Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/119

K L A K L A 107 Upon the Zollfeld to the north of the city once stood the ancient Roman town of Virunum. In the middle of the 7th century the surrounding country was overrun by the Avars. During the Middle Ages Klagenfurt became the property of the crown, but by a patent of Maximilian I. of the 24th 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 suifered from destructive fires, and in 1690 from the effects of an earthquake. On March 29, 1797, the French took the city, and upon the following day it was occupied by Napoleon as his headquarters. The fortifications constructed in 1580 were de stroyed by the French in 1809, and the ground that they formerly occupied is now laid out as a public promenade.

See Amthor und Jabornegg-Gamsenegg, Kärntnerführer, Gera, 1874; G. von Ankershofen, Handbuch der Geschichte des Herzogthums Kärnten, Klagenfurt, 1857-74, bd. i.-iv.; Umgebungskarte von Klagenfurt, Vienna, 1873.

KLAPROTH, Heinrich Julius von (1783-1835), one of the founders of Oriental scholarship in Europe, was born at Berlin, October 11, 1783. His father, Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743-1817), not only desired him to pursue the chemical studies by which he had himself attained to position and fame, but did all in his power to frown away what he deemed a foolish attachment to a profitless subject. But the boy-philologist received from a more indulgent or wiser mother the means of secretly satisfying his natural instinct, and by the time that in ordinary course he ought to have passed the gymnasial examination he was able to retort, when upbraided with ignorance of the usual subjects, that at least he knew Chinese. He was still in his teens when he published his Asiatisches Magazin (Weimar, 1802); and immediately after he was called to St Petersburg as an adjunct to the academy of Oriental languages. In 1805 he accompanied Count Golowin's embassy to China; and though the travellers were stopped at the frontier he had a splendid opportunity of becoming acquainted with the tribes and languages of southern Asiatic Russia. On his return he was despatched by the academy to the Caucasus for the purpose of ethnographical and linguistic exploration (1807-1808), and when this mission was completed he was employed for several years in connexion with the academy's Oriental publications. In 1811 he came to Berlin; but in 1815 he settled in Paris, and in 1816 W. von Humboldt procured him from the king of Prussia the title and salary of pro fessor of Asiatic languages and literature, with permission to remain in Paris as long as was requisite for the pub lication of his works. He died in that city August 23, 1835.

The principal feature of Klaproth's erudition was the vastness of the field which it embraced. To enormous industry he joined a somewhat reckless intellectual aggressiveness, and where more solid footing failed was ready to bridge the chasm by adventurous hypothesis. His great work Asia polyglotta (Paris, 1823, with Sprachatlas) not only served as a resumé of all that was known on the subject, but formed a new departure for the classification of the Eastern languages, more especially of the Russian empire. To a great extent, however, his work is now superseded. That he was sometimes not over-scrupulous in the use he made of his erudition is matter of more than suspicion. The Itinerary of a Chinese Traveller, which he published in 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 judged to be spurious; and the learning displayed in the forgery was possessed by no one but himself.

A list of Klaproth's works will be found in Nouv. Journ. Asiat., vol. xvii., and in Quérard, La France littéraire, vol. vi. Compare M. C. Landresse's "Notice" in Nouv. Journ. Asiat., 1835.

KLATTAU (Latin, Clatovia; Bohemian, Klatovy), chief town of a district of the same name in Bohemia, lies about 70 miles south-west of Prague, and on the railway between Pilsen and Eisenstein, in 49° 23′ N. lat., 13° 22′ E. long. Klattau has six churches, an upper gymnasium, two hospitals, a large steam brewery, and an old-fashioned town-hall dating from the 16th century, and containing in its tower a bell weighing over 5 tons. Population 8067.

Klattau was an ancient Bohemian fortress, and afterwards became a royal free town. In 1421 it was desolated by the Bohemian leader Ziska. Having refused to assist the emperor Ferdinand I., it was in 1546 deprived of many of its privileges. In 1620 it was taken by the emperor Maximilian. Until the early part of the 17th century it was a thriving place; but the depredations committed by the Swedes in 1641, 1645, and 1648, and the many conflagrations which from time to time ravaged it, so seriously affected the town that it has never recovered its former prosperity.

KLAUSENBURG, or CLAUSENBURG (Hungarian, Kolozsvár; Latin, Claudiopolis), a royal free town of Hungary, the capital of the county of Kolozs, and also of the whole Transylvanian circle, is situated in a picturesque valley on the banks of the Little Szamos, and on the Hungarian eastern railway, 72 miles north-north-west of Hermannstadt, in 46° 44′ 8″ N. lat., 23° 34′ 51″ E. long. Klausenburg is the seat of a Unitarian bishop, of the superintendent of the Calvinists for the Transylvanian circle, of a royal court of justice, of a chamber of commerce, and of the county administration, as also the headquarters of the honvéd (militia) and regular infantry regiments of the military district. Klausenburg consists of an inner town (quadrangular in form, and divided into the old and new towns) and five suburbs now united with it in consequence of the removal of the old walls. With the exception of the old quarter, Klausenburg is generally well laid out, and contains many broad and fine streets, several of which diverge at right angles from the principal square or market-place, where stands a fine old Roman Catholic church, often described as a cathedral (Gothic style), dedicated to St Michael, and founded by king Sigismond in the year 1414. Besides several other Roman Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, Unitarian, Greek Catholic, and Greek Orthodox churches, and a Jewish synagogue, Klausenburg comprises among its public edifices a national museum, county and town halls, a national theatre, several hospitals, a workhouse, and barracks. The educational establishments include the university (with four faculties, founded in 1872), the Unitarian college (with seminary), Calvinist and Roman Catholic upper gymnasia, training institutes, and many others. A special feature of Klausenburg is the large number of elegant private mansions belonging to the Transylvanian nobles who reside here during the winter months. The greater part of the town lies on the right bank of the river, while upon the other side is the so-called "Bridge Suburb" and the citadel. Klausenburg bears in general more the character of a seat of learning than of a business centre; but there are factories for the preparation of woollen and linen cloth, paper, tobacco, candles, and bone dust, as well as breweries, distilleries, oil mills, and beetroot sugar refineries; and furrying, and hat, cap, and boot making are largely carried on. The fairs are well attended, especially for the purchase of horses, and prepared skins, dressed furs, felt goods, delf, and crockery ware. The chief agricultural products of the neighbourhood are wheat, beetroot, and forage. On the more elevated portions of the communal lands are extensive vineyards and woods. At the end of 1880 the civil population amounted to 29,929 (with military it was 30,869); by far the greater majority were Magyars by nationality, the remainder being composed of Roumanians, Germans, Armenians, and Jews. Outside the town, upon the slope of the citadel hill, there is a Gipsy quarter.

Klausenburg is believed to occupy the site of a Roman settlement named Claudia, whence its modern Latin appellation of Claudiopolis. Colonized by Saxons in 1178, it then received its German name of Klausenburg from the old word Klause, signifying a "mountain pass." In 1443 Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, was born here. Subsequent to the defeat of the Hungarians by the Turks at Mohács(1526), Transylvania came under the protection of the Porte, and owing to the trade from the East passing through the principality to Dantzic, the prosperity of Klausenburg much increased. Between the years 1545 and 1570 large numbers of the Saxon