Dorothea Viehmann

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contemporary portrait of the storyteller Dorothea Viehmann by Ludwig Emil Grimm

Dorothea Viehmann (born Katharina Dorothea Pierson , born November 8, 1755 in Rengershausen , today a district of Baunatal , † November 17, 1815 ) was one of the most important sources for Grimm's fairy tales . The Brothers Grimm published Dorothea Viehmann's stories mainly in the second volume of their Children's and Household Tales (KHM).

Life

Dorothea Viehmann was born as Katharina Dorothea Pierson in Rengershausen as the daughter of an innkeeper. The ancestors on the father's side came to Hessen-Kassel as persecuted Huguenots after the edict of Nantes was repealed . Because of this French origin, a number of French fairy tale variations about Dorothea Viehmann were found in the fairy tale collection of the Brothers Grimm. In her father's dining room, she also heard many stories, legends and fairy tales from passing merchants, craftsmen and carters, which she later passed on to the brothers.

In 1777 Dorothea Pierson married the tailor Nikolaus Viehmann and moved with him in 1787 to Niederzwehren (now part of Kassel ). After the death of her husband, she looked after herself and her seven children by selling products from her garden in the market.

According to the Grimm researcher Heinz Rölleke , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was the fifth cousin of Dorothea Viehmann; the common progenitor is a Valentin Schröder.

In 1813, Mrs. Viehmann got to know the Brothers Grimm and told them about 40 fairy tales and fairy tale variations on at least 36 fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm. Wilhelm Grimm wrote about her: “One of those good coincidences, however, was that we met a peasant woman from the village of Nieder-Zwehrn near Cassel, who told us most of the most beautiful fairy tales in the second volume. This woman, called the cattle man, was still vigorous and not much over fifty years old. [...] She kept the old legends firmly in memory ”. The Brothers Grimm were particularly impressed by the fact that they always knew how to tell the fairy tales in the same choice of words.

Fairy tales going back to Viehmann

Texts going back to Dorothea Viehmann always have the reference from Zwehrn in the comments of the Brothers Grimm . Bernhard Lauer therefore suspects that KHM 176 The Lifetime , which a farmer from Zwehrn is said to have told, could be in the same tradition. In addition, versions by Dorothea Viehmann were incorporated into other fairy tales or are given as variants in the notes.

Viehmann places and honors

Statue in Kassel-Niederzwehren in honor of Dorothea Viehmann

The guest and brewery Knallhütte, in which Dorothea Viehmann grew up and which is now owned by the Hütt brewery , is in Baunatal-Rengershausen on the A 49 motorway near the Kassel-West motorway junction.

The center of Kassel-Niederzwehren is now also called the 'fairytale district' because of the storyteller's residence at the time. The names of some streets and paths in this area are reminiscent of the Brothers Grimm and their fairy tales, such as the street names Märchenweg, Dornröschenpfad, Däumling, Sterntalerweg, Dorothea-Viehmann-Straße and Brüder-Grimm-Straße. The local elementary school in Niederzwehren has been called the Dorothea Viehmann School since 1951. In the area between the Kassel districts Niederzwehren and Oberzwehren, a park was named after the storyteller.

On the half-timbered house in Märchenweg, where Dorothea Viehmann lived from 1787 to 1798, a plaque and a bust commemorate the storyteller. Reference is also made to the former resident at the house on Brüder-Grimm-Strasse, which the family lived in from 1798.

In February 2009 a life-size half-bust of Dorothea Viehmann was unveiled, which the artist Berahna Massoum created on behalf of the Brothers Grimm Museum Kassel based on the portraits drawn by Ludwig Emil Grimm. The bust was initially placed on a stone plinth at the corner of Korbacher Strasse and Frankfurter Strasse. In 2015 it found its new location on the Märchenplatz in Niederzwehren, below the Matthäuskirche. Dorothea Viehmann's grave is also located there.

In 1996, a new building area in Berlin was given street names based on Grimm's fairy tales; including a Dorothea-Viehmann-Straße.

Varia

In September 2012, an etching from the holdings of the Kassel University Library was identified as a previously unknown picture by Dorothea Viehmann. It comes from Ludwig Emil Grimm.

literature

  • Georg Textor: Fairy tale festival in Kassel-Niederzwehren to commemorate the 200th birthday of the Zwehrener fairy tale woman Dorothea Viehmann: from 4. – 11. July 1955 , writing by the school u. Heimatverein Dorothea Viehmann e. V. and the Dorothea Viehmann School
  • Bernhard Lauer: Dorothea Viehmann and the Brothers Grimm. Fairy tales and reality. In: fairytale mirror. Journal for international fairy tale research and fairy tale care. 2/9, 1998, ISSN  0946-1140 , pp. 36-42.
  • Holger Ehrhardt: Dorothea Viehmann. The storyteller of the Brothers Grimm. Extensive documentation with contributions by Vera Leuschner, Heinz Rölleke u. a. 160 pages. Euregio Verlag Kassel 2012.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinz Rölleke: The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. Sources and Studies. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier 2000, ISBN 3-88476-390-3 , pp. 28-29.
  2. ^ Children's and house fairy tales . 2nd Edition. 1819, foreword ( Wikisource )
  3. ↑ Website of the Heimatverein Niederzwehren
  4. ↑ Website of the Heimatverein Niederzwehren
  5. ↑ Page no longer available , search in web archives: Report from the city of Kassel@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.stadt-kassel.de
  6. ^ Dorothea-Viehmann-Strasse. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
  7. ↑ Portrait of the storyteller Dorothea Viehmann discovered (with picture) University of Kassel
personal data
SURNAME Viehmann, Dorothea
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Storyteller and source of the fairy tale collection of the Brothers Grimm
DATE OF BIRTH November 8, 1755
PLACE OF BIRTH Rengershausen
DATE OF DEATH November 17, 1815