Emerenz Meier

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Emerenz Meier before 1925

Emerenz Meier (born October 3, 1874 in Schiefweg , today part of Waldkirchen / Niederbayern ; † February 28, 1928 in Chicago , Illinois ) was a German writer . Alongside Lena Christ , she is considered the most important Bavarian folk poet.

Life

In the Bavarian Forest

Birthplace in the Schiefweg district of Waldkirchen

Emerenz Meier, who was born in Schiefweg (municipality of Waldkirchen ) in 1874, began writing about her home in Lower Bavaria as a child . Emerenz Meier was the daughter of Emerenz Meier, née Raab, and the farmer, cattle dealer and innkeeper Josef Meier. She was a very good student and wrote short stories and poems very early on. She lived and worked on her parents' farm and also helped as a waitress in the tavern.

In 1893, the Passauer Donau-Zeitung published her first short story Der Juhschroa , which she had secretly sent in. In autumn 1896 her first and only book From the Bavarian Forest was published in Königsberg, East Prussia . The writer Hans Carossa read it and then visited Emerenz Meier on foot in Schiefweg in autumn 1898. In his book The Year of Beautiful Deceptions , published by Insel Verlag in 1941 , he processed this hike and the subsequent stay at the Meiers' farm in literary terms.

The poet had become a regional celebrity. Her photograph in costume was sold in 1898 by the inventor of the postcard, Alphons Adolph from Passau, together with the photo of the house she was born in as a “Greetings from Waldkirchen”.

In Chicago

At the end of the century, the father emigrated to the USA with some family members because of the increasingly difficult economic situation . In March 1906, Emerenz Meier and her mother followed their emigrated father and her sisters after an interlude as a landlady in Passau and a writer in Munich . Emerenz settled in Chicago in the German quarter. The hoped-for personal economic upturn did not materialize, however. In 1907 Emerenz Meier married Josef Schmöller, who was a compatriot from the Bavarian Forest and who had also emigrated. In 1908 a son was born. Her husband died of tuberculosis in 1910 . Initially, Emerenz Meier gave lectures in German associations and wrote short stories and poems for German-language magazines, but that did not lead to prosperity. In her second marriage she married the Swede John Lindgren.

The First World War intensified their criticism of the political, economic and social conditions in Europe and America. She turns into a staunch pacifist and communist . With the outbreak of war, the contact with the former homeland was temporarily lost and was not resumed until 1919. Letters to her Waldkirchen friend Auguste Unertl showed her sympathy for communism and her aversion to capitalism and the church. With money and donations in kind, she tried to alleviate the misery in the Bavarian Forest, although she had little herself. During the prohibition period in the USA, she brewed beer in Chicago for her compatriots and for her own needs.

Emerenz Meier died on February 28, 1928 in Chicago at the age of 53 of complications from a kidney infection.

plant

Bust of Emerenz Meier in Passau (by Christine Wagner, 2008)

Texts by Emerenz Meier appeared in magazines such as Simplicissimus and Die fiegen Blätter . They were characterized by their passionate attitude towards nature and the environment in the Bavarian Forest. Her work met with interest from the public. However, she is said to have been insulted by the rural population of her home community Schiefweg as a foolish verse maker (crazy verse maker ), after her stay in Passau also as a whore .

Her terse stories and poems were also published in newspapers and calendars. Emerenz Meier was considered a natural talent and very capable actress of her rural homeland among literary friends. In the Municipal Theater Passau two of her short stories have been performed in dramatized form.

museum

The “Born in Schiefweg” museum, the first emigration museum in Bavaria, was set up on May 15, 2010 in the birthplace of Emerenz Meier. The time of the wave of emigration from the Bavarian Forest around 1900 is documented in detail.

Works

  • Emerenz Meier: From the Bavarian Forest , Stories and Poems, Königsberg 1898.
  • Emerenz Meier: From the Bavarian Forest , Stories and Poems, ed. by Hans Bleibrunner and Alfred Fuchs, drawings by Josef Fruth. With a life picture of the poet by Max Peinkofer and a reminder of Hans Carossa's meeting with the writer [in 1898]. Completed reprint of the author's first and only book publication during her lifetime, Grafenau (Morsak) 1974.
  • Emerenz Meier: Collected Works , ed. v. Hans Goettler. 2 Bde. Grafenau (Morsak) 1991. ISBN 3-87553-369-0 .
  • Hans Göttler : "... child free of the free forest". An Emerenz Meier reading book , Grafenau (Morsak) 2008.

literature

  • Joseph Berlinger : Emerenz. Scenes, letters, poems; from the life of the Bavarian poet, landlady and emigrant (with materials, letters, poems and photos by Emerenz Meier), Brehm Verlag , Feldafing. (1982 premiered as the play Emerenz and the journey to America in the Stadttheater Ingolstadt ).
  • Friedemann Fegert: Emerenz Meier in Chicago. Edition Lichtland, 2014, ISBN 978-3-942509-36-7 .
  • Friedemann Fegert: Emerenz Meier in Chicago. In: Friedemann Fegert: You do not indulge Eich at all how it is to ged in Amerigha. Emigration from the young clearing villages in Passau to North America since the middle of the 19th century. Karlsruhe 2001, ISBN 3-8311-0234-1 , pp. 380-406.
  • Michaela Karl: Emerenz Meier: The Bavarian Forest poet. In: Bavarian Amazons - 12 portraits. Pustet, Regensburg 2004, ISBN 3791718681 , pp. 32-49.
  • Max Peinkofer: My forest - my life: life picture of the poet Emerenz Meier. 2005.
  • Paul Praxl : Emerenz Meier - Origin and Environment. In: The Bavarian Forest. 86th Jg., Zwiesel 1994, No. 4, pp. 18-27.
  • Paul Praxl: The unknown Emerenz Meier. Publications of the Waldkirchen City Archives, No. 4. Waldkirchen 2008.
  • Paul Praxl: "I am terribly radical-minded". The unknown Emerenz Meier. Passau 2012, ISBN 978-3-86328-116-8 .

Movies

  • Schiefweg , German feature film from 1988; Script and direction: Jo Baier . The film tells scenes from the childhood of Emerenz Meier and the hard life in the countryside in the Bavarian Forest. The main role of Emerenz Meier is played by Daniela Schötz from Haus bei Bad Kötzting.
  • Wildfeuer , German feature film from 1991; Script and direction: Jo Baier . Anica Dobra plays the leading role of Emerenz Meier.

Web links

Commons : Emerenz Meier  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Emerenz Meier  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Carossa, The year of beautiful illusions. Insel Verlag, Leipzig 1941, pp. 179–181; P. 199; P. 211f .; Pp. 226-319.
personal data
SURNAME Meier, Emerenz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Crooked path near Waldkirchen ( Lower Bavaria ), Kingdom of Bavaria
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1928
Place of death Chicago , Illinois , United States