Frank Förster (historian)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Frank Förster (born July 3, 1937 in Muskau ; † May 13, 2011 in Radebeul ) was a German-Sorbian historian and folklorist .

Live and act

Förster was the eldest son of the Sorbian-born student Herbert Förster, who also worked as a local researcher on the Muskauer Heide . After graduating from high school in White Water studied Förster 1955 History at the Pedagogical University of Potsdam as well as from the following year at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Leipzig , where complemented by Sorabistik (science of Sorbian language and literature ), including Sorbian folklore . One of his teachers was Pawoł Nedo , an acquaintance of his father. Förster joined the Sorbian student association Sorabija .

From 1960 Förster worked at the Institute for Sorbian Folk Research in Bautzen with Pawoł Nowotny . Within the history department, Förster worked on volume 2 of the history of the Sorbs (1974), on the village monograph Groß Partwitz (1976) and on contemporary ethnosocial research. The resulting habilitation thesis on the “social structure of rural industrial workers in the mixed-national part of the Lusatian lignite mining area ” from 1972 was classified as confidential because of the current statistics from GDR times and was not allowed to be published. Only his dissertation from 1967 on the economic history of both Lusatia in older times ( on the history of the Senftenberg lignite mining area from 1890 to 1914 ) was uncritical and was allowed to be published in 1968. Förster worked as the editorial secretary on the historical series (B) of Lětopis , in 1977 became head of the folklore department and deputy director. In 1984 the Academy of Sciences of the GDR awarded him the title of Professor of Sorbian History.

From 1992, after the re-establishment of the Sorbian Institute , Förster continued to research and publish on the Lusatian lignite mining district and its broken-down locations , his paper Disappeared Villages. The demolition of the Lusatian lignite district by 1993 became a "scientific bestseller". With the supplementary volume Mining Resettlers. He recorded 30 oral traditions for posterity in 1998 from the Lusatian lignite mining area . In 1995 he was finally able to publish a short version of his habilitation thesis, which was banned during the GDR era. In addition to his research, he regularly taught Sorbian history at the Institute for Sorabistics in Leipzig. In the 1990s, also, he began with the turning credit history of the Nazi era to deal with. This resulted in his book The “Wendenfrage” in German Ostforschung 1933–1945. The Berlin-Dahlem Publications Office and the Lusatian Sorbs from 2007.

Förster retired at the age of 65; he settled in Radebeul near Dresden, where he continued to work on his research on the turning point during National Socialism. He was allowed to publish his findings as a book in 2007.

Fonts (excerpt)

  • Senftenberger Revier 1890–1914. On the history of the Niederlausitz lignite industry from the fall of the Socialist Law to the outbreak of the First World War. (= Series of publications by the Institute for Sorbian Folk Research in Bautzen. Volume 37). Edited by the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Domowina-Verlag, Bautzen 1968 (at the same time dissertation at the Institute for Sorbian Folk Research , Bautzen).
  • Lotar Balke and Albrecht Lange: Sorbian costume book. With the collaboration of Frank Förster. Domowina-Verlag, Bautzen 1985.
  • Around Lusatian brown coal 1849–1945. Ed. Commission for research into the history of the local workers' movement of the Cottbus district board of the PDS in cooperation with the Institute for Sorbian Folk Research of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR and the Senftenberg state-owned brown coal combine. Domowina-Verlag, Bautzen 1990, ISBN 3-7420-0525-1 .
  • Disappeared villages. The demolitions of the Lusatian lignite mining area until 1993 (= publications of the Sorbian Institute. Volume 8). Domowina-Verlag, Bautzen 1995, ISBN 3-7420-1623-7 .
  • Mining resettlers. Experience reports from the Lusatian lignite mining area. (= Writings of the Sorbian Institute. Volume 17.) Domowina-Verlag, Bautzen 1998, ISBN 3-7420-1763-2 .
  • The "turning point" in German Ostforschung 1933–1945. The Berlin-Dahlem Publication Office and the Lusatian Sorbs. (= Writings of the Sorbian Institute. Volume 43). Domowina-Verlag, Bautzen 2007, ISBN 978-3-7420-2040-6 .
  • Disappeared villages in the Lusatian lignite mining area. (= Writings of the Sorbian Institute. Volume 8). Arranged by Robert Lorenz, 3rd, arr. and exp. Edition. Domowina-Verlag, Bautzen 2014, ISBN 978-3-7420-1623-2 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Forester, Frank
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Sorbian historian and folklorist
DATE OF BIRTH July 3, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Muskau
DATE OF DEATH May 13, 2011
Place of death Radebeul