Johann Ernst Glück (1654-1705)
Topic: Archives
The clergyman Johann Ernst Glück is known for many things, for example his translation of the Bible into Latvian and his close connection to the later Catherine I. In 1894 Friedrich Bienemann jr published a number of letters from Bienemann to Governor General Dahlbergh during the period 1700-1701, letters which modern researchers have failed to find. I believe there could be a very simple explanation for this - they have looked in the wrong place... However, there exists a few more letters which Bienemann in 1894 had not yet found. They are in EAA.278.1.XX-19 and from early 1702. The first is dated 2 January and contains an account of the Russian devastation of Marienburg (Aluksne) parish: It happened on the second day of Christmas, Glück writes, ... in the afternoon when the peasants were at church. It was so unexpected that their arrival was not diiscovered until they started to burn a quarter of mile from the castle. Glück reports that only a part of the parish was torched, but unfortunately it was an area where many of those who had lost their homes in the summer and autumn of 1701 now lived. Many of the inhabitants had been captured and others killed. The reason for this disaster was the lack of cavalry, Glück writes. The event had resulted in such fear among the peasants that no one wanted to live there anymore.