Bernhard C. Bünker

Bernhard Christian Bünker (born August 14, 1948 in Leoben ; † July 16, 2010 in Rastenfeld ) was an Austrian poet and narrator. He is regarded as one of the most important poets and innovators of Austrian dialect literature of the last three decades of the last century, succeeding the Viennese group . In the 1970s and 1980s, together with his friends, writers Hans Haid and Manfred Chobot , he consistently pushed ahead with the networking and internationalization of the new 'critical' dialect poetry.

life and work

Bernhard C. Bünker was the oldest of three children of the couple Liesl and Otto Bünker, a Protestant pastor and poet. When he started school in 1954, he came to Carinthia, where the family had lived for generations and the men worked as Protestant pastors. He attended schools in Radenthein , Villach , Klagenfurt and Oberschützen and moved to Vienna in 1970, studied history, philosophy and art history at the university and finally taught Protestant religion at compulsory schools in Vienna. As a writer and poet, he felt that his teaching profession made him largely independent of the poorly paid Austrian literature business and that he could not be influenced in his literary work. He was a member of the Graz Authors' Assembly , a founding member of the International Dialect Institute, first President of the Austrian Dialect Authors Archive and a member of the Podium literature association .

The language of his poems is consistently and consistently his own Carinthian dialect. In addition to his poems, stories and satires, Bünker's work also includes song texts - set to music by Hans Pleschberger, Gottfried Gfrerer and Bruno Strobl - as well as radio plays and television scripts . In 1975 his first book, De ausvakafte Hamat , a thin but weighty volume of dialect poems, was published as a critical examination of the excesses of tourism in the Alps using the example of Carinthia. Thirteen more independent publications followed, mostly by Carinthian publishers.

For Bernhard C. Bünker, in addition to the political and social intention, in addition to the question of the quality and authenticity of poetry, there was also always the claim to write against the "kitsching of dialect poetry in the sense of an unrealistic view of reality, postcard painting and homeland fuss". He kept it with the American labor poet Carl Sandburg (1878–1967), whom he quotes in his last book - a kind of best of a legacy in the form of a poetic catechism -: “Dialect is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits in his hands and grabs [...]. ”It was part of Bünker's declared aim to link the critical dialect poetry in poetry, science and media across regional and national borders. In addition to him, the operators included Hans Haid and Manfred Chobot, the scientists Wolfgang Pollak (Vienna), Peter Pabisch (New Mexico), Oswald Andrae (Northern Germany), André Weckmann (Alsace) and Julian Dillier (Switzerland). A special concern was to refer to the place due to that traditionalist dialect poetry , which turned out to be unpleasant as nationalist blood and soil poetry and as forest and meadow poetry. A redefinition of the term “home” as an experience of a social place with ecological and solidarity responsibility runs through Bünker's work like a red thread and was an identity for him. For Bünker, the “geography” of his human existence sums up the poem the world is not home by Peter-Paul Zahl . Bernhard C. Bünker's texts, whether poems or stories, are declarations of love to his Carinthian “home”, an area of ​​two languages, Slovene and German as well as their different dialects, and to the people on both sides of the Drava . In dealing with the political situation in Carinthia, he sharply criticized the policy of excluding the Slovenian minority and the narrow-mindedness, narrow-mindedness and agitation of the German majority population.

Works

• The evacuated Hamat . Friedl Brehm Publishing House , Feldafing 1975
• To Heabst fi di . Texts in the Carinthian dialect. Carinthia publishing house, Klagenfurt 1976
• Ongst vua da Ongst . Carinthia Publishing House, Klagenfurt 1978
• About disgust and sadness . Songs, fairy tales, ballads, texts from Carinthia. IDI-Ton 2, Vienna 1979 (composer: Hans Pleschberger)
• Wals the Hamat is . Edited by Antonio Fian . A Fettfleck special edition / Fettfleck - Kärntner Literaturhefte Spittal / Drau, Vienna 1979
• Des Schtickl gea i allan . Dialect texts. Carinthia publishing house, Klagenfurt 1980
• Happy goa is . Texts in the Carinthian dialect. Heyn publishing house , Klagenfurt 1984
• Call lafn . Texts in the Carinthian dialect. [With record] Van Acken Verlag, Krefeld 1988
• Nochamol z'rucklafn . Büldschticklen from fost viazg Joa. Heyn publishing house, Klagenfurt 1988
• Satires . With a foreword by Manfred Chobot. Verlag Buchkultur , Vienna 1990
• Dazöhl (nothing) from daham . Texts and stories in the Carinthian dialect. Hermagoras Verlag / Mohorjeva Založba , Klagenfurt / Celovec, Vienna 1991
• Karntn is lei a coarse . IDI-Ton 22, Vienna 1992 (composer: Gottfried David Gfrerer )
• Schwoaze Blia fia di . Hermagoras Verlag / Mohorjeva Založba, Klagenfurt / Celovec, Vienna 1993
• cognizant. Selection of works . Carinthia publishing house, Klagenfurt / Celovec 1995
• Swippich and the fish . [Picture book] illustrations by Gernot Sommerfeld; Songdog Publishing House, Vienna 2017
• Where I stay. Dialect poems. Edited and with accompanying texts by Manfred Chobot and Axel Karner . Verlag Johannes Heyn, Klagenfurt / Celovec 2018. ISBN 978-3-7084-0620-6 .

Sound carrier

• About disgust and sadness . Songs, fairy tales, ballads, texts from Carinthia, audio cassette, IDI sound 2, Vienna 1979 (composer: Hans Pleschberger)
• Karntn is lei a coarse . Audio cassette, IDI-Ton 22, Vienna 1992 (composer: Gottfried David Gfrerer )
• Carinthian songs . CD, Extraplatte , Mödling 1997 (composer: Bruno Strobl)

Scripts / TV films

• Überm Tal ( ORF , 1979) Director: Anton Reitzenstein
• The good impression (ORF, 1979) Director: Georg Lhotzky
• The dialect poet meeting (ORF, 1990) Director: Herbert Grunsky

Editing and collaboration

• Dialect anthology 1970–1980. (with Manfred Chobot) International Dialect Institute, Vienna 1982
• Collaboration on the audio cassette series IDI-TON, Internationales Dialektinstitut, Vienna and Reinprechtspölla
• Collaboration on the dialect magazine Morgenschtean , Vienna 1989–1993

About Bernhard C. Bünker

• Mirror images - Bernhard C. Bünker . A local poet from Carinthia. ORF, TV. Director: Alois Hawlik
• Pastor's children . Life stories from the Protestant rectory. ORF, December 17, 2002. A film by Renata Schmidtkunz

Individual evidence

1. Manfred Chobot: "RAAAH" - for Bernhard C. Bünker (1948–2010). In: Wiener Zeitung , Extra, July 24, 2010; Podium, No. 157/158; Morgenschtean, U29-30
2. Axel Karner : "If you play along, you are complicit and it is no longer enough to stay out of it" New Austrian dialect literature using the example of Bernhard C. Bünker
3. Gerhard Ruiss : [Obituary] Bernhard C. Bünker August 14, 1948–16. July 2010. In: Autorensolidarität. Börsenblatt of Austrian authors and literature. Vienna: IG Authors Authors 2010, issue 4/10.