Karl August Varnhagen von Ense – „szara eminencja” dziewiętnastowiecznej niemieckiej publicystyki politycznej

Karl August Varnhagen von Ense (1785–1858) was a German diplomat, biographer and archivist-collector. He worked as a tutor in the homes of several families of the wealthy Jewish bourgeoisie. This allowed him to get in touch with prominent poets and writers of romanticism, such as Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, Adelbert von Chamisso, Justinus Kerner and Ludwig Uhland. During the Napoleonic Wars Varnhagen served in Austrian and Russian army. 1814 he married Rahel Levin, a Jewish writer who hosted one of the most prominent German literary salons in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Their home in Berlin became the meeting-place of high civil servants, philosophers, writers and artists. Although Varnhagen developed a reputation as an critical writer and journalist, he is most famous as a biographer and archivist-collector. The article investigates Varnhagen’s activities as a journalist and demonstrates journalism as an unknown and unexplored but significant and valuable aspekt of his work, which is substantial in volume.