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In 1781 Johann Gottfried Seume is on his way from Leipzig to Metz.

He applied to a French military academy, but on the way there he was detained in Hesse, recruited and shipped to North America as a soldier.

As an ally of England, the Hessian landgrave “delivered” a contingent of 12,000 young men to the War of Independence.

In his life Seume was a soldier in three different armies: Hesse, Prussia, Russia - and he deserted from all three.

Later he went for a walk across Europe.

But one after anonther.

Seume was born in 1763 in a Saxon village called Poserna.

Seume came from Poserna to the Leipzig Nikolaischule on a scholarship.

He gave up studying theology in 1781 after only two semesters, without real faith it was pointless.

Then followed the wild years as a soldier in Halifax, Emden and Warsaw.

In between, Seume studied law and history in Leipzig, obtained his doctorate and qualified as a professor (his subject: The armament of the Romans).

In 1797 he became a lecturer at Göschen, the most famous publisher of Goethe's time - in Grimma near Leipzig.

The walk to Sicily began in 1801 when Seume quickly finished proofreading Christoph Martin Wieland's “Aristippus” and quickly packed his things.

800 Saxon miles, or 6000 kilometers - on foot!

He wanted to "transform the diaphragm apart" that he had sat together in four years at the publishing house.

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In addition to the urge to move, the desire to finally do something really self-determined in life also plays a role.

Seume goes to Italy with little cash, laundry on his body and a few books, it will be a “grand tour” for the poor.

Where Goethe drove in a horse-drawn carriage, Seume walks like a tramp - and he puts it nicely: "Those who walk see on average more anthropologically and cosmically than those who drive."

In the Osteria Grande of Trieste

Via Prague, Vienna, and Graz he arrives at Trieste, the “amphitheater on the bay”: He takes up quarters in the Osteria Grande, “a house of enormous size and the decent one in which Winckelmann was murdered by his assassinate servant.

My view is very beautiful towards the harbor, and perhaps it is the pleasant room in which the accident happened. "

Seume feels the thrill of the genius loci, because here Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Europe's most famous antiquarian, was killed in 1768 by the knife stabs of his companion Francesco Arcangelo - some say out of sexual jealousy, others: “out of greed”.

The files say that Winckelmann dragged himself downstairs covered in blood, gave information about the murderer and dictated his will before he died in the osteria.

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44 years later, Seume is walking through town.

He looks for Winckelmann's grave, but doesn't find it, and jokes that Trieste is a dangerous place.

In the evening at the opera Seume is annoyed that the Italians talk during the performance: “Only the favorite arias are listened to in silence.” He also notices “that the ground floor smelled of stockfish, I could turn where I wanted”.

The journey takes another six months, leads via Venice, Rome, Naples and from there by ship to Sicily.

You can read Seume's “Walk to Syracuse” in the Insel-Taschenbuch and his rather wild life in the wonderful biography of Bruno Preisendörfer (“The daring traveler”, Galiani).

Seume's motto: “Lived a lot and written little!

Better than the other way around. "

It is said that all life as a writer is paper.

In this series we provide counter-evidence.

The best action scenes in world literature