Mendelssohn Discourses

Media has undergone radical change in the twenty-first century. At the end of the eighteenth century, the situation was similar: The emergence of numerous new media such as newspapers and magazines influenced the social and political life of the time. Beyond the courts of princes, a new public sphere emerged in cafés and scholars’ clubs. A veritable wave of publications made the ideas of the Enlightenment much more visible. This was entirely new and turned the protagonists into “celebrities.” First and foremost was Moses Mendelssohn: the Berlin philosopher from Dessau attracted attention far beyond the borders of his homeland with countless publications in journals that were popular at the time, such as Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend (Letters Concerning the Latest Literature). From reproductions of the first miniature in 1767 to the famous portrait by Anton Graff, images of Moses Mendelssohn were unusually widespread throughout Europe – in the same way that Albert Einstein’s image has become part of present-day popular culture.