Armon Planta

Armon Planta (born May 28, 1917 in Susch , † August 14, 1986 in Sent GR , pronunciation [ ˌarmɔn ˈplantɐ ]) was a teacher, poet and local history researcher, whose specialty was the historical traffic routes in Switzerland .

Life

Armon Planta was born in Susch as the son of an Engadine teacher and a Walser mother from Hinterrhein GR . He spent his childhood in S-chanf . Like his father, he attended the teachers' college in Chur and then studied at the University of Zurich with additional studies in Grenoble . He worked as a secondary teacher in Sta. Maria , Sent and from 1961 in Scuol . In Sta. Maria lived Armon Planta for thirteen years. At that time he married Rosa Maria Huder and they had four children.

Since teachers in the Engadine had no work and therefore no income during the long summer vacation until the 1950s, Armon Planta occupied himself with archaeological excavations during the summer months . This work became more and more important and fascinating for him over time, he initiated his own studies and wrote several books about the historical traffic routes in the canton of Graubünden and Tyrol .

In 1977 Armon Planta retired, on the one hand because of hearing problems, but on the other hand also to be able to pursue the archaeological studies more intensively. In addition to his passion for archeology and poetry, Armon Planta was a dedicated environmentalist.

writing

Armon Planta was a political poet who campaigned against the “selling out of his homeland”, rampant opportunism and the Germanization of the Graubünden Romanesque valleys. Against this background, many of the poems read from his anthologies Amarellas (1973, German sour cherries ), Tampradas (1975, German hardened ) and Pommaraida (1982, German berry fruits ). A kind of summary of his central themes can be found in his poem Eu patisch cun tai (German I suffer with you ), in which he simultaneously deals with concerns about the environment and the preservation of the Romance language.

“ Las ouvras dals ons 1960/70 sun per gronda part polemicas chi criticheschan il progress. Ma sper quista maniera directa d'intervgnir nu's das-cha invlidar sia satira, suvent ironica. "

“The works of the 1960s and 1970s are largely polemical in nature and criticize progress. But despite all the directness with which he brings himself in, one should not overlook his sense of the satirical, often also the ironic. "

- Clà Riatsch , professor of Romansh literature, in the Engadiner Post on September 21, 2010.

From 1971 onwards, Armon Planta worked for the independent Romanesque magazine Il chardun (German: Die Distel ) and also wrote for countless other newspapers and magazines, for example for the German-speaking Nebelspalter .

Despite the political and satirical character of a large part of his work, humor was not neglected in his lyrical work. Armon Planta made extensive use of puns and played with the various dialects of the Graubünden Romance language to give his poems a comical and humorous attitude. His joy in playing on words is particularly expressed in a series of limericks about the various villages in the Engadine. Here is an example from his volume Tampradas :

Avant ons, üna juvna d'Ardez
cuschinaiva per quels da Zernez,
mo la bella fantschella
ha ruot la padella
da lavez, sainza drets be permez.

Years ago a maiden in Ardez
cooked for the people in Zernez,
but the maiden broke - owei! -
Her pan in two:
yes that's how it goes in the rush of hot fat.

- From the volume of poetry Tamprada from 1975.

Armon Planta wrote a lot of song lyrics. The musician Warren Thew, for example, used his lyrics for choral compositions. A well-known text by Armon Planta in Rumantschia , which became the lyrics to the song, is the lyrics of the song Co es quai? Sung by Linard Bardill . (German How is that exactly? ): Planta had added two stanzas to the original poem La naivetta by Men Rauch (1944, German for example Der fein Schnee ).

Planta worked as a translator of articles and literary works. Translated authors were, for example, Kurt Marti , Erich Kästner and the South Tyrolean Maridl Innerhofer . He signed with the abbreviation "aPa". He wrote most of his literary and journalistic texts in Vallader .

research

As an amateur archaeologist, Armon Planta mainly dealt with the historical traffic routes in Graubünden and Tyrol.

From October 1978 to September 1982 he received project funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation to research and inventory important old pass and passageways in the former Raetia .

In 1981 he received the recognition award of the Canton of Graubünden "in recognition of his creative work in researching old paths and roads in the Alpine region and in recognition of his writing activities." In 1986 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bern , just the day before his death:

" [Armon Planta] ha perscrutà cun grondischma premura, cun lavur instancabla e cull'experienza e clera vista dal muntagnard las vias veglias e lur pass dal temp roman, dal temp d'immez e plü preschaint, vias chi d'eiran gnüdas sepulidas pervia da grondas negligenceas. L'uondrà tillas ha darcheu chattadas in pajais elvetic ed austriac. "

“[Armon Planta] has researched the old traffic routes and their course from Roman times, from the Middle Ages and the following times, traffic routes that were buried as a result of great negligence with great diligence, tireless work and the experience and clarity of the mountain man. Thirsty for knowledge, he found it again in Swiss and Austrian regions. "

- From the laudation of the University of Bern, 1986.

Publications

Poetry

• Amarellas: Poesias. Self-published, 1973.
• Tampradas: Poesias. Self-published, 1975.
• Pommaraida: Poesias. Self-published, 1982.

Archaeological non-fiction books

• Old ways through the Rofla and the Viamala. Rhaetian Museum, Chur 1980.
• Traffic routes in old Raetia. Volumes 1–4, Verlag Bündner Monatsblatt, Chur 1985–1991. Volume 4: compiled by his son Tumasch Planta.

literature

• Annalas da la Societad Retorumantscha 99, 1986, pp. 293-296.
• Jacques Guidon : Armon Planta (1917-1986). In: Annalas da la Societad Retorumantscha 123, 2010, pp. 255-268.
• Clà Riatsch: Planta, Armon. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The title must be completed on Poesias tampradas . Armon Planta in the foreword to the choice of the title: «The fiery red steel is forged, formed and hardened in the right place and at the right moment by being quenched in water or oil. (...) [Just like steel, the poem must] be forged into a form that can withstand the demands that our time places on a poem. "
2. ↑ Tamangur , CD, Zytglogge Verlag, 1996.
3. ^ Clà Riatsch on the poem La naivetta in the magazine da cultura of Rhaeto-Romanic television on February 18, 2012.
4. ↑ Project data on the SNSF website, accessed on March 28, 2014.
5. ↑ Prize winners since 1969. ( Memento of the original from March 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file)