacher at Collegium Carolinum, and custodian of the collection of gems and coins owned by the landgraf of Hesse-Kassel. For his knowledge of ancient English poetry, Raspe acquired much academic fame, and in 1769 he was elected to the Royal Society after publishing a paper on the bones and teeth of elephants and other animals found in North America and various boreal regions of the world. He also wrote articles on mineralogy, geology, lithography and musical instruments. In 1771 he married.
Raspe's carefree life-style led him into troubles. Advertisements were issued for the arrest of the Councillor Raspe, and in 1775 he fled first to Holland and then to England - he was found to have been selling the precious gems and medals in his care to pay his debts. In 1776 he published a book on German Volcanoes. His 'Essay on the Origin of Oil Painting' was published through the help of Horace Walpole in 1781.
After he was dismissed from the Royal Society, he found work as a mining expert for Sir John Sinclair. During this period Raspe produced Baron Münchhausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels (1785), which was published anonymously. As his source he used Münchhausen's hunting stories, which had appeared in Berlin in the magazine Vade Mecum für lustige Leute (1781 -1783). Some of tales were created by Raspe himself - they also show the influence of Swift's Gulliver's Travels. It is assumed that Raspe had known the fabulous Baron when he was living in Göttingen - at least he had had been acquainted with his kinsman.
Münchhausen's stories were in defiance of the rationalism of the Enlightenment. As a character he was much more humorous than Comte de Saint-Germain who claimed that he had lived hundreds of years. The stories themselves were in debt to earlier travelers' tales and anecdotes. The deeds of Odysseus can be classified as tall stories, and examples can be found in Pliny the Elder's Natural History (1st c. AD), Lucian's Dialogues (2nd c. AD), Rabelais's Pantagruel (1532) and Gargantua (1534), and Voltaire's Candide (1759). The Adventures of Baron Munchausen defy logic or laws of physics, or everyday thinking. The "Baron of lies" dances in the belly of a whale, rides on a cannon ball, and gets with one shot and a ramrod seven hazelhens. Once he rode on a horse which was cut in two, and the back part of the horse ran to a meadow. This story had appeared already in Heinrich Bebel's book Facetia Bebelianae (1508). Also from older sources is derived the story in which he ties his horse to a stake during a heavy snow storm. In the morning, the snow has melted and the horse is dangling from a high steeple.
The poet Gottfried August Bürger translated the second edition of Münchhausen's Narrative into German as Wunderbare Reisen zu Wasser und zu Lande, Feldzüge und lustige Abenteuer des Freyhernn von Münchhausen (1786). He also included several of his own stories into it. Bürger's work became the most popular, and a new edition was published in 1788. Raspe's groundwork was forgotten, but it was revealed in 1847 in Heinrich Döring's biography of Bürger.
Raspe's career in England came to a sorry end: he had to flee again in 1791, under suspicion that he was swindling his employer. This time he had planted opulent ores on a promising mining property. Raspe headed to Ireland, where he died of a fever in Muckross, County Kerry. It is possible that Raspe was a friend of the poet and translator James Macpherson (1736-96), whose Ossianic poems gained a huge success. Raspe had been one of the first scholars, who had examined the work of Ossian, the supposed author of epic poetry "discovered" in Scotland. Macpherson presented the work as his rendering into English of an ancient Gaelic epic. Some critics were sceptical, and Samuel Johnson denounced it as a fraud. Later it was found that Macpherson had treated the Gaelic poems in a "free and selective fashion".
Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr v. Münchhausen (also known in England as Baron Muchausen) was born in Bodenwerder, Hanover. He was sent as a page to the court of the Duke of Braunschweig. At the age of seventeen he joined the army. He served in a Russian regiment and gained in 1739 the rank of Lieutenant and later he became cavalry captain. It is possible that he fought in two Turkish wars in 1737-39, although there are not much documents about his military career from this period. After resigning in 1752 he retired to his country estate. Münchhausen loved the company of his old friends, and storytelling, although he was not happy about his sudden fame as a liar, Lügerbaron. His straight-faced narrations of his supposed adventures as a soldier, hunter, and sportsman were based on his skillful improvisations, but apparently his audience did not record immediately these tales. Münchhausen's first marriage with Jacobine von Dunten was childless. After his first wife died in 1790, he married a young woman, who made his life miserable - Münchhausen complained about her extravagance and how she spent too much time with her young friends. Baron Münchhausen died in Bodenwerder on February 22, 1797. After his death it was nearly forgotten that Münchhausen was not a fictitious character. However, a monument was built in memory of the Baron's "ride on half a horse" in front of the Town Hall of Bodenwerder.
Karl L. Immermann's novel Munchhausen: A Story in Arabesques (1838-39) was about the nephew of the famous prevaricator, but also took ideas from Don Quixote, Gulliver's Travels, and other books. Adventures of the world's greatest liar have also inspired movies, starting from silent a version, Les Hallucinations du Baron de Münchhausen (1911) by Georgés Méliès. Josef von Baky's film Münchhausen (1943), starring Hans Albers in the title role, Brigitte Horney, Wilhelm Bendow, and Michael Bohnen, was made in the middle of World War II, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the UFA studios. The spectacular Agfacolor production was set in motion by the propaganda minister Josef Göbbels. Erich Kästner wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym of Berthold Bürger - his work had been banned since 1933 by the Nazis. After the film was released, Hitler ordered that he should receive no further commissions. Baron Munchhausen (1962, The Fabulous Baron Munchausen), directed by Karel Zeman, used animations and actors moved against the deliberately artificial backgrounds of Doré illustrations to Bürger's book. Zeman had made in 1958 The Fabulous World of Jules Verne, in which he had used 19th century engravings. Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989) was visually elaborate and expensive - its budget was over $50 million. John Neville played the Baron, Eric Idle (Gilliam's Monty Python buddy) was his trusted assistant, Oliver Reed was Vulcan, and in other roles appeared among others Sarah Polley, Charles McKeown, Uma Thurman, Don Henderson, Sting, Ray D. Tutto (Robin Williams). Gilliam got the idea for his project from the 1962 Czechoslovakian movie. He had much troubles during the shooting and Columbia made just 115 prints of the film.
For further reading: Münchhausen - Vom Jägerlatein zum Weltbestseller, published by Münchhausen-Museum Bodenwerder (1998); 'Paroni von Münchhausen, tarinaniskijäin kuningas' by Anto Leikola, in Portti 4 (1998); 'Rudolf Erich Raspe - humanist, geolog, storljugare' by Nils Edelman, in Kulturtidskriften Horisont 34 (1987); Münchhausen - ein amoralisches Kinderbuch by Bernhard Wiebel und Thekla Gehrmann (1996); Münchhausen und Münchhausiade by Werner R. Schweizer (1969); Real Munchhausen: Baron of Bodenwerder by Angelita Von Munchhausen (1960); The prospector, being the life and times of Rudolf Erich Raspe, 1737-1794 by John Carswell (1950) |
