Stalin, Christoph Friedrich Von

Stalin, Christoph Friedrich Von a German writer, was born Aug. 4, 1805, at Calo, in Würtemberg, and studied theology, philology, and philosophy at Tübingen and Heidelberg. In 1825 he was appointed assistant to the Royal Library at Stuttgart, in 1826 sub-librarian, in 1828 librarian, in 1846 director of the library, and died Aug. 12, 1873. Stalin was one of the most learned and meritorious historians of Germany. He never occupied a professorial chair, but for a number of years had been a member of the Society for Early German History, originally superintending the editorship of the Monumenta Germanioe Historica, and was also a very useful member of the Munich Historical Commission. His Wirtembergische Geschichte (which was begun in 1841, but of which the first installment of vol. 4, containing the turbulent reign of duke Ulrich, the period of the Peasants' Rebellion, and the Reformation of the Church, was published in the year 1870) is universally acknowledged to be a perfect model of a provincial history (Landesgeschichte) in regard both of completeness and of methodical precision. The second portion of vol. 4 has been left ready for press, but whether it has yet been published we do not know. See the Regensburger Conversations-Lexikon, s.v. (B.P.)