August Matthes

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August Matthes' birth house in Wehrsdorf
Memorial stone for Bihms Koarle in front of the house where he was born

August Matthes (called Bihms Koarle ; born October 29, 1854 in Wehrsdorf , Upper Lusatia , Kingdom of Saxony ; † January 29, 1937 in Zittau ) was a dialect poet from Upper Lusatia. The folk life of that time was preserved for posterity through his swaying, purring and humorous verses in Upper Lusatian dialect .

Origin of the dialect name

His grandmother, a born Bohemian, was called "Bihme" in dialect. For a novella from theater life with the Zittau newspaper editor Johannes Müller (who called himself Hans Hagen as a poet), an agreement was reached on the name Bihms Koarle . Under this name he became known as a local poet.

Life

Matthes, born in today's Dresdner Straße 51, came from a family of linen weavers in Wehrsdorf. He attended the Wehrsdorf village school and was then able to work in the village as a hand weaver for a year. Between 1870 and 1876 he attended the teachers' seminar ( rural class seminar ) in Bautzen and then went to Olbersdorf and Waltersdorf as an assistant teacher . In Zittau he worked as a teacher (elementary school teacher) and senior teacher from 1879 until his retirement in 1920. In doing so, he made a contribution to researching the Upper Lusatian dialect in an incomparable way for the time and wrote many stories and poems himself, often in funny form reflected the life in this area at that time. During this time he also became seriously ill with pulmonary tuberculosis.

Works

Some of his works were published as books in 1909, 1916 and 1927 under the title “Fuhre Kraut und Rüben”. Many of his poems were also passed down orally and thus became folk tales, a phenomenon that is rarely observed today.

  • 1909: First load of cabbage and beets
  • 1916: Second load of cabbage and beets
  • 1927: Third load of cabbage and beets
  • the fourth load remained unfinished

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Matthes, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dialect poet
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Wehrsdorf
DATE OF DEATH January 29, 1937
Place of death Zittau