Gotthard Friedrich Stender

Life & Legacy

Gotthard Friedrich Stender (Latvian: Gothards Frīdrihs Stenders or Ģederts Fridriks Štenders; 27 August 1714 – 17 May 1796), also called Old Stender (Vecais Stenders), was a Baltic German Lutheran pastor who played an outstanding role in Latvia's history of culture. He was the first Latvian grammarian and lexicographer, founder of the Latvian secular literature in the 18th century. In the spirit of Enlightenment, he wrote the first Latvian-German and German-Latvian dictionaries, wrote the first encyclopedia “A Book of High Wisdom on the World and Nature” (1774), and wrote the first illustrated Latvian alphabet book (1787).