Óndra Łysohorsky

Óndra Łysohorsky (actually: Erwin Goj; born June 6, 1905 in Frýdek ; † December 19, 1989 in Bratislava ) was a writer , poet , literary translator, philologist , creator of the literary Lachish language .

Etymology of the pseudonym

The pseudonym is a kind of literary manifesto Gojs. Łysohorsky comes from Lysá (Polish Łysa Góra , in Teschen dialects also Gogula ) and Óndra of Ondráš or Ondraszek (Andrzej Szebesta / Ondřej Šebesta from Janovice at Frýdek, 1680-1715), a legendary Robin Hood the Westbeskiden , a robber and popular hero , from which another Polish-Silesian author, Gustaw Morcinek , was inspired. The letters ó and ł come from the Polish alphabet.

life and work

Erwin Goj was born as the ninth child of the miner Josef Goj. He attended German high schools in Frýdek, Bohumín and Moravská Ostrava , passed his Abitur in 1924 and then studied linguistics , literature and philosophy in Prague . In 1928 he became a philosophy doctor there, but studied Slavic studies until 1929 . After graduating, he spent 6 months in Italy on a scholarship . After his return he worked as a high school teacher in Kremnica , Bratislava, Ostrava and Trnava . He published his first poems in German in 1926; in these first works one can clearly see the influence of Friedrich Hölderlin . In the early 1930s he laid the foundations and systematized the literary, Lachish language and published the first literary works in this language. In 1939 he fled the Germans first to Poland , then in September 1939 to the USSR , where he became a member of the Soviet Writers' Union, university German teacher and from 1943 a member of the All-Slavic Committee. In this capacity he turned to the "great linguist" Josef Stalin and asked him for his support against Czech oppression. Thereupon the commissioned professor of the Soviet Academy of Sciences Salischew irrevocably ruled that neither Lachish is a language (but a dialect of Czech) and Laughter is a people. According to him, this people comprised 2 million people, not only in Lachei , but also in the entire Cieszyn Silesia and southern Prussian Upper Silesia , as well as around Čadca in Slovakia. In Soviet Russia (including Boris Pasternak ) during this period (1939–43) four volumes of Goj's poetry were translated and published. In 1946 Goj returned to Bratislava, where he worked as a high school teacher until 1950 and then as a librarian. At the same time he continued to write works, some of which were critical of communism, in Lachish, which earned him the reputation of a Lachish rebel and separatist . His conflict with the Communist Party went so far that his books were confiscated and banned from the libraries, and he was threatened with a ban on his profession. Under this pressure Goy turned again to Stalin for help, which this time was granted to him. Goj was even allowed to work as a linguist and habilitation at the University of Bratislava and became head of the local writers' association. In the 1960s a complete edition of his poems was published in Czechoslovakia . In 1970 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize, which brought him a certain degree of recognition abroad. Several of his works have also been translated into German.

Works (selection)

• “Insight and Prospect: Post-Celebration of the Goethe Centenarium”, 1932
• "Spjewajuco piaść", 1934
• “Hłos hrudy”, 1935
• "Wybrane wérše", Olomouc 1936
• "Lašsko poezyja 1931-1937"
• "Pesň o matěri", 1942
• "Zemlja moja", 1942
• "Aj lašske řéky płynu do mořa", 1958
• "Brázdou z vesmíru", 1960
• "Lachische Gedichte" Berlin, wydawnictwo: Volk und Welt, 1960
• "Thanks", Leipzig, Insel-Verlag 1961
• "Jediný pohár", Prague 1964
• "I mature in my time - poems", Berlin, Union-Verlag 1978
• “Lašsko poezyja 1931–1977”, Cologne, Verlag Böhlau 1988
• "Lachische Poesie 1931-1976", Cologne, Verlag Böhlau 1989, ISBN 3-412-20488-9
• “There where the Carpathians meet the Sudetes. Lachische Gedichte “, Ulm, Hess-Verlag 1998, ISBN 3-87336-145-0

literature

• Vladimír Forestry (ed.) Encyclopedia české literatury : H - L, k dodatky LCL 1, A - G . Academia, Prague 1993, ISBN 80-2000469-6 , ( Lexicon české literatury 2, Sv. 2).
• Pavel Gan: Moja harfa je ceło ślónsko zém - On the lachic poetry of Óndra Łysohorsky from the Silesian Euroregion . Finis coronat opus. Festschrift for Walter Kroll on his 65th birthday. Göttingen 2006, s. 85-98.
• Karl-Markus Gauß : In the forest of the metropolises, chapter 'Óndra Łysohorsky and the laughs. An Epitaph ', pp. 186–192, Zsolnay, Vienna 2010.
• Igor Hájek: Poet of a New Nation . In: Cross Currents. A Yearbook of Central European Culture 2, 1983, ISSN  0748-0164 , pp. 316-322.
• Kevin Hannan: Some Unpublished Poems of Óndra Łysohorsky . In: Oxford Slavonic Papers NS 28, 1995, ISSN  0078-7256 , pp. 98-123.
• Kevin Hannan: The Lachian Literary Language of Óndra Łysohorsky . In: Slavic and East European Journal (SEEJ) 40, 1996, ISSN  0037-6752 , pp. 726-743.
• Pavel Janoušek (ed.): Slovník českých spisovatelů od roku 1945 : A - L . Nakl. Brána, Prague 1999, ISBN 80-7243-040-8 , ( Slovník českých spisovatelů od roku 1945 1).
• Iva Málková / Svatava Urbanová among others: Literární slovník severní Moravy a Slezska (1945-2000) . Ústav pro regionální studia OU, Olomouc et al. 2001, ISBN 80-7198-515-5 .
• Stefan Zwicker: The poet Óndra Łysohorsky and his utopia of laughter. In: Ludger Udolph / Christian Prunitsch (eds.): Teschen - a divided city in the 20th century, Dresden 2009: Thelem, pp. 93-104.

Web links

• Literature by and about Óndra Łysohorsky in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature and other media by and about Óndra Łysohorsky in the catalog of the National Library of the Czech Republic
• Prof. Dr. Rudolf Grulich on Óndra Łysohorsky