The poor man in Tockenburg

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ulrich Bräker around 1793

The poor man in Tockenburg is the autobiography of Swiss farmers , cotton spinner , weaver , Ferggers and enlightened pietists Ulrich Braker , which - written from 1781 to 1785 - 1789 when Hans Heinrich Füssli in Zurich under the title Life history and natural Ebentheuer the poor man in Tockenburg appeared . The German text has been translated into French (1913), English (1970), Romanian (1973), Polish (1979) and Spanish (2013).

overview

As the head of the family, responsible for the survival of a group of children, Ulrich Bräker becomes increasingly entangled in debts that he is unable to repay for his entire life.

The Dreischlatthof near Krinau
  • The first 20 of the 81 chapters revolve around the first 22 years of life of the Bräker, born in 1735. His experiences as a shepherd on his father's lonely farm Dreischlatt in a western cross valley of the Thur on the edge of the lonely mountains are discussed.
  • Beginning of the Seven Years' War : By chapter 57 the reader then learns of Bräker's participation in the Battle of Lobositz on the part of the Prussians , subsequent desertion and a happy return to Switzerland on October 26, 1756.
  • Until 1777 - up to the 70th chapter - the saltpetersieder and yarn merchant Bräker with his wife and their five children in their native Toggenburg went through sometimes bad years of hunger.
  • In the remainder of this life story, Bräker humorously describes his attempts as a prose author. The first statement about the intention to write was made in 1767. From 1779 - until the importation of cotton goods in France in 1785 - his unsuccessful efforts in the St. Gallen cotton industry for years were slowly but steadily improving.

content

At Christmas 1735, Bräker was baptized in Wattwil . The dear grandparents inherit the boy Arndt's True Christianity . Because the parents have many children and poor as a beggar, Ulrich, the eldest boy, has to look after goats in the vicinity of the Dreischlatthof, which his father runs. After three years of herding in the cabbage forest, his herd has grown to a hundred animals. The free pastoral life has come to an end. The 12-year-old Ulrich has to toil as a farmhand on the Dreischlatthof. The father is dissatisfied with the work of his elder. Ulrich was only allowed to attend school for a few weeks during his childhood. That will be partly outweighed later. At the age of 17, father's servant Ulrich was instructed and confirmed by Pastor Heinrich Näf .

In 1754 the father finally gave up the Dreischlatthof. The family moves from the mountains into the valley back to Wattwil on the Steig. Ulrich is allowed to work as a day laborer for the castle builder Weibel K. The young man falls in love with Ännchen. Ulrich's father looks at the girl "for a dissolute whore". Ulrich is to free Ursel at his father's orders.

In autumn 1755 Ulrich's father entrusted his son to the rake and fork maker Laurenz Aller from Schwellbrunn . Out in the world the young fellow should make his fortune. Ulrich says goodbye to Ännchen amid mutual oaths of love and hot kisses. Laurenz Aller is selling Ulrich in Schaffhausen to the Prussian recruiting officer Johann Markoni for a good five years. Ulrich thinks he's the lackey of this Polish nobleman. In a chaise it goes in Hornung 1756 to Strasbourg and on March 15, 1756 from Rottweil , via Ebingen , Ulm , Nördlingen , Schwabach , Nuremberg , Baiersdorf , Hof , Köstritz , Weißenfels , Halle , Zerbst , Dessau , Görzig , Wustermark , Spandau , Charlottenburg to Berlin . On April 8th, Krausenstrasse is reached in Friedrichstadt .

Ulrich falls from the clouds. His new comrade and later superior Cran puts him in the picture with a laugh. He is not Markoni's servant, but a recruit . The young Bräker is a musketeer of the 4th Company under Major Lüderitz in the 13th Infantry Regiment of the Prussian Army under Major General Itzenplitz . Before the drill begins after a week in Berlin, Bräker watches in horror as officers beat their soldiers.

The Swiss man lost the thought of deserting because he was threatened with running the gauntlet as a punishment . On August 22nd, 1756, it goes through the Köpenicker Tor to Pirna via Müllrose , Guben , Forst , Spremberg , Hoyerswerda , Kamenz and Stolpen . The Swiss Schärer and Bachmann march in Bräker's 4th company. During the above-mentioned battle at Lobositz against the Austrians, Bräker deserted on October 1st and was allowed to move to his homeland on October 5th from the Austrian headquarters in Budin . He happily reached them on October 26th via Prague , Zebrak , Pilsen , Staab , Rötz , Kürn , Regensburg , Ingolstadt , Donauwörth , Dillingen , Buxheim , Wangen , Bregenz , Rheineck and Rorschach . On the way Ulrich was fed soup and sometimes even meat in monasteries.

At home in Wattwil, the Prussian soldier in full gear is not immediately recognized by his younger siblings or his mother. Then the joy is great. But Ännchen has meanwhile married her cousin Michel and one of his children. The faithless tries in vain as a matchmaker with the homecomer. In the spring of 1757, his father employed Ulrich as a saltpeter. That is dirty hard work. Ulrich wants to go out into the world again. It is open to him; Brandenburg excluded. He stays and looks around for a woman. Ulrich finds his "dulcinee" in Eggberg . He does not reveal her name. His beauty has an "amazon face". The couple differ in character; good, thinks Ulrich. The dulcinee doesn't like Ulrich's dirty work. On her advice he becomes a yarn dealer.

On November 3, 1761, Bräker married and moved with his wife into the new house in the hamlet of Hochsteig in the village of Wattwil .

In 1760 he wants to marry her. The dulcinee only takes one who has a house. Ulrich builds one and moves in on June 17, 1761. The wedding starts at the beginning of November. Bräker writes: "So if my marriage does not belong to the happiest, it certainly does not belong to the most unhappy, but at least to the half-happy ..."

On March 26, 1762, Bräker's father died at the age of 55 while felling in the forest. Ulrich now has to take care of four underage siblings. His son Uli was born on September 10, 1762. Six more children were born in Ulrich Bräker's marriage over the years. The son Uli and the first daughter, born in 1763, die of the red dysentery in 1772, a year of starvation .

In 1767, Bräker's brother Samson died in a fall from a cherry tree. In 1768 Bräker realizes that he doesn't have what it takes to be a yarn dealer. Raw, unscrupulous people are in the right place. The Dulcinee, on the other hand, thinks that her husband stuck his nose too deep into the books, wasted time writing, drank wine and got involved with lying business partners all too trustingly. That may all be true, thinks Bräker, but "what is life without wine ...?"

1770 is the first year of famine. Snow covers the seeds until May, thunderstorms pound the Bräker garden and potato and vegetable thieves reduce the harvest. In May 1771, a good-natured man lends the father of the family money and helps him get livestock. Other people are sometimes much worse off. A father and his children chop off a sack full of meat from a dead horse that the dogs and birds have already eaten from.

In 1779 he accepted an offer from a manufacturer in Glarus to have cotton cloths woven for him in his home work. This trade developed well up to France's import ban in 1785, so that he had hope of paying off his debts and becoming a "well-off man". But after the stagnation he can just finance his family's livelihood.

Around 1778 Bräker was elected to the "Toggenburg Reformed Moral Society". This is an association of book lovers, brought to life by the Bräker discoverer Johann Ludwig Ambühl . Bräker's opponents, who accused him of poverty and desertion , had been voted down by his supporters. This membership, which enables him to read literary works criticized by his wife as a waste of time, is for him the "seed [s] of an authorship."

Quote

  • A saying of the family man Ulrich Bräker in the 1770s of hunger: It will get better!

shape

Towards the end of his autobiography Bräker admits: "My fatherland is not a land of milk and honey ... It is the Tockenburg , whose inhabitants have always been decried as restless and unpolished people ... But ... it is not suitable for me, my country folk to describe. ”Bräker writes rather exclusively about himself.

At the beginning of the 73rd chapter, Bräker announced his intention to write: “... I have to tell you a little bit too, my son! as a warning to you, so that you can see what a horrible thing it is in front of an honorable man: to immerse yourself in debts that cannot be paid off ... ”Or the 75th chapter begins with:“ This letter, my son! that I wrote that fearful night ... "

Bräker mostly describes his life - with one laughing and one crying eye - from a higher perspective; looks down on the past years with faint mockery. For example, he didn't get his little guy. He must perforce with his Dulcinea - based on the Dulcinea to make do -.

Especially in the years 1782–1785, in which this autobiography was created, Bräker vilified his writing: “... all the encounters in my life ..., I could fill entire volumes with them, ...” could “lament like an owl. .. But the foolish writing slope has lost a good part [because of the business] with me. "

reception

Remarks

  1. Christian Heinrich von Krahn, b. 1733 (edition used, p. 326, footnote 179).
  2. Ernst Karl von Lüderitz (1713–1758) (edition used, p. 326, footnote 177).

literature

Used edition

  • Life story and natural adventures of the poor man in Tockenburg . Pp. 89–308 in: Bräker's works in one volume. Selected and introduced by Hans-Günther Thalheim . Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar 1989. 339 pages, ISBN 3-351-01328-0 . contents

Secondary literature

Web links

Wikisource: Ulrich Bräker  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Ulrich Bräker  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Hans-Günther Thalheim in the edition used, p. 318, 10th Zvu
  2. Entry VIAF Translations
  3. From true Christianity digitized in the DTA.
  4. Edition used, p. 222, 2nd Zvu
  5. Edition used, p. 244, 7th Zvo
  6. Edition used, p. 233, middle
  7. Edition used, p. 232, 9. Zvu
  8. Edition used, p. 290, 1. Zvu
  9. Edition used, p. 245, 14. Zvo
  10. Edition used, p. 253, 4th Zvo
  11. Edition used, p. 255, 18. Zvu