"The death of Kotzebue the German" and other accidents: politics or literature
The murder of August von Kotzebue, the German writer and statesman, which occurred in 1819, became one of the most famous political murders in the early XIX century. This event shocked the whole Europe: firstly, because the deceased was a well-known and ambitious personality, secondly, he allegedly was a Russian spy. Nowadays, the works of Kotzebue have no literary significance, but they had a great success in his time, competing with those of Goethe and Schiller. During all his life, Kotzebue strongly supported the conservative policy, and later he became an active promoter of Russian political thought and ideology of the Holy Alliance. He opposed Romanticism and the free university policy that made his name odious among the young authors as well, as in liberal and nationalistic circles. Kotzebue’s death at the hands of mentally ill student Carl Sand was the first open demonstration of the new political force which had influence on the works of Alexander Pushkin.