Emily Gerstner-Hirzel

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Emily Gerstner-Hirzel (born June 2, 1923 in Basel ; † October 28, 2003 in Lucerne ) was a Swiss philologist and folklorist . Her specialties were the German lullaby as well as the folk tales and the Alemannic dialect of the village of Bosco / Gurin in Ticino .

Life

Emily Gerstner-Hirzel attended the Basel girls ' high school from the end of 1942 , where she graduated from the school in spring 1944. She studied German , philosophy and church history at the University of Basel . Her dissertation on the lullaby was suggested by Friedrich Ranke . On March 9, 1956, at the request of Heinrich Wagner and Maria Bindschedler (1920-2006) , Gerstner-Hirzel's dissertation was approved by the Faculty of Philosophy and History at the University of Basel, and the day after it passed the doctoral examination. The dissertation did not appear until 1967 after a revision.

She was married to the English scholar Arthur Gerstner .

Create

Between 1969 and 1977 Gerstner-Hirzel put together "a considerable collection of legends, fairy tales, swans and many reports and personal statements" from the mountain village of Bosco / Gurin. She transcribed these texts in Gurin dialect in a transcription based on the Dieth spelling , but adapted to the Gurin conditions, and transferred them into standard German. For the time being, three monographs (1979, 1986, 1989) emerged from their collection. In doing so, she wrote the “most detailed representation of Guriner German”.

In 1984, after 30 years of research, she completed her 715-page work Das Volksstümliche Deutsche Wiegenlied . In it she presents 375 types of lullaby texts that she took from German-language lullaby collections. The much-cited work is considered a standard work . According to the Cologne ethnomusicologist Günther Noll , Emily Gerstner-Hirzel has "achieved a great scientific achievement". In addition to the musical aspects, she also recognized and described the role of movement in forming melodies in children's songs - which are often children's dances as well.

At the time of her death, only the part about nouns was nearly complete from her Gurin German dictionary, on which she had been working since 1990. This was made ready for printing in the following years under the direction of the curator of the Walserhaus Museum, Cristina Lessmann-Della Pietra, and in cooperation with the editors of the Swiss German dictionary and was published in 2014. Unlike in “ordinary” dictionaries, the Words not only translated, but explained in their cultural-historical context. Here again the mastery of Gerstner-Hirzel to present language and culture as a unit is evident.

exhibition

Gerstner-Hirzel's book From the Folk Tradition by Bosco Gurin , published in 1979, served as the inspiration for the exhibition Die Welt der Weltu 2012 and 2013 in the Museum Walserhaus in Bosco Gurin. It showed the “Bosco Gurin Collection” with often archaic-looking small objects by the Canadian-Swiss writer and artist Kurt Hutterli , on which he began working in 2007, inspired by Gerstner-Hirzel's book. One of the sculptures is entitled Ggschechtufèngar - Story Catcher, Homage for Emily Gerstner-Hirzel . Based on notes by Emily Gerstner-Hirzel, the artist Elisabeth Flueler Tomamichel created 14 dolls especially for the exhibition. The description of the exhibition says: “The Gurin legends and stories are a diverse and valuable cultural asset that was passed down orally through generations until a few decades ago. Unfortunately, the spread of radio and television in Gurin, as everywhere else, meant that on long winter evenings there was less and less talk in the living room. As a result, the traditional stories threatened to be forgotten. Through her research, Dr. phil. Emily Gerstner-Hirzel just to counteract the danger. "

Fonts

  • Draft of a typology of the German cradle rhyme: the type "sleep, child, sleep" and its relationships to other complexes of variants. Basel 1967 (dissertation, University of Basel, 1956).
  • The nursery rhyme. In: Rolf Wilhelm Brednich , Lutz Röhrich , Wolfgang Suppan (Hrsg.): Handbuch des Volkslieds. Volume 1. Munich 1973, pp. 923-967.
  • From the folk tradition of Bosco Gurin. Legends, reports and opinions, fairy tales and rascals. G. Krebs, Basel 1979.
  • The popular German lullaby. Attempt a typology of the texts. Swiss Society for Folklore, Basel 1984.
  • Swiss folk tales from Albert Schott's estate . Swiss Society for Folklore, Basel 1984.
  • Rhymes, prayers, songs and games from Bosco Gurin. Swiss Society for Folklore, Basel 1986.
  • Guriner wild plants primer. Man and wild plant. A botanical-philological-folklore documentation from the Ticino Walser village Bosco Gurin. Walserhaus Gurin, Bosco Gurin 1989.
  • From the Gurin dialect. Dictionary of Nouns by Bosco Gurin. Voci del dialetto di Bosco Gurin. Vocabolario dei sostantivi di Bosco Gurin. Edited by the Walserhaus Museum. Armando Dadò Editore, Locarno 2014.

Sound recordings

  • Do you know dås Lånd so beautifully, dås Lånd, where I was born. Field research recordings of the German Folksong Archive, Bosco-Gurin 1970–1978.
  • So farewell you world that gave birth to me, fate calls me again far from here. Field research recordings of the German Folk Song Archive, Bosco-Gurin 1981/1982.

literature

  • Resume. In: Draft of a typology of the German cradle rhyme: the type "sleep, child, sleep" and its relationships to other complexes of variants. Basel 1967 (dissertation, University of Basel, 1956).
  • Emily Gerstner-Hirzel. In: Charles VJ Russ : The dialect of Bosco Gurin. Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-515-08133-X , p. 35 ( online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d CV. In: Draft of a typology of the German cradle rhyme: the type "sleep, child, sleep" and its relationships to other complexes of variants. Basel 1967 (dissertation, University of Basel, 1956), p. [269].
  2. ↑ Glued-in note. In: Draft of a typology of the German cradle rhyme: the type "sleep, child, sleep" and its relationships to other complexes of variants. Basel 1967 (dissertation, University of Basel, 1967), back of the title page.
  3. ^ A b Charles VJ Russ : The dialect of Bosco Gurin: A synchronic and diachronic investigation (=  magazine for dialectology and linguistics . Supplement 120). Steiner, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-515-08133-X , chap. 2.3.2.5. Emily Gerstner-Hirzel , S. 35 .
  4. ↑ Barbara Boock: Children's song books 1770-2000. An annotated, illustrated bibliography of the German-language children's song books in the German Folk Song Archive. Waxmann, Münster 2007, ISBN 978-3-8309-1819-6 , p. 319.
  5. ^ Review in: Bavarian Yearbook of Folklore. 1986/87, published by the Commission for Bavarian State History at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, p. 231.
  6. ↑ Günther Noll: Comments on current questions about the lullaby. In: ad marginem. Announcements from the Institute for European Ethnic Music at the University of Cologne. H. 84 (2012), pp. 3–23, here p. 16 ( online ).
  7. ↑ Margret Tietje: Children at work: Traditional singing dances in Turkey. Lit, Münster 2000, p. 88 f.
  8. ↑ The thin line between fantasy and reality , Tessiner Zeitung July 27, 2012. PDF
  9. ↑ Kurts Welt der Weltu ( Memento of the original from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / dieweltderweltu.ch
  10. ↑ Ggschechtufèngar
  11. ↑ New gnomes live in Bosco Gurin. (PDF; 642 kB) In: Tessiner Zeitung . April 12, 2013, p. 28.
  12. ↑ Die Welt der Weltu, exhibition in the Museum Walserhaus April to October 2013 ( Memento of the original from February 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / dieweltderweltu.ch
  13. ^ Alemannic in a comparison of languages. Contributions to the 14th workshop for Alemannic dialectology in Männedorf (Zurich), 16. – 18. September 2002, p. 214.
  14. ↑ Field research recordings of the German Folksong Archive, Mag397 on folkwang-uni.de
  15. ↑ Field research recordings of the German Folksong Archive, Mag477 on folkwang-uni.de
personal data
SURNAME Gerstner-Hirzel, Emily
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hirzel, Emily (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss Germanist and folklorist
DATE OF BIRTH June 2, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 2003
Place of death Lucerne