Frederik Christian von Haven

Frederik Christian von Haven (26 June 1728 – 25 May 1763) was a Danish master of philology, theology and part of the Danish expedition to Yemen.

Biography

Frederik von Haven was born in the rectory of Vester Skerninge on the Danish island of Funen and christened the 3 July in The Church of Our Lady in Odense. His father was the priest Lambert Von Haven and the mother was called Maren (who's maiden name was Wielandt). He had three sisters. The sister Pernille Elisabeth Von Haven, who remained unmarried had a special relationship to Frederik Christian von Haven.

The von Haven family most likely came from the north of Germany and were also found in Bergen in Norway in the 17th century . Years later, they moved to Denmark. The earliest of the Danish-born von Havens were working as painters or architects, like Lambert van Haven (1630–1695), who drew Thotts Palæ, the dome of Charlottenborg Palace and Church of Our Saviour, Copenhagen In the end of the 1600th century, the von Haven's sons started becoming priests. Frederik von Haven's father died in 1738 and left his family in deep dept. Only with the help of relatives did Frederik manage becoming a student from the Cathedral School in Odense, and later being able to study theology at the University of Copenhagen. In 1750 he got his masters. He got a scholarship which enabled him to travel to Göttingen to study oriental languages under the famous professor Johann David Michaelis.

Arabian voyage

Planning of the expedition to Arabia

It was Michaëlis who got the idea for the Arabian expedition. The preparatory work is further expressed in the Danish book Den Arabiske Rejse : en dansk ekspedition set i videnskabshistorisk perspektiv (The Arabian voyage : A Danish expedition seen in the perspective of Science). As he exerted comparative historical and philological studies of the Bible, it was important for him to define actual details about life in the middle east/ orient, and it was his perception that Yemen, which was more isolated that other Arabian countries, had preserved many traditions and social patterns from biblical times. Michaëlis wrote the king of Denmark, Frederik the 5th. to get his financial support for the idea. The king obliged and the planning of the voyage could start.

Michaëlis thought about sending missionaries from the Danish colony of Trankebar to Yemen, by as the plan developed, he decided to send educated researchers instead. von Haven had proven himself to be a brilliant master of philology, and that's why Michaëlis chose him.

When von Haven heard about the Syrian Maronite monks taught in a college in Rome, he got a scholarship to travel to Rome and study Arabian languages from these monks. In the Vatican library were many writings from the orient which could be of great use for von Haven. He started his voyage in the end of 1759, and stayed abroad for about a year.

Under von Haven's absence, the other participants of the voyage were appointed by Michaelis and the foreign minister Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff. It was the botanist - pupil of the master Carl von Linné - Peter Forsskål, the math master and the astronomer Carsten Niebuhr, engraver and miniature painter Georg Wilhelm Baurenfeind and the doctor Christian Carl Cramer.

Voyage

When von Haven went back to Copenhagen, he was, like Forsskål, appointed professor. On 4 January 1761, the expedition went aboard the navy ship Grønland, which was to bring them to Konstantinopel. Because of the bad weather, the ship has to return to Helsingør multiple times. von Haven and a big part of the crew became sick, because the drinking water became rotten in short time. The ship had to return on 11 February once more to Helsingør. von Haven decided to travel by land to Marseille to join the crew. He got approval and the voyage for France begins. von Haven's description of the voyage tells that he is an experienced supervisor. He prepared himself thoroughly to the upcoming expedition. For example, he visited the professor in Copenhagen, Kratzenstein, who taught him how to take take casts of inscriptions and show how he cuts off a marble block with them. in addition to this he also bought books about Arabian history, culture and language.

von Haven arrived on 8 May at Marseilles, where he later joined his crew, who arrived on the ship Grønland on 13 May. von Haven lived large in Marseilles, where he went to the theatres, concerts and visited the top of city. he writes in his description of his travels that he "wanted that the crew had stayed away in 14 more days".

On 3 June, the crew set sail from Marseilles to Constantinople. It was under this trip that von Haven and Forsskål started a huge verbal fight which has an impact on the entire voyage. von Haven describes it as a minor discussion he had with Forsskål about Forsskåls displeasure with Kramer's scientific abilities. von Haven writes that he won the discussion and that Forsskål left the cabin without an answer. In Constantinople von Haven buys a few packs of arsenic, which the crew fears that he would poison them with, and they write Bernstorff and the Danish consulat in Konstantinopel von Gähler about the removal of Von Haven from the expedition. This results in nothing, and von Haven does not mention this in his description with a single word.

The crew arrived to Alexandria in Egypt 26 September. There and in Cairo von Haven bought the most of his manuscripts which would later be a big part of his scientific assignment on the voyage. The crew stayed in Egypt for one year, and between 6 September and the 25th. of September 1762 von Haven and Carsten Niebuhr travels to Sinai, where they are supposed to see some scriptures and visit the cloister of saint Cathrine at the Sinai mountain, which is supposed to have a huge library of rare books. sadly they are sent the wrong way by their Arabian guides and does not get to see the scriptures on the mountain. The monks at the cloister would not let them in, because they did not have a letter from the patriarch from the orthodox church. von Haven sends a letter of the failed expedition to Bernstorff, who from Copenhagen had asked for results during the voyage. Bernstorff is unhappy with the letter and writes back that he expects better results, but as the mail service between Denmark and Egypt is very slow at the time, the letter first arrives long after the death of von Haven.

Death

The crew then traveled with an Arabian ship through the Red Sea and arrived at the port of Loheia in Yemen on 29 December. From there they traveled by land to the city of Mokka; underway they stop at the desert city of Bayt al-Faqih. Most of the crew is at this point very sick. It has later been proven that the crew had malaria, but they thought they only had a common cold. The sickness became worse. When they arrived to Mokka, von Haven is so sick, that he had to stay put in his bed in their rented house. von Haven does realize how sick he really is. The 25 may in the afternoon he writes with a shaky hand his last note "the 25th of may 1763: after midday God gave me, I believe, a blessed ending. I was born the 26th of July 1728."

He was buried on the Christian cemetery in Mokka, which still exists to this day. The whereabouts of his body is unknown.

Scientific results

von Haven bought 116 manuscripts, which were given to the Royal Danish Library, where they still are today. These also contain historical, geographical and linguistic texts. There is also poetry in Arabic or Hebrew. There are seven bibles written in Hebrew. These were used by the English master of theology Benjamin Kennicott from Oxford, when he made his authoritative textia authoritative text-critical edition of the old testament. Many of the manuscripts are illustrated works of art.

von Haven's travel description shows that he is good with science and is a good observer. From the last half year of his life, there only exist notes. his field required much after work, so his philogical findings are hard to assess today. The edited part of the travel diary is one of that time period's best Danish works of prose, which can resemble Frederik Sneedorff's travel letters or Andreas Christian Hviid's travel diaries.

von Haven had a good sense for language and was truly brilliant at writing, when one compares the not very developed Danish at the time.

The Role as the Bad Guy in Thorkild Hansen's Det lykkelige Arabien

The Arabian expedition is today mostly known through the writer Thorkild Hansen's documentarian novel Det lykkelige Arabien (lit. "Arabia Felix") from 1962. In this work Frederik von Haven is viewed as a cowardly and lazy narcissist. He constantly tried to work against the scientific work, which especially Forsskål and Niebuhr tries to do. This role came from Thorkild Hansen's interpretatyion of the sources.

His main source was the biographies of Peter Forsskål, Carl Christensen's Naturforskeren Pehr Forsskål (1918) and Henrik Schück's Från Linnés tid. Peter Forsskål (1923). These are both very critical of von Haven.

Thorkild Hansen has presumably not known about von Haven's travel journal, which existed as a manuscript in the Royal Danish Library (and was first printed in 2005).Of von Havens own writings, Thorkild Hansen only used the part about the failed voyage to Sinai and von Haven's letters to friends and family. These letters are only about personal matters and not about the expedition as such. This has greatly schewed the view of von Haven, which was viewed as one who only thought about taking the easy way out and good food, and constantly whined about his bad health. That von Haven was wayward and had an dislike of Peter Forsskål - and generally not fit to an expedition of this size, his own travel journal does not change. However it does show that he did his best regarding the scientific work, and that the accusations of laziness and bad excuses was incorrect. His problem was, as Thorkild Hansen also mentions in his novel, that most of the voyage was done by ship or in the barren desert, where there was little work to do for the philologist, but which contained numerous tasks for the cartographer and the botanist.

For literery reasons Hansen demonized von Havens: his negative sides makes a good contrast to the heroes Niebuhr and Forsskål. von Haven therefore takes the role of "the invaluable bad guy".

Source

• Min Sundheds Forliis - Frederik Christian von Havens Rejsejournal fra Den Arabiske Rejse 1760-1763, by Anne Haslund Hansen og Stig T. Rasmussen. Forlaget Vandkunsten, 2005. 405 s. : ill. ISBN 87-91393-10-8.