Christian Friedrich Reusch

Christian Friedrich Reusch (25 November 1778 – 25 April 1848) was a German administrative lawyer and writer who became an increasingly senior government administrator in East Prussia. He was, like his father, a member of the social circle of intellectuals, the , surrounding the celebrity enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant. Reusch is remembered two centuries later for his surviving written recollections of Kant and his friends before and during the years dominated by the French Revolution of 1789 and the ensuing wars which it triggered across Europe.

Life Provenance and early years Christian Friedrich Reusch, named after his paternal grandfather, was the middle son of the three born to the Königsberg physicist and librarian Karl Daniel Reusch (1735-1806) and his wife. He received his early schooling, together with his elder brother, from a home tutor. Later he moved on to the Cathedral School. As a scholar he excelled, becoming a favourite with the rector (head) and his teaching staff. Between 1793 and 1797 he studied aspects of Jurisprudence at the University of Königsberg where, like his father, his teachers included Immanuel Kant, whose lectures he is reported to have attended on subjects such as Logic, Metaphysics and Physiography. In December 1797 he passed the exam necessary to clear the first rung of his (post-graduate legal traineeship), and was sworn into membership of the legal profession in January 1798 and continuing through his referendary (traineeship) years. Further honours followed.

Death Christian Friedrich Reusch died during his seventieth year at Königsberg on 25 April 1848. His death came overnight on the Tuesday following Easter, which that year fell very late. His end was relatively quick. During the evening of the Easter Monday holiday, he participated in a seasonal celebration at his home with his family and a few close friends. When he went to bed that night he appeared well. During the night, however, his wife heard him giving out an unfamiliar rattling noise. Doctors were immediately called, but they could do nothing to revive him, and he died less than an hour later, probably as the result of a stroke.

Personal On 12 October 1809 Christian Friedrich Reusch married Marianne Friederike Heinriette Schultz, the daughter of a senior official from Labiau (as Polessk was known before 1945). The marriage was followed by the births of the couple's seven recorded children. Three of these predeceased their father, however, leaving only two sons and two daughters surviving to adulthood. The eldest of these, Rudolf Reusch (1810–1871), later achieved a measure of notability on his own account as a lawyer, writer and folklore and dialect revivalist.

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant became well known in intellectual circles for the dinners which he regularly hosted at his home, at which pressing philosophical and other compelling topics of those times were discussed. The dinners were so greatly valued by participants that after Kant died in 1804 his friends set up an association focused on perpetuating the contributions of their illustrious mentor in part through continuing to hold the Kant dinners without Kant. Although Reusch was still quite a young man when Kant died, he had gained early admission to the Kant circle through his father's long membership of the Kant circle. Reusch's own memoires of Kant, despite being relatively short, remain a valued source on Kant's life for specialist scholars.