Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Rußwurm
Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Rußwurm was a German-Estonian pedagogue, ethnologist and historian.
Life and work
Rußwurm came from a family of theologians and educators. His father, Johann Georg Rußwurm was the rector of the cathedral school at and later a pastor in Selmsdorf, and his uncle was also a pastor. His younger brother,, later became the provost of Ratzeburg.After attending the cathedral school his father taught, he studied theology in Bonn and Berlin. In 1831, he became a member of the Burschenschaft Populonia Bonn and in 1832 a member of the Kränzchenverein Berlin. In 1835, he went to Estonia as a private tutor. In 1839, he was appointed inspector of the Knights and Domschule at Reval. In 1841, he moved to the health resort town of Hapsal, where he initially worked as a teacher and later as an inspector of the local county school. After his retirement in 1868, he worked on scientific works and returned to Reval, where he was appointed an archivist of the Estonian chancery. He dealt mainly with Estonian cultural history and ethnography and the genealogy of Baltic German families. In Hapsal, his most important work was Eibofolke or The Swedes On the Coast of Esthland and Runö , where he received the prestigious Demidov Prize.