---
title: "Isis (journal, 1816)"
chunk: 4/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isis_(journal,_1816)"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:11:31.596695+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Oken's dismissal ===
The attacks against Oken's Isis from the states of the Holy Alliance continued relentlessly. On January 29, 1819, Karl August von Hardenberg submitted a complaint to Grand Duke Karl August because of a derisive remark about the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III, which was printed in the twelfth issue of 1818, but this time without consequences for Oken and Isis.
At the Aachen Congress in the fall of 1818, the Russian Tsar Alexander I distributed an anonymously written memorandum by Alexander Scarlatovich Sturdsa (1791–1854) entitled Memoire sur l'état actuel de l'Allemagne, in which Sturdsa commented on the dangerous activities at German universities. Oken's replies again caused a sensation. Under pressure from the Russian envoy to the Saxon court, Vasily Vasilyevich Chanykov (1759–1829), the Weimar state treasurer Carl August Constantin Schnauss (1782–1832) was forced to file charges against Oken on April 20, 1819. On May 11, Grand Duke Carl August of Weimar and Duke August of Gotha instructed the Senate of the University of Jena to give Oken the choice of either discontinuing Isis or resigning his professorship. The Senate tried to give in, but had to present Oken with this choice eleven days later. After three days of deliberation, Oken responded evasively: "I have no answer to the request made to me. Perhaps they have come to a different conclusion that an answer is unnecessary." In its reply to the dukes, the Senate once again referred to Oken's outstanding reputation as a teacher and researcher, but to no avail. On June 1, 1819, Duke Carl Friedrich ordered Oken's dismissal and the withholding of his salary from June 15 onwards in the name and on behalf of his father. A similar order from the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg followed six days later. On June 26, 1818, the printing of Isis was provisionally banned.
To avoid the ban, Oken moved the printing of Isis to nearby Rudolstadt in the Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. There, Carl Popo Fröbel (1786–1824), stepbrother of the educator Friedrich Fröbel and owner of the court printing works since 1815, took over the printing of Isis from August 1819. After Fröbel's death in 1824, the print shop was initially taken over by Fröbel's widow and finally continued by his son Günther Fröbel from 1832, who produced the last issues of Isis in 1850. A small part of Isis was produced in Eisenberg until 1824/25.
After the Carlsbad Decrees of September 1819, it became increasingly difficult to deal with political issues. Their share of articles in Isis fell sharply. After Brockhaus' death, Oken announced in the first issue of 1824 that Isis would no longer print political articles.

== Content ==
In addition to Oken, many natural scientists and humanities scholars, writers and artists contributed to the content of Isis. Among the authors who published articles in the first volume of Isis were Alexander von Humboldt, Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, Madame de Staël, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Georges Cuvier and Johannes Peter Müller. There were reviews of Goethe's Aus meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit, Luigi Valentino Brugnatelli's (1761–1818) Kreistafel der chemischen Aequivalente, Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck's System der Pilze und Schwämme, Leopoldo Cicognara's (1767–1834) Von den vier venetianischen Kunstpferden, Charles Robert Cockerell's Ueber die ursprüngliche Anwendung der Niobe und ihrer Kinder and Ludwig Wachler's Deutschlands Zukunft in der Gegenwart. Isis reported on the state of affairs at German universities, published their course catalogs and also regularly set prizes.
From the outset, Isis devoted considerable space to summaries and abstracts of publications published in foreign scientific and academic journals. Initially, the relevant journals came from the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Switzerland. These were later supplemented by journals from Scandinavia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Russia and the United States. Oken's approach to editing the articles varied greatly. Sometimes Oken's texts consisted of an abridged translation of the corresponding article, usually they summarized its main content in one paragraph. As a rule, the majority of the articles were only listed with their title - usually translated into German.
In 1821, Oken published the first call for an assembly of German naturalists in Isis, which led to the founding of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians in September 1822. Detailed reports on the society's annual meetings were published regularly until the end.
From 1833, Isis bore the new title Encyclopädische Zeitschrift, vorzüglich für Naturgeschichte, vergleichende Anatomie und Physiologie. This change reflected the changing focus of the articles over time. The already small number of articles dealing with mathematics and physics decreased further.
In the last volume of 1848, Christian Ludwig Brehm published original articles in Isis with Ueber das allmählige Fortrücken der Vögel, Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Siedhofs (1803 - ca. 1867) with Naturgeschichtliches aus den Vereinigten Staaten von Nordamerica, Johann Jakob Kaup with Uebersicht der Eulen (Strigidae) and Christian Gottfried Giebel with Das subhercynische Becken um Quedlinburg in geognostisch-paläontologischer Beziehung. Some of the publications discussed in this volume were Sebastian Egger's (1803–1866) Ueber die Pflichten gegen die Thiere, Franz von Kobell's Mineralogie, Christian Gottfried Giebel's Fauna der Vorwelt, Mauro Rusconi's (1776–1849) Riflessioni sopra il sistema linfatico dei rettili, Johann Malfatti's Neue Heilversuche, Karl Bernhard Stark's Kunst und Schule and Joseph Hippolyt Pultes (1805–1869) Organon der Weltgeschichte.
In the last edition, Oken ended Isis with the words: "This is the end of Isis."