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Title: On Stirner and Szeliga Author: Edgar Bauer Date: 1882 Language: en Topics: Max Stirner, letter Source: Retrieved on 19th December 2021 from https://archive.org/details/on-stirner-and-szeliga/ Notes: Edgar Bauer’s retrospective on Max Stirner and Szeliga, written to John Henry Mackay. Translated by Lawrence S. Stepelevich, Villanova University, The Philosophical Forum, 1978
When John H. Mackay prepared his book on Stirner, he wrote a number of
letters to former members of that intellectual encounter-group, “The
Free [die Freien].”
Mackay’s friend, Max Hildebrandt, sent him the following letter from
Edgar Bauer, which was not published, but which he nevertheless employed
in his book for characterizing Stirner, and it gives a vivid portrait of
two of the most active members of the group: Stirner and Szeliga. They,
like Dr. Oswald [Engels], took up noms de guerre in their
world-historical struggle of the Free.
Stirner’s name was Johann C. Schmidt, Szeliga’s name Franz Szeliga
Zychlin von Zychlinsky. The former was a teacher at a private boarding
school for girls, the latter military adjutant to a Prussian Prince, and
Lieutenant in a Guard-Regiment; the former, poor and the author of Der
Einzige undsein Eigentum, died in poverty; the latter, somewhat rich,
was first a contributor to Bruno Bauer’s radical periodicals of 1843–46,
and then of two ultraconservative studies, the Geschichte des 24.
infantrieregiments (1854/57), and Das preussische Offizierskorps als
Erzieher des Vo Ikes (1962). Szeliga distinguished himself on the
battlefields of 1849,1866 and 1870, becoming the highest decorated
General of Infantry. When he died in 1900, the Kaiser ordered three days
of mourning for both the 3^(rd) Garde-Grenadierregiment and the 27^(th).
Infantrieregiment.
As to any psychoanalytic interpretation of Stirner or anarchism in
general, the information contained in this letter regarding Stirner’s
sexual life is certainly of interest.
The material collected by Mackay was sold by the Stimer-Archiv in 1925
to the Marx- Engels Institute in Moscow, During the night before
delivery, the secretary of the Stirner-Archiv, Leo Kasarnowski, copied
some unedited manuscripts which he thought were important. This letter
of Edgar Bauer was one of those manuscripts. The original is now in the
Berlin-archives of the Stiftung Preusseischer Kulturbesitz, and is here
published for the first time.
Hans-Martin Sass
---
Max Stirner was the nickname of a teacher and doctor [Stirner was never
awarded the doctorate] in Berlin, who was born of a middle-class family
from Danzig [Bayreuth] and whose real name was Schmidt. He had earlier,
as a student, received the nickname because of his high forehead [ Stirn
], which was even further heightened by the manner in which his hair was
parted. The school in which he worked was a well-established private
school, directed by a woman [Mme. Gropius] for young ladies of the
wealthy class. He taught German and History, and had his students
compose many long essays. About 1839 [1837] he married one of his
students [very improbable, as he did not begin teaching until after the
death of this first wife, Agnes Burtz], and had a harmonious marriage.
The young woman died during her first childbirth, and the child as well.
In the beginning of the 40s, Stirner was the Berlin correspondent of the
Leipziger Allgemeinen Zeitung, whose title, following Prussian
regulations, was changed to the Deutsche Allgemeinen Zeitung. Stirner
contributed nothing to the Hallischen (Deutschen) Jahrbucher. He was —
and I speak here from the year 1841 onward — simply an amiable and
unobtrusive person, never offensive nor striving after brilliant effects
either in phrase, conduct, or appearance. He was never drunk, was
temperate in eating, cool, chaste, not a gambler, never angry,
uninclined to philosophizing, being offhanded and joking during
discussions. The general impression was of an intelligent, unimpressive
good person. He was agreeable to be with, as he had no power to resist
any request, and I know of no occasion where he made an accusation
against anyone or spoke badly about someone behind their back. His basic
attitude was one of easy indifference. For this reason, he was without a
feeling of pride and even less of ambition. He kept in himself a quiet
inclination to mockery, and a hidden imp, which whispered to him that he
was more clever than all the critics and believers of his time and any
other. Again and again he spread the rumor among his friends that he had
been working for years on a great work, to which he had already compiled
page upon page, and that it took up in its development the whole fabric
of his thought. In this regard, he had revealed the secret of his life,
for he sometimes pointed to the desk where his Ego lie concealed. No one
was allowed to see the manuscript, no one had ever heard of it being
examined, and its existence could have even been a fable — it was
considered as such by many — until it suddenly came to light under the
title of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum. However, before that, Stirner
had taken a step which shaped at the same time both the forward and the
antithesis of his work. He married for the second time, and now with a
young, monied, spirited lady from Mecklenburg. He gave up his teaching
post, and devoted himself only to the securing of fitting passages,
systematic order, and a stylistic clarity to his work. The book
presenting the full unrestrained and total servility of the egoist, made
a sensation, is immortal, and is just as valid today as it was forty
years ago. It had only one drawback — the writer couldn’t live on it. In
order to help out with household expenses, he conceived of a plan to
edit the classics of national economy, which works he intended to
portray in the light of Stirnerian philosophy with the aid of an
accompanying commentary. The text from Say and Adam Smith has appeared
in his translation. However, the commentary has not yet come into
existence, because the Stirnerian philosophy is much too unworldly to
deal with factual realities — given to transitory, illusory and negative
things. Stirner was so incompetent in the necessities of the marital
state that his wife left and went to England, then Australia.
Restrained, alone, quietly miserable, generally unnoticed, possibly
working little, but always caring for good cigars — which apparently
were the only things dear to him — being respectfully frugal, in poor
quarters, but always well dressed, the man continued to exist as a
Berliner. He was taken by an unexpectedly sad death. Poisoned by a
fly-bite, he died in a
hospital from a tumor. This happened thirty years ago. He reached an age
of about forty years. [Stirner died in 1856, a few months before his
fiftieth birthday.] You ask if Stirner was good-intentioned or
hardhearted? Neither, insofar as he had neither will nor heart, he
neither loved the good, nor valued hardness as such. He was dulled by a
kind of egotistical calculation, but yet not armed with the armor of
selfseeking. He could not take an advantage, and yet not deny it. His
character is best illuminated by the fact that no woman was able to hold
onto the undemanding man. The first died, the other went to another
country. He confessed to me once that he had acquired an aversion for
his first wife as soon as he had caught sight of her naked. She had once
unconsciously uncovered herself during sleep, and from this he was never
able to touch her again. The singularity of the unique kills the unique.
“Was he sociable?” Certainly, he was not a sneak. “How as external
appearance?” Completely that of the best sort of a teacher for young
ladies. Behind silver glasses a gentle look without any lust, normal
size, clean clothes, easy mannered, inoffensive, not in the least ragged
or silly.
The full name of Szeliga was Szelige von Zychlinski. A military
appearance, stately in military uniform, and at that time (1842)
Adjutant to one of the Princes in Berlin, First- Lieutenant. Exact in
thinking and in speech, diligent, with a soldierly inclination to
criticism, since this always and ever will set the way to military life.
His horizon narrowly practical, as it must be with a soldier, who wants
to advance. His sentiments not in the least revolutionary or
oppositional. The soldier demanding from philosophy only that it free
him from all middle- class concerns, because they have their work to do.
I have never believed that Szeliga was the author of the article which
he delivered. He was at that time about 28 years old. In the year 1848 a
Major von Zychlinski distinguished himself as a fighter for the dynasty.
I believe that it was that disciple of pure criticism. The name was
repeatedly entered into the army-list. Apparently the 42er still lives.
He originates out of the Grand Duchy of Posen. Hair: reddish- brown,
Impression: Germanic, Nose: strongly and imperiously curved. A
Zychlinski had married a rich heiress — court-lady. Is it the same? I
don’t know.
The comprehensive treatment concerning Sue’s Mysteries of Paris
originates from Stirner.
Yours Obediently,
Bauer.