Christof Jung

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Christof Jung (born January 31, 1939 in Rüsselsheim ; † May 8, 2017 in Nieder-Olm ) was a German bookseller , adventurer and flamenco expert, best known for his specialist articles on cante flamenco.

Life

Christof Jung grew up with six siblings in Rüsselsheim; He experienced the end of the war with relatives in Limburg, after his mother and four of the siblings, including Christof, were buried and rescued in a bomb attack in Rüsselsheim . His talent for languages ​​was noticed early on, he finished high school and earned his first money in construction. "But his love belonged to literature and distant lands. Most of the time , he hitchhiked into the distance whenever he had time to travel." In Wiesbaden he did an apprenticeship as a bookseller , after graduating he went to Barcelona , where he found employment in a bookstore. After learning the language, he went to Paris two years later , found a job in a bookstore on the left bank of the Seine and perfected his French at the Alliance française , where he met his future wife Elke, a student from Hamburg, with who had two children. On his return he became a branch manager at Montanus in Mainz , but soon opened his own bookstore near the train station, which he ran for forty years: "Here he quickly made a name for himself with an unusual range of products, namely above all the literature that he himself captivated and occupied; and since he was also a connoisseur of classical music and folklore, he also offered appropriate recordings . With him you got rare, mainly Spanish, but also French recordings; his connections made it possible. "

Specialist author for Gitanos and Sephardim

As a teenager, many of his trips to the Gitanos (gypsies) in Jerez took him. He had already learned the dialect of the Spanish Gypsies when he became acquainted with craftsmen and traders in Jerez from the late 1950s, some of whom later became well-known performers of Cante Flamenco. Jung became a recognized expert in this area; he published books and specialist articles about it. Together with the flamenco guitarist Manolo Lohnes , who lives in Mainz and also runs a flamenco studio there, he has been drawing for several years since 1970 for various bibliophile publications such as "Nanas. Lullabies from Spain.", "Rejelendres Calós. Proverbs of Spanish gypsies. " or "The performers of the Cante Flamenco." responsible.

Long before flamenco was professionally discussed in Germany, Jung wrote about it, for example about the probably most powerful interpreter of Cante Flamenco, Manuel Agujetas , with whom he had a lifelong friendship:

"All of a sudden he starts to sing" por Martinetes ", one martinete after the other. His neck veins swell in the difficult parts. He climbs more and more into an ecstatic state, "sings himself down deeply" (muy jondo) - his reserves of strength seem inexhaustible [...] His song laments the misfortune of being born into this world as Gitano, of the age-old suffering of his people who live in filth and misery. His song is full of sadness, has tremendous expressive power, is pure and archaic; without tricks, without acrobatic flourishes, sobs and drawn out "aayys" No, his scream is short - but he wounds like a caustic fire. [...] I've heard many great cantaores in Spain, but none of them was able to sing three or four martinetes in a row. But Manuel has been singing it for hours now - it's incomprehensible! After this unique performance none of those present dared to sing that evening. "

- Christof Jung: Cante flamenco

When he was still old, Jung was invited as an expert to a flamenco concert on the West German Radio , when his friends from Jerez were playing in the broadcasting house. Those present were amazed when the Mainz bookseller spoke to them in their own dialect : even after many years he still spoke it. Another hobby was the Sahara . His rich offer of special literature by Algerian writers or about the dying nomadic culture of the Tuareg , for which he was very committed, testifies to numerous trips “into the silence of the Sahara”. Several times he traveled with the Tuareg on his own camel through the desert. Jung was also an outspoken expert on Jewish history . He was particularly fascinated by that of the Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain . In retirement he worked on an extensive book about the Sephardim in Saloniki , which was supposed to be about their special ancient Spanish language and culture, which perished with the Second World War. Due to illness, he could no longer get the book ready for printing; only one excerpt, "Jewish Proverbs from Saloniki", was published in advance in 2002 as a bibliophile booklet. At the end of 2002, Christof Jung brought the Mainz literary scholar Andreas Wittbrodt to the attention of Josef Guggenmos' haikus, which until then had only been published in a private print of twelve poems . Wittbrodt and Stefan Wolfschütz took care of the posthumous publication of the Guggenmos haikus.

Publications (selection)

  • Memento flamenco. Munich: Rainer Görlitz 1968. [Five songs translated by Jung online in: AM Duration  : “Southwest Europe, Andalusia. Flamenco gitano. “- Encyclopedia Cinematographica (Ed .: G. Wolf ) Göttingen: Institute for Scientific Film 1971, 17, 20–23.]
  • Nanas. Lullabies from Spain. Mainz: Flamenco Studio 1970, 1976²
  • Flamenco songs. Selected, translated and introduced by Christof Jung. Cologne: Jakob Hegner 1970.
  • Rejelendres Calós. Proverbs of Spanish gypsies. Mainz: Flamenco Studio 1971.
  • Word list of the dialect of the Spanish gypsies. Caló - Spanish - German. Mainz: Flamenco Studio 1972.
  • The performers of the cante flamenco. Mainz: Flamenco Studio 1974.
  • "Gypsy proverbs." - Michael D. Reinhard [ed.]: Communications on Gypsy Studies. No. 1. Mömbris-Dörnsteinbach: S. Eberwein-Feik 1975, 8-10.
  • "Cante Flamenco" - Claus Schreiner [ed.]: Flamenco: gitano-andaluz. Frankfurt: Fischer 1985, 64-101. ISBN 3-596-22994-4 . (English: Claus Schreiner [ed.]: Flamenco. Gypsy Dance and Music from Andalusia. Pompton Plains NJ 1990, 57–87. ISBN 1-57467-013-1 .)
  • No saying that lies. Jewish proverbs from Salonika. Jewish Spanish and German. Segnitz: Zenos 2002.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmut Wöber: "The silence of the Sahara. Christof Jung." - John Lesney [ed.]: The return of beautiful writing. Segnitz 2002, 11. ISBN 978-3-931018-83-2
  2. ↑ Hans Michael Hensel: "Travel from wild flamenco to the silence of the Sahara" (with picture of Jung with the flamenco singer Manuel Agujetas .) Retrieved on May 29, 2019.
  3. ↑ Claus Schreiner [ed.]: Flamenco: gitano-andaluz. Frankfurt: Fischer 1985, 64-101. ISBN 3-596-22994-4 .
  4. ↑ Christof Jung: Journeys inward. Retrieved May 29, 2019.
  5. ^ "Afterword" - Josef Guggenmos: Rundes Schweigen. Hamburg: Haiku Verlag 2005, 70. ISBN 3-937257-09-8
personal data
SURNAME Jung, Christof
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German bookseller, adventurer and flamenco expert
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Ruesselsheim
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 2017
Place of death Nieder-Olm