Not to be confused with Pieter van Woensel (politician)

Pieter van Woensel (politician)

Pieter Theodoor van Woensel is a politician and former Wethouder in the Netherlands.-Early career:...

.

Pieter van Woensel (Haarlem

Haarlem

Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...

, 1747 – The Hague

The Hague

The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

, 1808) was a physician, adventurer, travel writer, ships doctor, political cartoonist and a colorful author under the pseudonym Amurath-Effendi, Hekim-Bachi in the satirical almanac

Almanac

An almanac is an annual publication that includes information such as weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, and tide tables, containing tabular information in a particular field or fields often arranged according to the calendar etc...

 de Lantaarn (the Lamp). Typical for Van Woensel is his love for the peculiar, dislike for the easy route and inborn tendency towards the paradoxical.

Life

Van Woensel was a student at the Leiden University

Leiden University

Leiden University , located in the city of Leiden, is the oldest university in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, leader of the Dutch Revolt in the Eighty Years' War. The royal Dutch House of Orange-Nassau and Leiden University still have a close...

. In 1771 he left for Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

 as an army physician. For an appointment at the Hospital of the Petersburg Cadets he had Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen

Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen

Jan Hendrik van Kinsbergen , or Count of Doggersbank, was a Dutch naval officer. Having had a good scientific education, Van Kinbergen was a proponent of fleet modernization and wrote many books about naval organization, discipline and tactics.In 1773, he twice defeated an Ottoman fleet while in...

 to thank. In 1780, he returned to Amsterdam. In 1781, he published "the Present State of Russia", a book that was also published in Russia itself. In 1782, he translated a French work on the abolition of slavery. Unrest drove him and in 1784, he spent one and a half years in Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 and published on Turkish society in 1789, an important reason why his work caused so much interest.

He joined a group travelling to India, but in Bagdad he decided to travel by himself, because the company bored him. Van Woensel went to Erzurum

Erzurum

Erzurum is a city in Turkey. It is the largest city, the capital of Erzurum Province. The city is situated 1757 meters above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 361,235 in the 2000 census. .Erzurum, known as "The Rock" in NATO code, served as NATO's southeastern-most air force post during the...

 and climbed mount Ararat

Mount Ararat

Mount Ararat is a snow-capped, dormant volcanic cone in Turkey. It has two peaks: Greater Ararat and Lesser Ararat .The Ararat massif is about in diameter...

 in wintry conditions. Because Trabzon

Trabzon

Trabzon is a city on the Black Sea coast of north-eastern Turkey and the capital of Trabzon Province. Trabzon, located on the historical Silk Road, became a melting pot of religions, languages and culture for centuries and a trade gateway to Iran in the southeast and the Caucasus to the northeast...

 on the Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

 had been hit by the plague, diverted to the Crimea

Crimea

Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...

, where he served in the Russian fleet

Imperial Russian Navy

The Imperial Russian Navy refers to the Tsarist fleets prior to the February Revolution.-First Romanovs:Under Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich, construction of the first three-masted ship, actually built within Russia, was completed in 1636. It was built in Balakhna by Danish shipbuilders from Holstein...

. He stayed in Sebastopol

Sevastopol

Sevastopol is a city on rights of administrative division of Ukraine, located on the Black Sea coast of the Crimea peninsula. It has a population of 342,451 . Sevastopol is the second largest port in Ukraine, after the Port of Odessa....

 and describes the visit of Catharina II of Russia at the newly conquered territory. He published his researches on the plague. In their war against the Russians, the Turks, according to Van Woensel, could benefit from biological warfare, such as deliberately spreading the plague.

Back in Amsterdam, he was appointed naval-physician to the Admiralty of Amsterdam

Admiralty of Amsterdam

The Admiralty of Amsterdam was the largest of the five Dutch admiralties at the time of the Dutch Republic. The administration of the various Admiralties was strongly influenced by provincial interests...

. Van Woensel travelled as a ship doctor with the fleet to Surinam, Demerara

Demerara

Demerara was a region in South America in what is now Guyana that was colonised by the Dutch in 1611. The British invaded and captured the area in 1796...

 and Berbice

Berbice

Berbice is a region along the Berbice River in Guyana, which was between 1627 and 1815 a colony of the Netherlands. After having been ceded to the United Kingdom in the latter year, it was merged with Essequibo and Demerara to form the colony of British Guiana in 1831...

. In 1797, he travelled again to Russia as a secret agent, seeing the coronation of Paul I of Russia

Paul I of Russia

Paul I was the Emperor of Russia between 1796 and 1801. He also was the 72nd Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta .-Childhood:...

 on 5 April.

In his almanac van Woensel wrote in favor of a divorce procedure and, as an atheist himself, tolerance towards Muslims and Jews. He states that the prime function of the state is to provide work for its inhabitants. The almanac was banned because he wrote under a pseudonym, banned since the state regulation of 1798. In 1802, Van Woensel published a translation of Don Quixote. In 1804 his "Rusland beschouwd" (Russia considered...) was published. Van Woensel called a spade a spade and uttered his opinions on slavery and serfdom

Serfdom

Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...

. He was critical of Russian policies carried out by Grigori Potemkin, a wind bag according to Van Woensel.

Literature

• This article is based entirely or partially on its equivalent on Dutch Wikipedia.
• Waegemans, E. Pieter van Woensel: een Nederlands criticaster in Russische dienst. In: Noord- en Zuid-Nederlanders in Rusland 1703-2003. Baltic Studies (2004), edited by E. Waegemans & H. van Koningsbrugge.
• Wesselo, J.J. (1969) Pieter van Woensel. Alias Aurath-Effendi, Hekim-Bachi. In: Tirade, p. 446-71.

External links

• http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/woen003aant01_01/
• http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/bork001nede01/woen003.htm
• http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/knuv001hand03/knuv001hand03_0016.htm
• http://www.home.zonnet.nl/neasden/jcw-qui7.htm
• http://www.amerigo.nl/turkije/9075179030.html
• http://coo.let.rug.nl/magazijn/linkpagina's/literatuur/woensel.html