Alfred Meiche

Alfred Meiche (1905)

Alfred Louis Meiche (born November 24, 1870 in Sebnitz ; † May 25, 1947 there ) was a German historian , folklorist and linguist .

Live and act

Alfred Meiche attended the city school in Sebnitz and then the Annenschule in Dresden (1885-1892). He then studied modern languages, German and history at the universities of Leipzig , Munich and Heidelberg . In Leipzig he received his doctorate in 1898 with a study of the dialect of the church trip in Sebnitz.

From 1899 he worked as a private scholar in Dresden. As such and as a member of numerous scientific societies and associations as well as editor of the magazine Über Berg und Thal from the mountain association of Saxon Switzerland , he developed a fruitful scientific activity. Among other things, he devoted himself to the cultural and regional history of Saxony , in particular Saxon Switzerland , Upper Lusatia and his hometown Sebnitz. Meiche was a co-founder of the Saxon Heritage Protection Association and a member of several associations, including the Association for Saxon Folklore , Dresden History Association and the Upper Lusatian Society of Sciences . From 1905 to 1935, Alfred Meiche was in charge of the work on the historical directory for the Kingdom of Saxony on behalf of the Royal Saxon Commission for History.

For the efforts to found a flower school in Sebnitz, the Saxon King Friedrich August III. 1909 the title of professor.

After Alfred Meiche had lost most of his fortune in the years of inflation and was left without a permanent job, he and his family got into trouble. From 1933 the scholar lived in Sebnitz again. During the time of National Socialism , the results of his German-Slavic research were suppressed. They were undesirable “for political reasons”. Otto Eduard Schmidt had already called such research “Slavophile gimmicks” and “quite dangerous assumptions” in Volume 6 of the “Kursächsische Streifzüge” in 1928. Significantly, Schmidt was made an honorary member in 1939 when the Saxon Commission for History was reorganized. Meiche, on the other hand, only belonged to the commission as a "supporting member".

In 1946 Meiche received the honorary citizenship of Sebnitz.

From Sebnitz to Hinterhermsdorf , in 1938, at the instigation of the “Mountain Association for Saxon-Bohemian Switzerland”, the “Dr.-Alfred-Meiche-Weg” marked with a blue and white mark was set up in memory of the famous son of Sebnitz. The artificial flower and local history museum in Sebnitz on Hertigswalder Straße 12, which emerged from the municipal antiquity collection founded in 1909, has also been named after the local researcher since 1987.

Scientific legacy

The collection of notes, comprising around 100,000 excerpts from important documents and books, is currently in the Saxon Central State Archives in Dresden . In the spirit of his Leipzig university teachers Karl Lamprecht and Eduard Sievers , Meiche advocated embedding regional historical events and developments in general historical contexts. From his point of view, history, folklore and linguistic research had to remain in constant relationship with one another if they were to lead to scientifically incontestable conclusions from a one-sided or amateur view. With the research on the interpretation of place, field and family names and the studies of the German-Slavic cultural relations in the Middle Ages, Meiche enriched the knowledge of the settlement history of Saxony.

With the saga book of the Kingdom of Saxony , Meiche presented a collection of Saxon sagas structured and selected according to scientific criteria and, thanks to the help of the Sorbian scholar Georg Pilk, presented the saga of the Sorbs .

In his main work, Historical-Topographical Description of the Pirna Administrative Authority , he evaluated the materials of the Historical Directory for this administrative district, which included the area of ​​Saxon Switzerland. It served as a model for similar works on other German landscapes.

Further parts of his estate, u. a. Manuscripts, letters, photos and documents are now in the artificial flower and local history museum "Prof. Alfred Meiche" in Sebnitz, named after him.

family

Based on Alfred Meiche's own research, it is known that his family comes from Meucha in the Altenburg area , which gave it its name. Meiche's grandfather Gottlieb August Meiche was a craftsman and showman . Meiche's father Louis Meiche (1838–1907) also worked as a showman until his wedding in 1869 and then became a flower maker in Sebnitz. His wife Auguste b. He met Wehner (1839–1926) in 1866 in the “Stiller Fritz” inn. Alfred Meiche remained the only child of the two.

The marriage between Alfred Meiche and his wife resulted in three daughters.

Publications

• Book of legends of Saxon Switzerland . Leipzig 1894 ( digitized version )
• Sebnitz fire chronicle . Sebnitz 1894 ( digitized version )
• The dialect of the church trip in Sebnitz . Halle / Saale 1898.
• Book of legends of the Kingdom of Saxony . Leipzig 1903 (ND Leipzig 1985). ( Digitized version )
• The castles and prehistoric dwellings of Saxon Switzerland . Dresden 1907 (ND Sebnitz 2000). ( Digitized version )

• The beginnings of the artificial flower industry in Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin and Sebnitz . Meinhold, Dresden 1908. ( digitized version )

• The Upper Lusatian border document from 1241 and the Burgwarde Ostrusna , Trebista and Godobi . In: Neues Lausitzisches Magazin (NLM), Volume 84, Görlitz 1908, pp. 141-251.
• The corridor image of Sebnitz in Saxon Switzerland . Crimmitschau 1925 (ND Sebnitz 1993).
• 1900-1925, commemorative publication of the school and home festival in Sürßen on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the school consecration on July 19, 1925 (inside title: Contributions to the history of the localities united in the school association Sürßen) . Pirna, 1925.
• Historical-topographical description of the Pirna administration . Dresden 1927 (ND Sebnitz 1991). ( Digitized version )
• A mill book - Of mills and millers in the work area of ​​the mountain association for Saxon Switzerland . Dresden 1927.
• Book of legends of Saxon Switzerland and its peripheral areas , Dresden 1929 (ND Berlin 1991).

literature

• H. Lemme: The local researcher Alfred Meiche and his publications about Saxon Switzerland , in: Saxon Switzerland. Reports of the Saxon Switzerland working group in the Geographical Society of the GDR 4, 1975, pp. 171–182.
• M. Schober: Prof. Dr. Alfred Meiche and his collaboration with the Sorbian scholar Dr. Georg Pilk , in: Lětopis . Annual journal of the Institute for Sorbian Folk Research, Series C - Volkskunde 20, 1977, pp. 55–67.
• H. Walther: Alfred Meiches meaning as a linguist and name researcher , in: Namenkundliche Informations 52, 1987, pp. 42-48.
• S. Hoyer: Alfred Meiche historian, name researcher and folklorist of Saxony , in: Sächsische Heimatblätter 34, 1988, no. 3, pp. 136-139.
• Manfred Schober:  Meiche, Alfred. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , p. 633 f. ( Digitized version ).
• E. Hoffmann / M. Schober: Sorabistic aspects of Alfred Meiche's work as reflected in his correspondence with Arnošt Muka , in: Lětopis. Journal for Sorbian Language, History and Culture 40, 1993, No. 2, pp. 98–128
• Manfred Schober: Alfred Meiche - for the 125th birthday of a Saxon homeland researcher . In: Landesverein Sächsischer Heimatschutz - Mitteilungen 1, 1995, pp. 41–46.

Web links

• Manfred Schober: Meiche, Alfred Louis . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .
• Literature by and about Alfred Meiche in the Saxon Bibliography

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.staedtische-sammlungen-sebnitz.de/museum.html