Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Kite-Flying" to "Kyshtym" Volume 15, Slice 8

Part 3

Chapter 33,736 wordsPublic domain

KLADNO, a mining town of Bohemia, Austria, 18 m. W.N.W. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900), 18,600, mostly Czech. It is situated in a region very rich in iron-mines and coal-fields and possesses some of the largest iron and steel works in Bohemia. Near it is the mining town of Buschtehrad (pop. 3510), situated in the centre of very extensive coal-fields. Buschtehrad was originally the name of the castle only. This was from the 15th century to 1630 the property of the lords of Kolovrat, and came by devious inheritance through the grand-dukes of Tuscany, to the emperor Francis Joseph. The name Buschtehrad was first given to the railway, and then to the town, which had been called Buckow since its foundation in 1700. There is another castle of Buschtehrad near Horic. Kladno, which for centuries had been a village of no importance, was sold in 1705 by the grand-duchess Anna Maria of Tuscany to the cloister in Brewnow, to which it still belongs. The mining industry began in 1842.

KLAFSKY, KATHARINA (1855-1896), Hungarian operatic singer, was born at Szt János, Wieselburg, of humble parents. Being employed at Vienna as a nurserymaid, her fine soprano voice led to her being engaged as a chorus singer, and she was given good lessons in music. By 1882 she became well-known in Wagnerian rôles at the Leipzig theatre, and she increased her reputation at other German musical centres. In 1892 she appeared in London, and had a great success in Wagner's operas, notably as Brünnhilde and as Isolde, her dramatic as well as vocal gifts being of an exceptional order. She sang in America in 1895, but died of brain disease in 1896.

A _Life_, by L. Ordemann, was published in 1903 (Leipzig).

KLAGENFURT (Slovene, _Celovec_), the capital of the Austrian duchy of Carinthia, 212 m. S.W. of Vienna by rail. Pop. (1900), 24,314. It is picturesquely situated on the river Glan, which is in communication with the Wörther-see by the 3 m. long Lend canal. Among the more noteworthy buildings are the parish church of St Ægidius (1709), with a tower 298 ft. in height; the cathedral of SS Peter and Paul (1582-1593, burnt 1723, restored 1725); the churches of the Benedictines (1613), of the Capuchins (1646), and of the order of St Elizabeth (1710). To these must be added the palace of the prince-bishop of Gurk, the _burg_ or castle, existing in its present form since 1777; and the _Landhaus_ or house of assembly, dating from the end of the 14th century, and containing a museum of natural history, and collection of minerals, antiquities, seals, paintings and sculptures. The most interesting public monument is the great _Lindwurm_ or Dragon, standing in the principal square (1590). The industrial establishments comprise white lead factories, machine and iron foundries, and commerce is active, especially in the mineral products of the region.

Upon the Zollfeld to the north of the city once stood the ancient Roman town of Virunum. During the Middle Ages Klagenfurt became the property of the crown, but by a patent of Maximilian I. of the 24th of April 1518, it was conceded to the Carinthian estates, and has since then taken the place of St Veit as capital of Carinthia. In 1535, 1636, 1723 and 1796 Klagenfurt suffered from destructive fires, and in 1690 from the effects of an earthquake. On the 29th of March 1797 the French took the city, and upon the following day it was occupied by Napoleon as his headquarters.

KLAJ (latinized CLAJUS), JOHANN (1616-1656), German poet, was born at Meissen in Saxony. After studying theology at Wittenberg he went to Nuremberg as a "candidate for holy orders," and there, in conjunction with Georg Philipp Harsdörffer, founded in 1644 the literary society known as the Pegnitz order. In 1647 he received an appointment as master in the Sebaldus school in Nuremberg, and in 1650 became preacher at Kitzingen, where he died in 1656. Klaj's poems consist of dramas, written in stilted language and redundant with adventures, among which are _Höllen- und Himmelfahrt Christi_ (Nuremberg, 1644), and _Herodes, der Kindermörder_ (Nuremberg, 1645), and a poem, written jointly with Harsdörffer, _Pegnesische Schäfergedicht_ (1644), which gives in allegorical form the story of his settlement in Nuremberg.

See Tittmann, _Die Nürnberger Dichterschule_ (Göttingen, 1847).

KLAMATH, a small tribe of North American Indians of Lutuamian stock. They ranged around the Klamath river and lakes, and are now on the Klamath reservation, southern Oregon.

See A. S. Gatschet, "Klamath Indians of Oregon," _Contributions to North American Ethnology_, vol. ii. (Washington, 1890).

KLAPKA, GEORG (1820-1892), Hungarian soldier, was born at Temesvár on the 7th of April 1820, and entered the Austrian army in 1838. He was still a subaltern when the Hungarian revolution of 1848 broke out, and he offered his services to the patriot party. He served in important staff appointments during the earlier part of the war which followed; then, early in 1849, he was ordered to replace General Mészáros, who had been defeated at Kaschau, and as general commanding an army corps he had a conspicuous share in the victories of Kapólna, Isaszeg, Waitzen, Nagy Sarlo and Komárom. Then, as the fortune of war turned against the Hungarians, Klapka, after serving for a short time as minister of war, took command at Komárom, from which fortress he conducted a number of successful expeditions until the capitulation of Világos in August put an end to the war in the open field. He then brilliantly defended Komárom for two months, and finally surrendered on honourable terms. Klapka left the country at once, and lived thenceforward for many years in exile, at first in England and afterwards chiefly in Switzerland. He continued by every means in his power to work for the independence of Hungary, especially at moments of European war, such as 1854, 1859 and 1866, at which an appeal to arms seemed to him to promise success. After the war of 1866 (in which as a Prussian major-general he organized a Hungarian corps in Silesia) Klapka was permitted by the Austrian government to return to his native country, and in 1867 was elected a member of the Hungarian Chamber of Deputies, in which he belonged to the Deák party. In 1877 he made an attempt to reorganize the Turkish army in view of the war with Russia. General Klapka died at Budapest on the 17th of May 1892. A memorial was erected to his memory at Komárom in 1896.

He wrote _Memoiren_ (Leipzig, 1850); _Der Nationalkrieg in Ungarn_, &c. (Leipzig, 1851); a history of the Crimean War, _Der Krieg im Orient ... bis Ende Juli 1855_ (Geneva, 1855); and _Aus meinen Erinnerungen_ (translated from the Hungarian, Zürich, 1887).

KLAPROTH, HEINRICH JULIUS (1783-1835), German Orientalist and traveller, was born in Berlin on the 11th of October 1783, the son of the chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth (q.v.). He devoted his energies in quite early life to the study of Asiatic languages, and published in 1802 his _Asiatisches Magazin_ (Weimar, 1802-1803). He was in consequence called to St Petersburg and given an appointment in the academy there. In 1805 he was a member of Count Golovkin's embassy to China. On his return he was despatched by the academy to the Caucasus on an ethnographical and linguistic exploration (1807-1808), and was afterwards employed for several years in connexion with the academy's Oriental publications. In 1812 he moved to Berlin; but in 1815 he settled in Paris, and in 1816 Humboldt procured him from the king of Prussia the title and salary of professor of Asiatic languages and literature, with permission to remain in Paris as long as was requisite for the publication of his works. He died in that city on the 28th of August 1835.

The principal feature of Klaproth's erudition was the vastness of the field which it embraced. His great work _Asia polyglotta_ (Paris, 1823 and 1831, with _Sprachatlas_) not only served as a _résumé_ of all that was known on the subject, but formed a new departure for the classification of the Eastern languages, more especially those of the Russian Empire. To a great extent, however, his work is now superseded. The _Itinerary of a Chinese Traveller_ (1821), a series of documents in the military archives of St Petersburg purporting to be the travels of George Ludwig von ----, and a similar series obtained from him in the London foreign office, are all regarded as spurious.

Klaproth's other works include: _Reise in den Kaukasus und Georgien in den Jahren 1807 und 1808_ (Halle, 1812-1814; French translation, Paris, 1823); _Geographisch-historische Beschreibung des östlichen Kaukasus_ (Weimar, 1814); _Tableaux historiques de l'Asie_ (Paris, 1826); _Mémoires relatifs à l'Asie_ (Paris, 1824-1828); _Tableau historique, geographique, ethnographique et politique de Caucase_ (Paris, 1827); and _Vocabulaire et grammaire de la langue géorgienne_ (Paris, 1827).

KLAPROTH, MARTIN HEINRICH (1743-1817), German chemist, was born at Wernigerode on the 1st of December 1743. During a large portion of his life he followed the profession of an apothecary. After acting as assistant in pharmacies at Quedlinburg, Hanover, Berlin and Danzig successively he came to Berlin on the death of Valentin Rose the elder in 1771 as manager of his business, and in 1780 he started an establishment on his own account in the same city, where from 1782 he was pharmaceutical assessor of the Ober-Collegium Medicum. In 1787 he was appointed lecturer in chemistry to the Royal Artillery, and when the university was founded in 1810 he was selected to be the professor of chemistry. He died in Berlin on the 1st of January 1817. Klaproth was the leading chemist of his time in Germany. An exact and conscientious worker, he did much to improve and systematize the processes of analytical chemistry and mineralogy, and his appreciation of the value of quantitative methods led him to become one of the earliest adherents of the Lavoisierian doctrines outside France. He was the first to discover uranium, zirconium and titanium, and to characterize them as distinct elements, though he did not obtain any of them in the pure metallic state; and he elucidated the composition of numerous substances till then imperfectly known, including compounds of the then newly recognized elements: tellurium, strontium, cerium and chromium.

His papers, over 200 in number, were collected by himself in _Beiträge zur chemischen Kenntniss der Mineralkörper_ (5 vols., 1795-1810) and _Chemische Abhandlungen gemischten Inhalts_ (1815). He also published a _Chemisches Wörterbuch_ (1807-1810), and edited a revised edition of F. A. C. Gren's _Handbuch der Chemie_ (1806).

KLÉBER, JEAN BAPTISTE (1753-1800), French general, was born on the 9th of March 1753, at Strassburg, where his father was a builder. He was trained, partly at Paris, for the profession of architect, but his opportune assistance to two German nobles in a tavern brawl obtained for him a nomination to the military school of Munich. Thence he obtained a commission in the Austrian army, but resigned it in 1783 on finding his humble birth in the way of his promotion. On returning to France he was appointed inspector of public buildings at Belfort, where he studied fortification and military science. In 1792 he enlisted in the Haut-Rhin volunteers, and was from his military knowledge at once elected adjutant and soon afterwards lieutenant-colonel. At the defence of Mainz he so distinguished himself that though disgraced along with the rest of the garrison and imprisoned, he was promptly reinstated, and in August 1793 promoted general of brigade. He won considerable distinction in the Vendéan war, and two months later was made a general of division. In these operations began his intimacy with Marceau, with whom he defeated the Royalists at Le Mans and Savenay. For openly expressing his opinion that lenient measures ought to be pursued towards the Vendéans he was recalled; but in April 1794 he was once more reinstated and sent to the Army of the Sambre-and-Meuse. He displayed his skill and bravery in the numerous actions around Charleroi, and especially in the crowning victory of Fleurus, after which in the winter of 1794-95 he besieged Mainz. In 1795 and again in 1796 he held the chief command of an army temporarily, but declined a permanent appointment as commander-in-chief. On the 13th of October 1795 he fought a brilliant rearguard action at the bridge of Neuwied, and in the offensive campaign of 1796 he was Jourdan's most active and successful lieutenant. Having, after the retreat to the Rhine (see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS), declined the chief command, he withdrew into private life early in 1798. He accepted a division in the expedition to Egypt under Bonaparte, but was wounded in the head at Alexandria in the first engagement, which prevented his taking any further part in the campaign of the Pyramids, and caused him to be appointed governor of Alexandria. In the Syrian campaign of 1799, however, he commanded the vanguard, took El-Arish, Gaza and Jaffa, and won the great victory of Mount Tabor on the 15th of April 1799. When Napoleon returned to France towards the end of 1799 he left Kléber in command of the French forces. In this capacity, seeing no hope of bringing his army back to France or of consolidating his conquests, he made the convention of El-Arish. But when Lord Keith, the British admiral, refused to ratify the terms, he attacked the Turks at Heliopolis, though with but 10,000 men against 60,000, and utterly defeated them on the 20th of March 1800. He then retook Cairo, which had revolted from the French. Shortly after these victories he was assassinated at Cairo by a fanatic on the 14th of June 1800, the same day on which his friend and comrade Desaix fell at Marengo. Kléber was undoubtedly one of the greatest generals of the French revolutionary epoch. Though he distrusted his powers and declined the responsibility of supreme command, there is nothing in his career to show that he would have been unequal to it. As a second in command he was not excelled by any general of his time. His conduct of affairs in Egypt at a time when the treasury was empty and the troops were discontented for want of pay, shows that his powers as an administrator were little--if at all--inferior to those he possessed as a general.

Ernouf, the grandson of Jourdan's chief of staff, published in 1867 a valuable biography of Kléber. See also Reynaud, _Life of Merlin de Thionville_; Ney, Memoirs; Dumas, _Souvenirs_; Las Casas, _Memorial de Ste Hélène_; J. Charavaray, _Les Généraux morts pour la patrie_; General Pajol, _Kléber_; lives of Marceau and Desaix; M. F. Rousseau, _Kléber et Menou en Egypte_ (Paris, 1900).

KLEIN, JULIUS LEOPOLD (1810-1876), German writer of Jewish origin, was born at Miskolcz, in Hungary. He was educated at the gymnasium in Pest, and studied medicine in Vienna and Berlin. After travelling in Italy and Greece, he settled as a man of letters in Berlin, where he remained until his death on the 2nd of August 1876. He was the author of many dramatic works, among others the historical tragedies _Maria von Medici_ (1841); _Luines_ (1842); _Zenobia_ (1847); _Moreto_ (1859); _Maria_ (1860); _Strafford_ (1862) and _Heliodora_ (1867); and the comedies _Die Herzogin_ (1848); _Ein Schützling_ (1850); and _Voltaire_ (1862). The tendency of Klein as a dramatist was to become bombastic and obscure, but many of his characters are vigorously conceived, and in nearly all his tragedies there are passages of brilliant rhetoric. He is chiefly known as the author of the elaborate though uncompleted _Geschichte des Dramas_ (1865-1876), in which he undertook to record the history of the drama from the earliest times. He died when about to enter upon the Elizabethan period, to the treatment of which he had looked forward as the chief part of his task. The work, which is in thirteen bulky volumes, gives proof of immense learning, but is marred by eccentricities of style and judgment.

Klein's _Dramatische Werke_ were collected in 7 vols. (1871-1872).

KLEIST, BERND HEINRICH WILHELM VON (1777-1811), German poet, dramatist and novelist, was born at Frankfort-on-Oder on the 18th of October 1777. After a scanty education, he entered the Prussian army in 1792, served in the Rhine campaign of 1796 and retired from the service in 1799 with the rank of lieutenant. He next studied law and philosophy at the university of Frankfort-on-Oder, and in 1800 received a subordinate post in the ministry of finance at Berlin. In the following year his roving, restless spirit got the better of him, and procuring a lengthened leave of absence he visited Paris and then settled in Switzerland. Here he found congenial friends in Heinrich Zschokke (q.v.) and Ludwig Friedrich August Wieland (1777-1819), son of the poet; and to them he read his first drama, a gloomy tragedy, _Die Familie Schroffenstein_ (1803), originally entitled _Die Familie Ghonorez_. In the autumn of 1802 Kleist returned to Germany; he visited Goethe, Schiller and Wieland in Weimar, stayed for a while in Leipzig and Dresden, again proceeded to Paris, and returning in 1804 to his post in Berlin was transferred to the _Domänenkammer_ (department for the administration of crown lands) at Königsberg. On a journey to Dresden in 1807 Kleist was arrested by the French as a spy, and being sent to France was kept for six months a close prisoner at Châlons-sur-Marne. On regaining his liberty he proceeded to Dresden, where in conjunction with Adam Heinrich Müller (1779-1829) he published in 1808 the journal _Phöbus_. In 1809 he went to Prague, and ultimately settled in Berlin, where he edited (1810-1811) the _Berliner Abendblätter_. Captivated by the intellectual and musical accomplishments of a certain Frau Henriette Vogel, Kleist, who was himself more disheartened and embittered than ever, agreed to do her bidding and die with her, carrying out this resolution by first shooting the lady and then himself on the shore of the Wannsee near Potsdam, on the 21st of November 1811. Kleist's whole life was filled by a restless striving after ideal and illusory happiness, and this is largely reflected in his work. He was by far the most important North German dramatist of the Romantic movement, and no other of the Romanticists approaches him in the energy with which he expresses patriotic indignation.

His first tragedy, _Die Familie Schroffenstein_, has been already referred to; the material for the second, _Penthesilea_ (1808), queen of the Amazons, is taken from a Greek source and presents a picture of wild passion. More successful than either of these was his romantic play, _Das Käthchen von Heilbronn, oder Die Feuerprobe_ (1808), a poetic drama full of medieval bustle and mystery, which has retained its popularity. In comedy, Kleist made a name with _Der zerbrochene Krug_ (1811), while _Amphitryon_ (1808), an adaptation of Molière's comedy, is of less importance. Of Kleist's other dramas, _Die Hermannschlacht_ (1809) is a dramatic treatment of an historical subject and is full of references to the political conditions of his own times. In it he gives vent to his hatred of his country's oppressors. This, together with the drama _Prinz Friedrich von Homburg_, the latter accounted Kleist's best work, was first published by Ludwig Tieck in _Kleists hinterlassene Schriften_ (1821). _Robert Guiskard_, a drama conceived on a grand plan, was left a fragment. Kleist was also a master in the art of narrative, and of his _Gesammelte Erzählungen_ (1810-1811), _Michael Kohlhaas_, in which the famous Brandenburg horse dealer in Luther's day (see KOHLHASE) is immortalized, is one of the best German stories of its time. He also wrote some patriotic lyrics. His _Gesammelte Schriften_ were published by Ludwig Tieck (3 vols. 1826) and by Julian Schmidt (new ed. 1874); also by F. Muncker (4 vols. 1882); by T. Zolling (4 vols. 1885); by K. Siegen, (4 vols. 1895); and in a critical edition by E. Schmidt (5 vols. 1904-1905). His _Ausgewählte Dramen_ were published by K. Siegen (Leipzig, 1877); and his letters were first published by E. von Bülow, _Heinrich von Kleists Leben und Briefe_ (1848).

See further A. Wilbrandt, _Heinrich von Kleist_ (1863); O. Brahm, _Heinrich von Kleist_ (1884); R. Bonafous, _Henri de Kleist, sa vie et ses oeuvres_ (1894); H. Conrad, _Heinrich von Kleist als Mensch und Dichter_ (1896); G. Minde-Pouet, _Heinrich von Kleist, seine Sprache und sein Stil_ (1897); R. Steig, _Heinrich von Kleists Berliner Kämpfe_ (1901); F. Servaes, _Heinrich von Kleist_ (1902); S. Wukadinowic, _Kleist-Studien_ (1904); S. Rahmer, _H. von Kleist als Mensch und Dichter_ (1909).

KLEIST, EWALD CHRISTIAN VON (1715-1759), German poet, was born at Zeblin, near Köslin in Pomerania, on the 7th of March 1715. After attending the Jesuit school in Deutschkrona and the gymnasium in Danzig, he proceeded in 1731 to the university of Königsberg, where he studied law and mathematics. On the completion of his studies, he entered the Danish army, in which he became an officer in 1736. Recalled to Prussia by Frederick II. in 1740, he was appointed lieutenant in a regiment stationed at Potsdam, where he became acquainted with J. W. L. Gleim (q.v.), who interested him in poetry. After distinguishing himself at the battle of Mollwitz (April 10, 1741) and the siege of Neisse (1741), he was promoted captain in 1749 and major in 1756. Quartered during the winter of 1757-1758 in Leipzig, he found relief from his irksome military duties in the society of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (q.v.). Shortly afterwards in the battle of Kunersdorf, on the 12th of August 1759, he was mortally wounded while leading the attack, and died at Frankfort-on-Oder on the 24th of August following.

Kleist's chief work is a poem in hexameters, _Der Frühling_ (1749), for which Thomson's _Seasons_ largely supplied ideas. In his description of the beauties of nature Kleist shows real poetical genius, an almost modern sentiment and fine taste. He also wrote some charming odes, idylls and elegies, and a small epic poem _Cissides und Paches_ (1759), the subject being two Thessalian friends who die an heroic death for their country in a battle against the Athenians.

Kleist published in 1756 the first collection of his _Gedichte_, which was followed by a second in 1758. After his death his friend Karl Wilhelm Ramler (q.v.) published an edition of _Kleists sämtliche Werke_ in 2 vols. (1760). A critical edition was published by A. Sauer, in 3 vols. (1880-1882). Cf. further, A. Chuquet, _De Ewaldi Kleistii vita et scriptis_ (Paris, 1887), and H. Pröhle, _Friedrich der Grosse und die deutsche Literatur_ (1872).

KLERKSDORP, a town of the Transvaal, 118 m. S.W. of Johannesburg and 192 m. N.E. of Kimberley by rail. Pop. (1904), 4276 of whom 2203 were whites. The town, built on the banks of the Schoonspruit 10 m. above its junction with the Vaal, possesses several fine public buildings. In the neighbourhood are gold-mines, the reef appearing to form the western boundary of the Witwatersrand basin. Diamonds (green in colour) and coal are also found in the district. Klerksdorp was one of the villages founded by the first Boers who crossed the Vaal, dating from 1838. The modern town, which is on the side of the _spruit_ opposite the old village, was founded in 1888.