Joseph Joachim (writer)

Joseph Joachim Monument in Kestenholz

Joseph Joachim (originally Josef Joachim ; born April 4, 1834 in Kestenholz , Canton Solothurn , † July 30, 1904 ibid) was a Swiss writer .

Life

Joseph Joachim grew up in Kestenholz as the son of the farmer Johann Joachim (1791–1870) and Anna Marie Elisabeth, née Pfister (1784–1844). After attending the elementary school and the district school in Neuendorf , Joachim stayed in Le Landeron for a year to learn the French language. His father denied him an academic career, who insisted on making his son a farmer.

Joachim , who was raised strictly Catholic, became politically active at an early age , on the side of the radical liberal party, then referred to as the “Reds” in the canton of Solothurn (in contrast to the “gray” old liberals and the “black” conservatives).

Joachim was elected justice of the peace as early as 1859 . His biographer Richard Flury (1945) attributes the failure of re-election in 1861 as well as a candidacy for the municipal council to the influence of "arbitrary village magnates" who are said to have not forgiven Joachim for his commitment to the rights of the "poor and helpless" .

In 1865 Joachim was elected to the Cantonal Council as the successor to August Wyss . There he sat down u. a. for the construction of the Gäubahn Olten - Solothurn - Lyss . His political career quickly ended when he ran into financial difficulties and forged a bill of exchange for 520 francs in December 1865 . On March 22, 1866 there was a complaint for forgery of documents , the day after an arrest warrant was issued; However, Joachim had already fled.

His escape led him to the United States , where he wanted to start a new life for himself and his family. Joachim was married to Elisa Fuchs von Hubersdorf (* 1835) since 1858 . She gave birth to 19 children over a period of 21 years, 11 of whom died shortly after birth.

Joachim reported on his stay in America in a long essay, the manuscript Aphorisms from North America. Records of an emigrant ”, which is in the Solothurn Central Library and first appeared in print in 2012. A slight adaptation of the poem Heimweh by Alfred Meissner , which is added to the very factual report, provides an explanation for Joachim's return after ten months: The poem is about homesickness and remorse. Joachim surrendered to the judge's office in Balsthal on January 22, 1867 .

In July 1866, Joseph Joachim was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison for forging documents; he was now starting this punishment. The verdict was considered excessively harsh by the public; After serving 13 months, Joachim himself sent two requests for pardon to the Cantonal Council at three-month intervals , which were supported by the Kestenholz municipal council and the director of the prison in Solothurn. On February 27, 1868, the Cantonal Council first decided to reduce the sentence to two years, followed by a full pardon on May 25.

From then on Joachim lived again as a farmer in Kestenholz. From the end of the 1870s he again devoted himself to village politics and participated in numerous commissions. His appearances in the community meeting should be characterized by high eloquence and witty humor and with the opponents, i. H. the Conservative Party, would have been feared.

In 1878 the family house burned down. Joachim had a new house built. His financial situation remained difficult after this accident.

Joachim's writing only began at this time. Occasionally articles of political content, a mocking poem or a series of humorous considerations appeared in the Balsthaler Bote . His involvement in this newspaper increased steadily, finally in 1879 he became an editor. A second political career turned out to be impossible, as his offense was repeatedly held against him. His work for various newspapers, including the Oltner Tagblatt , the Basler Nachrichten and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, became all the more intensive .

Joseph Joachim's first story, A Day from Farm Life, appeared on December 25, 1879 as a feature section in the Balsthaler Bote . In 1881 he self-published them together with Der Gunzger Hans in a volume entitled From Berg und Thal, Pictures and Stories from Swiss Folk Life and was unexpectedly successful. Gunzger Hans brought it to a print run of 80,000 copies in later editions. These first stories stand out because they combine High German text and Swiss-German dialogue.

Another three volumes from Berg and Thal followed. In 1885 the Albert Müller publishing house in Zurich published the larger story Glyms auf der Höh , which was well received by the critics. Lonny, die Heimatlose, first appeared in the Federal Feuilleton in 1888 , was published by Schwabe Verlag in Basel, which also published most of Joachim's subsequent works. Lonny remained Joachim's greatest success. The story was also translated into French; the last new edition was published by Aare Verlag in 1984 . In the same year 1888 Joachim also wrote the folk drama Adam Zeltner and presented the stories of the school base to Huber in Frauenfeld .

Despite health problems, Joseph Joachim remained a prolific writer until his death in 1904. In a letter to Schwabe in 1896, he wrote: “Hardly healed of one evil, another appears again; also in my family, so that for a while my house did not look unlike a hospital. " He was often forced to take spa treatments in spas , suffering from gout , fatty heart disease and a tubercular carbuncle . For his cures and the maintenance of his family he was dependent on the writer's fees.

In his home village Joachim was hardly recognized as an author during his lifetime. In Flury's biography there is talk of “envy and hatred” as well as the fact that initially there was a belief that Joachim was incapable of writing and that he only gave his name to someone else. In 1884 Joachim wrote in a letter to a friend: "I live here like a half-wild among all-wild ones." Only in the year of his death in 1904 did Joachim enjoy honorable celebrations on the occasion of his 70th birthday, also in Kestenholz itself, organized by the Solothurn pottery company , among others . On July 30th, he died of severe pneumonia. His last work, Memories of an Old Night Watchman, appeared posthumously.

Works (selection)

• From Mountain and Valley (1881–1889, 4 volumes)
• Glyms on the High (1885)
• The stories of the school base (1888)
• Lonny the Homeless (1888)
• Adam Zeltner (1888)
• The Brothers (1891)
• The Saalhof inheritance (1898)
• In the shadow of the factory chimneys (1904)
• Mrs. Susann (1904)
• Memories of an Old Night Watchman (1905)

estate

In the course of time, parts of Joseph Joachim's estate were handed over to the Solothurn Central Library , e. T. from descendants, z. T. by Urs Joseph Flury , son of the biographer Richard Flury.

literature

• Verena Bider, Katharina Eder Matt: "Isn't that right, a clean guy, this Yankee?" The aphorisms from North America by the Solothurn folk writer Josef Joachim from 1866. In: Sealsfield Library. Vienna 2012 online .
• Richard Flury: Josef Joachim. Life and works of the Solothurn peasant poet. Vogt shield, Solothurn 1945.
• Hans Erhard Gerber: Joachim, Josef. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Joachim, Karin: The Solothurn peasant poet Joseph Joachim, presented on the basis of his novel "The Brothers". Typescript. Licentiate thesis with Christoph Siegrist and Rolf Max Kully. Basel, 1998.
• Max Studer-Haller: memorial writing for the 150th birthday of the Gäu farmer poet Joseph Joachim. Kestenholz 1984.
• Anna Stüssi: Joachim, Josef. In: German Literature Lexicon . Biographical-bibliographical manual. 3rd, completely revised edition. Volume 8: Hohberg - Kober. Edited by Heinz Rupp and Carl Ludwig Lang. Francke, Bern / Munich 1981, ISBN 3-7720-1537-9 , Sp. 579 f.

Web links

• Publications by and about Joseph Joachim (writer) in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
• Literature by and about Joseph Joachim in the catalog of the German National Library