Part 33

KOTZEBUE, AUGUST FRIEDRICH FERDINAND VON (1761-1819), German dramatist, was born on the 3rd of May, 1761, at Weimar. After attending the gymnasium of his native town, he went in his sixteenth year to the university of Jena, and afterwards studied about a year in Duisburg. In 1780 he completed his legal course and was admitted an advocate. Through the influence of Graf Görtz, Prussian ambassador at the Russian court, he became secretary of the governor-general of St Petersburg. In 1783 he received the appointment of assessor to the high court of appeal in Reval, where he married the daughter of a Russian lieutenant-general. He was ennobled in 1785, and became president of the magistracy of the province of Esthonia. In Reval he acquired considerable reputation by his novels, _Die Leiden der Ortenbergischen Familie_ (1785) and _Geschichte meines Vaters_ (1788), and still more by the plays _Adelheid von Wulfingen_ (1789), _Menschenhass und Reue_ (1790) and _Die Indianer in England_ (1790). The good impression produced by these works was, however, almost effaced by a cynical dramatic satire, _Doktor Bahrdt mit der eisernen Stirn_, which appeared in 1790 with the name of Knigge on the title-page. After the death of his first wife Kotzebue retired from the Russian service, and lived for a time in Paris and Mainz; he then settled in 1795 on an estate which he had acquired near Reval and gave himself up to literary work. Within a few years he published six volumes of miscellaneous sketches and stories (_Die jüngsten Kinder meiner Laune_, 1793-1796) and more than twenty plays, the majority of which were translated into several European languages. In 1798 he accepted the office of dramatist to the court theatre in Vienna, but owing to differences with the actors he was soon obliged to resign. He now returned to his native town, but as he was not on good terms with Goethe, and had openly attacked the Romantic school, his position in Weimar was not a pleasant one. He had thoughts of returning to St Petersburg, and on his journey thither he was, for some unknown reason, arrested at the frontier and transported to Siberia. Fortunately he had written a comedy which flattered the vanity of the emperor Paul I.; he was consequently speedily brought back, presented with an estate from the crown lands of Livonia, and made director of the German theatre in St Petersburg. He returned to Germany when the emperor Paul died, and again settled in Weimar; he found it, however, as impossible as ever to gain a footing in literary society, and turned his steps to Berlin, where in association with Garlieb Merkel (1769-1850) he edited _Der Freimütige_ (1803-1807) and began his _Almanach dramatischer Spiele_ (1803-1820). Towards the end of 1806 he was once more in Russia, and in the security of his estate in Esthonia wrote many satirical articles against Napoleon in his journals _Die Biene_ and _Die Grille_. As councillor of state he was attached in 1816 to the department for foreign affairs in St Petersburg, and in 1817 went to Germany as a kind of spy in the service of Russia, with a salary of 15,000 roubles. In a weekly journal (_Literarisches Wochenblatt_) which he published in Weimar he scoffed at the pretensions of those Germans who demanded free institutions, and became an object of such general dislike that he was obliged to move to Mannheim. He was especially detested by the young enthusiasts for liberty, and one of them, Karl Ludwig Sand, a theological student, stabbed him, in Mannheim, on the 23rd of March 1819. Sand was executed, and the government made his crime an excuse for placing the universities under strict supervision.

Besides his plays, Kotzebue wrote several historical works, which, however, are too one-sided and prejudiced to have much value. Of more interest are his autobiographical writings, _Meine Flucht nach Paris im Winter_ 1790 (1791), _Über meinen Aufenthalt in Wien_ (1799), _Das merkwürdigste Jahr meines Lebens_ (1801), _Erinnerungen aus Paris_ (1804), and _Erinnerungen von meiner Reise aus Liefland nach Rom und Neapel_ (1805). As a dramatist he was extraordinarily prolific, his plays numbering over 200; his popularity, not merely on the German, but on the European stage, was unprecedented. His success, however, was due less to any conspicuous literary or poetic ability than to an extraordinary facility in the invention of effective situations; he possessed, as few German playwrights before or since, the unerring instinct for the theatre; and his influence on the _technique_ of the modern drama from Scribe to Sardou and from Bauernfeld to Sudermann is unmistakable. Kotzebue is to be seen to best advantage in his comedies, such as _Der Wildfang_, _Die beiden Klingsberg_ and _Die deutschen Kleinstädter_, which contain admirable genre pictures of German life. These plays held the stage in Germany long after the once famous _Menschenhass und Reue_ (known in England as _The Stranger_), _Graf Benjowsky_, or ambitious exotic tragedies like _Die Sonnenjungfrau_ and _Die Spanier in Peru_ (which Sheridan adapted as _Pizarro_) were forgotten.

Two collections of Kotzebue's dramas were published during his lifetime: _Schauspiele_ (5 vols., 1797); _Neue Schauspiele_ (23 vols., 1798-1820). His _Sämtliche dramatische Werke_ appeared in 44 vols., in 1827-1829, and again, under the title _Theater_, in 40 vols., in 1840-1841. A selection of his plays in 10 vols, appeared at Leipzig in 1867-1868. Cp. H. Döring, _A. von Kotzebues Leben_ (1830); W. von Kotzebue, _A. von Kotzebue_ (1881); Ch. Rabany, _Kotzebue, sa vie et son temps_ (1893); W. Sellier, _Kotzebue in England_ (1901).

KOTZEBUE, OTTO VON (1787-1846), Russian navigator, second son of the foregoing, was born at Reval on the 30th of December 1787. After being educated at the St Petersburg school of cadets, he accompanied Krusenstern on his voyage of 1803-1806. After his promotion to lieutenant Kotzebue was placed in command of an expedition, fitted out at the expense of the imperial chancellor, Count Rumantsoff, in the brig "Rurick." In this vessel, with only twenty-seven men, Kotzebue set out on the 30th of July 1815 to find a passage across the Arctic Ocean and explore the less-known parts of Oceania. Proceeding by Cape Horn, he discovered the Romanzov, Rurik and Krusenstern Islands, then made for Kamchatka, and in the middle of July proceeded northward, coasting along the north-west coast of America, and discovering and naming Kotzebue Gulf or Sound and Krusenstern Cape. Returning by the coast of Asia, he again sailed to the south, sojourned for three weeks at the Sandwich Islands, and on the 1st of January 1817 discovered New Year Island. After some further cruising in the Pacific he again proceeded north, but a severe attack of illness compelling him to return to Europe, he reached the Neva on the 3rd of August 1818, bringing home a large collection of previously unknown plants and much new ethnological information. In 1823 Kotzebue, now a captain, was entrusted with the command of an expedition in two ships of war, the main object of which was to take reinforcements to Kamchatka. There was, however, a staff of scientists on board, who collected much valuable information and material in geography, ethnography and natural history. The expedition, proceeding by Cape Horn, visited the Radak and Society Islands, and reached Petropavlovsk in July 1824. Many positions along the coast were rectified, the Navigator islands visited, and several discoveries made. The expedition returned by the Marianna, Philippine, New Caledonia and Hawaiian Islands, reaching Kronstadt on the 10th of July 1826. There are English translations of both Kotzebue's narratives: _A Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea and Beering's Straits for the Purpose of exploring a North-East Passage, undertaken in the Years 1815-1818_ (3 vols. 1821), and _A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823-1826_ (1830). Three years after his return from his second voyage, Kotzebue died at Reval on the 15th of February 1846.

KOUMISS, milk-wine, or milk brandy, a fermented alcoholic beverage prepared from milk. It is of very ancient origin, and according to Herodotus was known to the Scythians. The name is said to be derived from an ancient Asiatic tribe, the Kumanes or Komans. It is one of the staple articles of diet of the Siberian and Caucasian races, but of late years it has also been manufactured on a considerable scale in western Europe, on account of its valuable medicinal properties. It is generally made from mares' or camels' milk by a process of fermentation set up by the addition to the fresh milk of a small quantity of the finished article. This fermentation, which appears to be of a symbiotic nature, being dependent on the action of two distinct types of organisms, the one a fission fungus, the other a true yeast, eventuates in the conversion of a part of the milk sugar into lactic acid and alcohol. Koumiss generally contains 1 to 2% of alcohol, 0.5 to 1.5% of lactic acid, 2 to 4% of milk sugar and 1 to 2% of fat. _Kefir_ is similar to koumiss, but is usually prepared from cows' milk, and the fermentation is brought about by the so-called Kefir Grains (derived from a plant).

KOUMOUNDOUROS, ALEXANDROS (1814-1883), Greek statesman, whose name is commonly spelt Coumoundouros, was born in 1814. His studies at the university of Athens were repeatedly interrupted for lack of means, and he began to earn his living as a clerk. He took part in the Cretan insurrection of 1841, and in the demonstration of 1843, by which the Greek constitution was obtained from King Otto, he was secretary to General Theodoraki Grivas. He then settled down to the bar at Kalamata in Messenia, where he married a lady belonging to the Mavromichalis family. He was elected to the chamber in 1851, and four years later his eloquence and ability had secured the president's chair for him. He became minister of finance in 1856, and again in 1857 and 1859. He adhered to the moderate wing of the Liberal party until the revolution of 1862 and the dethronement of King Otto, when he was minister of justice in the provincial government. He was twice minister of the interior under Kanaris, in 1864 and in 1865. In March 1865 he became prime minister, and he formed several subsequent administrations in the intervals of the ascendancy of Tricoupi. During the Cretan insurrection of 1866-68 he made active warlike preparations against Turkey, but was dismissed by King George, who recognized that Greece could not act without the support of the Powers. He was again premier at the time of the outbreak of the insurrection in Thessaly in January 1878, and supported by Delyanni as minister of foreign affairs he sent an army of 10,000 men to help the insurgents against Turkey. The troops were recalled on the understanding that Greece should be represented at the Congress of Berlin. In October 1880 the fall of the Tricoupi ministry restored him to power, when he resumed his warlike policy, but repeated appeals to the courts of Europe yielded little practical result, and Koumoundouros was obliged to reduce his territorial demands and to accept the limited cessions in Thessaly and Epirus, which were carried out in July 1881. His ministry was overturned in 1882 by the votes of the new Thessalian deputies, who were dissatisfied with the administrative arrangements of the new province, and he died at Athens on the 9th of March 1883.

KOUSSO (KOSSO or CUSSO), a drug which consists of the panicles of the pistillate flowers of _Brayera anthelmintica_, a handsome rosaceous tree 60 ft. high, growing throughout the table-land of Abyssinia, at an elevation of 3000 to 8000 ft. above the sea-level. The drug as imported is in the form of cylindrical rolls, about 18 in. in length and 2 in. in diameter, and comprises the entire inflorescence or panicle kept in form by a band wound transversely round it. The active principle is koussin or kosin, C31H38O10, which is soluble in alcohol and alkalis, and may be given in doses of thirty grains. Kousso is also used in the form of an unstrained infusion of ¼ to ½ oz. of the coarsely powdered flowers, which are swallowed with the liquid. It is considered to be an effectual vermifuge for _Taenia solium_. In its anthelmintic action it is nearly allied to male fern, but it is much inferior to that drug and is very rarely used in Great Britain.

KOVALEVSKY, SOPHIE (1850-1891), Russian mathematician, daughter of General Corvin-Krukovsky, was born at Moscow on the 15th of January 1850. As a young girl she was fired by the aspiration after intellectual liberty that animated so many young Russian women at that period, and drove them to study at foreign universities, since their own were closed to them. This led her, in 1868, to contract one of those conventional marriages in vogue at the time, with a young student, Waldemar Kovalevsky, and the two went together to Germany to continue their studies. In 1869 she went to Heidelberg, where she studied under H. von Helmholtz, G. R. Kirchhoff, L. Königsberger and P. du Bois-Reymond, and from 1871-1874 read privately with Karl Weierstrass at Berlin, as the public lectures were not then open to women. In 1874 the university of Göttingen granted her a degree _in absentia_, excusing her from the oral examination on account of the remarkable excellence of the three dissertations sent in, one of which, on the theory of partial differential equations, is one of her most remarkable works. Another was an elucidation of P. S. Laplace's mathematical theory of the form of Saturn's rings. Soon after this she returned to Russia with her husband, who was appointed professor of palaeontology at Moscow, where he died in 1883. At this time Madame Kovalevsky was at Stockholm, where Gustaf Mittag Leffler, also a pupil of Weierstrass, who had been recently appointed to the chair of mathematics at the newly founded university, had procured for her a post as lecturer. She discharged her duties so successfully that in 1884 she was appointed full professor. This post she held till her death on the 10th of February 1891. In 1888 she achieved the greatest of her successes, gaining the Prix Bordin offered by the Paris Academy. The problem set was "to perfect in one important point the theory of the movement of a solid body round an immovable point," and her solution added a result of the highest interest to those transmitted to us by Leonhard Euler and J. L. Lagrange. So remarkable was this work that the value of the prize was doubled as a recognition of unusual merit. Unfortunately Madame Kovalevsky did not live to reap the full reward of her labours, for she died just as she had attained the height of her fame and had won recognition even in her own country by election to membership of the St Petersburg Academy of Science.

See E. de Kerbedz, "Sophie de Kowalevski," _Benidiconti del circolo mathematico di Palermo_ (1891); the obituary notice by G. Mittag Leffler in the _Acta mathematica_, vol. xvi.; and J. C. Poggendorff, _Biographisch-literarisches Handwörterbuch_.

KOVNO (in Lithuanian _Kauna_), a government of north-western Russia, bounded N. by the governments of Courland and Vitebsk, S.E. by that of Vilna, and S. and S.W. by Suwalki and the province of East Prussia, a narrow strip touching the Baltic near Memel. It has an area of 15,687 sq. m. The level uniformity of its surface is broken only by two low ridges which nowhere rise above 800 ft. The geological character is varied, the Silurian, Devonian, Jurassic and Tertiary systems being all represented; the Devonian is that which occurs most frequently, and all are covered with Quaternary boulder-clays. The soil is either a sandy clay or a more fertile kind of black earth. The government is drained by the Niemen, Windau, Courland Aa and Dvina, which have navigable tributaries. In the flat depressions covered with boulder-clays there are many lakes and marshes, while forests occupy about 25½% of the surface. The climate is comparatively mild, the mean temperature at the city of Kovno being 44°F. The population was 1,156,040 in 1870, and 1,553,244 in 1897. The estimated population in 1906 was 1,683,600. It is varied, consisting of Lithuanians proper and Zhmuds (together 74%), Jews (14%), Germans (2½%), Poles (9%), with Letts and Russians; 76.6% are Roman Catholics, 13.7% Jews, 4.5% Protestants, and 5% belong to the Greek Church. Of the total 788,102 were women in 1897 and 147,878 were classed as urban. The principal occupation of the inhabitants is agriculture, 63% of the surface being under crops; both grain (wheat, rye, oats and barley) and potatoes are exported. Flax is cultivated and the linseed exported. Dairying flourishes, and horse and cattle breeding are attracting attention. Fishing is important, and the navigation on the rivers is brisk. A variety of petty domestic industries are carried on by the Jews, but only to a slight extent in the villages. As many as 18,000 to 24,000 men are compelled every year to migrate in search of work. The factories consist principally of distilleries, tobacco and steam flour-mills, and hardware manufactories. Trade, especially the transit trade, is brisk, from the situation of the government on the Prussian frontier, the custom-houses of Yerburg and Tauroggen being amongst the most important in Russia. The chief towns of the seven districts into which the government is divided, with their populations in 1897, are Kovno (q.v.), Novo-Alexandrovsk (6370), Ponevyezh (13,044), Rosieny (7455), Shavli (15,914), Telshi (6215) and Vilkemir (13,509).

The territory which now constitutes the government of Kovno was formerly known as Samogitia and formed part of Lithuania. During the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries the Livonian and Teutonic Knights continually invaded and plundered it, especially the western part, which was peopled with Zhmuds. In 1569 it was annexed, along with the rest of the principality of Lithuania, to Poland; and it suffered very much from the wars of Russia with Sweden and Poland, and from the invasion of Charles XII. in 1701. In 1795 the principality of Lithuania was annexed to Russia, and until 1872, when the government of Kovno was constituted, the territory now forming it was a part of the government of Vilna.

KOVNO, a town and fortress of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, stands at the confluence of the Niemen with the Viliya, 550 m. S.W. of St Petersburg by rail, and 55 m. from the Prussian frontier. Pop. (1863), 23,937; (1903), 73,743, nearly one-half being Jews. It consists of a cramped Old Town and a New Town stretching up the side of the Niemen. It is a first-class fortress, being surrounded at a mean distance of 2½ m. by a girdle of forts, eleven in number. The town lies for the most part in the fork and is guarded by three forts in the direction of Vilna, one covers the Vilna bridge, while the southern approaches are protected by seven. Kovno commands and bars the railway Vilna-Eydtkuhnen. Its factories produce nails, wire-work and other metal goods, mead and bone-meal. It is an important entrepôt for timber, cereals, flax, flour, spirits, bone-meal, fish, coal and building-stone passing from and to Prussia. The city possesses some 15th-century churches. It was founded in the 11th century; and from 1384 to 1398 belonged to the Teutonic Knights. Tsar Alexis of Russia plundered and burnt it in 1655. Here the Russians defeated the Poles on the 26th of June 1831.

KOVROV, a town of Russia, in the government of Vladimir, 40 m. N.E. of the city of Vladimir by the railway from Moscow to Nizhniy-Novgorod, and on the Klyazma River. It has railway-carriage works, cotton mills, steam flour mills, tallow works and quarries of limestone, and carries on an

## active trade in the export of wooden wares and in the import of grain,

salt and fish, brought from the Volga governments. Pop. (1890), 6600; (1900), 16,806.

KOWTOW, or KOTOU, the Chinese ceremonial act of prostration as a sign of homage, submission, or worship. The word is formed from _ko_, knock, and _tou_, head. To the emperor, the "kowtow" is performed by kneeling three times, each act accompanied by touching the ground with the forehead.

KOZLOV, a town of Russia, in the government of Tambov, on the Lyesnoi Voronezh River, 45 m. W.N.W. of the city of Tambov by rail. Pop. (1900), 41,555. Kozlov had its origin in a small monastery, founded in the forest in 1627; nine years later, an earthwork was raised close by, for the protection of the Russian frontier against the Tatars. Situated in a very fertile country, on the highway to Astrakhan and at the head of water communication with the Don, the town soon became a centre of trade; as the junction of the railways leading to the Sea of Azov, to Tsaritsyn on the lower Volga, to Saratov and to Orel, its importance has recently been still further increased. Its export of cattle, grain, meat, eggs (22,000,000), tallow, hides, &c., is steadily growing, and it possesses factories, flour mills, tallow works, distilleries, tanneries and glue works.

KRAAL, also spelt _craal_, _kraul_, &c. (South African Dutch, derived possibly from a native African word, but probably from the Spanish _corral_, Portuguese _curral_, an enclosure for horses, cattle and the like), in South and Central Africa, a native village surrounded by a palisade, mud wall or other fencing roughly circular in form; by transference, the community living within the enclosure. Folds for animals and enclosures made specially for defensive purposes are also called kraals.

KRAFFT (or KRAFT), ADAM (c. 1455-1507), German sculptor, of the Nuremberg school, was born, probably at Nuremberg, about the middle of the 15th century, and died, some say in the hospital, at Schwabach, about 1507. He seems to have emerged as sculptor about 1490, the date of the seven reliefs of scenes from the life of Christ, which, like almost every other specimen of his work, are at Nuremberg. The date of his last work, an Entombment, with fifteen life-size figures, in the Holzschuher chapel of the St John's cemetery, is 1507. Besides these, Krafft's chief works are several monumental reliefs in the various churches of Nuremberg; he produced the great Schreyer monument (1492) for St Sebald's at Nuremberg, a skilful though mannered piece of sculpture opposite the Rathaus, with realistic figures in the costume of the time, carved in a way more suited to wood than stone, and too pictorial in effect; Christ bearing the Cross, above the altar of the same church; and various works made for public and private buildings, as the relief over the door of the Wagehaus, a St George and the Dragon, several Madonnas, and some purely decorative pieces, as coats of arms. His masterpiece is perhaps the magnificent tabernacle, 62 ft. high, in the church of St Laurence (1493-1500). He also made the great tabernacle for the Host, 80 ft. high, covered with statuettes, in Ulm Cathedral, and the very spirited "Stations of the Cross" on the road to the Nuremberg cemetery.

See _Adam Krafft und seine Schule_, by Friedrich Wanderer (1869); _Adam Krafft und die Künstler seiner Zeit_, by Berthold Daun (1897); Albert Gümbel in _Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft_, Bd. xxv. Heft 5, 1902.