Abstract
My hometown Riga. I was born in the autumn of 1853 in Riga, Livonia [Governorate of Livonia (in Russian Liflyandskaya Guberniya) was part of the Russian empire. Before 1796 it was called the Riga Governorate]. At that time Riga belonged to the Russian empire in which the old Julian calendar was still used and, despite its heathen origin, the Greek Catholic Church preferred it to the newer Gregorian calendar which, in their view, was the work of “schismatics”. By the old calendar my birthday fell on the 21st of August, by the new one on the 2nd of September. I was my parents’ second son; my brother Eugen was born 2 years before and my younger brother Gottfried 2 years after me. I had no sister.
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Notes
- 1.
Governorate of Livonia (in Russian Liflyandskaya Guberniya) was part of the Russian empire. Before 1796 it was called the Riga Governorate.
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Jack, R.S., Scholz, F. (2017). My Parental Home and Childhood. In: Jack, R., Scholz, F. (eds) Wilhelm Ostwald. Springer Biographies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46955-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46955-3_1
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