Gebethner i Wolff

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Gebethner i Wolff (initially: Gustaw Gebethner & Spółka ) was an important Warsaw book trade and publishing company in the 19th and 20th centuries. In addition to the operation of bookshops, books and press products were published, according to the renowned newspaper Tygodnik Ilustrowany (illustrated weekly newspaper). The company, which was greatly reduced in size after the Second World War , was liquidated in the 1960s. The families who owned Gebethner i Wolff were of German descent and belonged to the Polish Evangelical Augsburg Church .

history

The former guard of the Potocki Palace (building to the left of the gate) was the seat of Gebethner i Wolff's first bookshop

The second bookstore in Warsaw at ul. Zgoda

Tygodnik Ilustrowany , a widely recognized weekly newspaper that existed from 1859 to 1939 and was devoted to cultural and social topics. The edition of the title was about 20,000 copies

Gustav Adolf Gebethner (1831–1901) had met the intern August Robert Wolff (1833–1910) during his apprenticeship at the Warsaw bookseller and publisher Rudolf Friedlein (1811–1873) . On September 4, 1857, the two were approved by the Warsaw Commercial Society to run their own bookstore. In November 1857 the bookstore Gustaw Gebethner & Społka was opened by the partners Gebethner and Wolff. From 1872 the company traded under the name Gebethner i Wolff . The bookshop was in a prime location in the former main guard house in the side wing of the Potocki Palace on Krakowskie Przedmieście (No. 15) next to Hotel Europejski . In addition to the bookstore, a publishing house with music typesetting was operated, which published musical works (such as by Stanisław Moniuszko ). Most of all, literature was published by Bolesław Prus , Tadeusz Kotarbiński , Henryk Sienkiewicz , Eliza Orzeszkowa , Władysław Reymont and Stanisław Przybyszewski . In addition, school books and scientific works were published, u. a. by Aleksander Kraushar , Siegfried Kalischer and Heinrich von Zeißberg .

Various newspapers that no longer exist were acquired and published: Kurier Warszawski (taken over in 1867, later given to the Szymanowski family), Kurier Codzienny (taken over from Hipolit and Mieczysław Orgelbrand) and Tygodnik Ilustrowany . In the inter-war period , the sports newspaper Przegląd Sportowy , published today by Ringier Axel Springer Polska , and the magazine Naokoło Świata (Around the World) were published.

Own bookshops were set up in Łódź , Cracow , Lublin , Warsaw ( Krakowskie Przedmieście and ul. Zgoda ), Vilnius and Zakopane from 1884 . From 1925 to 1935 a branch was also operated in Paris. Publishing products were exported to Russia and the United States.

In 1929 Gebethner's heirs bought the shares of the Wolff family. The company name Gebethner i Wolff remained. Jan Stanisław Gebethner, a grandson of Feliks Gebethner (brother of the founder Gustaw Adolf), was appointed managing director. In the 1930s the company grew very dynamically; In 1937 around 7,000 books with a total print run of 45 million copies and around 7,200 sheet music were published. During the Warsaw occupation by German troops in World War II, the German administration took over the publishing house and the associated buildings. Jan Stanisław Gebethner was still able to manage the bookstores at ul. Zgoda and ul. Targowa . From here, conspiratorial military textbooks for underground fighters were distributed.

After the war, Jan Stanisław Gebethner and his son Zygmunt Maksymilian began rebuilding the company - on the basis of the only surviving bookstore on ul. Targowa . This shop (mainly for antiquarian works) existed here until 1969 and then operated in ul. Ząbkowska until 1973 . As early as 1952, the publisher's work was officially ordered to stop. In 1973 the company went out after a long bankruptcy process. After the political turning point in 1990 , Zygmunt Maksymilian Gebethner tried to re-establish the company. The Gebethner i Spółka was registered, which existed until 1997.

Owning families

Tadeusz Gebethner (1897–1944), co-founder of the Warsaw football club Polonia

Shares and management were transferred from co-founder August Robert Wolff to his son Józef Wolff. A grandson of August was Jerzy Kazimierz Wolff . The father of the second company founder was Wilhelm Fryderyk Gebethner, who had two sons: Gustaw Adolf Gebethner and Jan Feliks Gebethner, the founder of a piano shop above the bookshop in the Potocki-Palais. A son of Gustaw Adolf was Jan Robert Gebethner (1860-1910), who worked as the publisher's successor in the company and was married to Maria Herse (1870-1950). The couple had three sons: Jan Stanisław, publisher and bookseller in the family business. Another son was Tadeusz Gebethner (1897–1944), who also worked for his parents' publishing house, who was a football player and co-founder of the Polonia Warsaw football club at the Agrykola sports complex in his youth . The club was founded in 1913 in the Gebethner apartment, Tadeusz Gebethner acted as captain of the first team. The third son was Wacław Robert Gebethner (1899-1959), a track and field athlete. Two sons of Jan Feliks were Kazimierz Gebethner and Stefan Gebethner, who continued the father's piano business until 1939. The members of both families are buried in the Evangelical Augsburg cemetery in Warsaw.

Trivia

Before the First World War, the brother of the later Marshal of Poland , Michał Rola-einenymierski , shot and killed a manager of the Gebethner i Wolff bookshop in Krakow.

References and comments

↑ George Klim, Stanislaw Przybyszewski: Life, Work and Weltanschauung in the context of German literature at the turn of the century, biography , Volume 2 of the Cologne works at the turn of the century , Volume 6 on literary and media studies, from the literary and media studies series , ISBN 978-3 -927104-10-5 , Igel Verlag, 1992, p. 126
↑ Jörg Gebhard, Rainer Lindner and Bianka Pietrow-Ennker, Entrepreneurs in the Russian Empire: Social Profile, Worlds of Symbols, Integration Strategies in the 19th and Early 20th Century , ISBN 978-3-938400-03-6 , Publisher: Fiber, 2006, p. 356, footnote 22
↑ Ulrich Mölk, Heinrich Detering, Perspektiven der Modernisierung: the Paris World Exhibition, the labor movement, colonial China in European and American cultural magazines around 1900: Report on the third and fourth colloquium of the commission "European turn of the century - literature, arts ... , Volume 8 of the treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-historical class. New series , Academy of Sciences, Göttingen, ISBN 978-3-11-023425-1 , Walter de Gruyter, 2010, p. 74
↑ The German Gebethner family immigrated to Krotoschin in Greater Poland in the 17th century . It was there that the progenitor of the Polish line, Georg Friedrich Gebethner (1727–1797), were born. His great-grandson was Gustaw Adolf Gebethner (1831–1901). The Wolff family also came from Germany. The father of August Robert Wolff (1833–1910) was the cloth maker Gottlieb August Wolff (1787–1833), see LitVerz: Zofia Jurkowlaniec and Roland Borchers, Polacy z wyboru: Rodziny pochodzenia niemieckiego w Warszawie w XIX i XX wieku / Poland from freelance Election: Families of German descent in Warsaw in the 19th and 20th centuries
↑ Alina Brodzka, Słownik literatury polskiej XX wieku , ISBN 978-83-04-03942-1 , Ossolineum 1992, p. 130 (in Polish)
↑ Bronisław Tumiłowicz, Niezapomniani Gebethner i Wolff in the weekly Przegląd , edition (in Polish, accessed on 25 March 2014) 8/2008
↑ The approval was given by Krzystof Brun and Teofil Fukier
↑ Gustav-Adolf Krampitz, Das Bild des Deutschen in der Werke von Bolesław Prus , Volume 36 of the Studies of the Research Center for East Central Europe at the University of Dortmund , ISBN 978-3-447-04830-9 , Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2004, p. 316
↑ Gabriela Matuszek, crises and neuroses: The Stanislaw Przybyszewski work in literary modernism , ISBN 978-3-86815-567-9 , Igel Verlag, 2013, pp 278
↑ Krystyna Tokarzówna, Stanisław Fita and Zygmunt Marian Szweykowski, Bolesław Prus, 1847–1912: kalendarz życia i twórczości , publisher: Państwowy Instytyt Wydawniczy, 1969, p. 365
↑ The local shop ( Librairie Polonaise de Paris ) still exists today, according to an info on the history of the Paris bookstore at Libella.fr (accessed on June 13, 2014, in French)
↑ Eugeniusz Szulc, Cmentarze ewangelickie w Warszawie: Cmentarz Ewangelicko-Augsburski, Cmentarz Ewangelicko-Reformowany , Publisher: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1989, p. 112

literature

Zofia Jurkowlaniec and Roland Borchers, Polacy z wyboru: Rodziny pochodzenia niemieckiego w Warszawie w XIX i XX wieku / Poland of free choice: Families of German origin in Warsaw in the 19th and 20th centuries , ISBN 978-83-62020-46-1 , Fundacja Współpracy Polsko-Niemieckiej / Dom Spotkań z Historią, Warsaw 2012, pp. 145–146

Web links

Commons : Gebethner i Wolff - Collection of images, videos and audio files

[sp-1] George Klim, Stanislaw Przybyszewski: Life, Work and Weltanschauung in the context of German literature at the turn of the century, biography , Volume 2 of the Cologne works at the turn of the century , Volume 6 on literary and media studies, from the literary and media studies series , ISBN 978-3 -927104-10-5 , Igel Verlag, 1992, p. 126

[2] Jörg Gebhard, Rainer Lindner and Bianka Pietrow-Ennker, Entrepreneurs in the Russian Empire: Social Profile, Worlds of Symbols, Integration Strategies in the 19th and Early 20th Century , ISBN 978-3-938400-03-6 , Publisher: Fiber, 2006, p. 356, footnote 22

[umua-3] Ulrich Mölk, Heinrich Detering, Perspektiven der Modernisierung: the Paris World Exhibition, the labor movement, colonial China in European and American cultural magazines around 1900: Report on the third and fourth colloquium of the commission "European turn of the century - literature, arts ... , Volume 8 of the treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-historical class. New series , Academy of Sciences, Göttingen, ISBN 978-3-11-023425-1 , Walter de Gruyter, 2010, p. 74

[4] The German Gebethner family immigrated to Krotoschin in Greater Poland in the 17th century . It was there that the progenitor of the Polish line, Georg Friedrich Gebethner (1727–1797), were born. His great-grandson was Gustaw Adolf Gebethner (1831–1901). The Wolff family also came from Germany. The father of August Robert Wolff (1833–1910) was the cloth maker Gottlieb August Wolff (1787–1833), see LitVerz: Zofia Jurkowlaniec and Roland Borchers, Polacy z wyboru: Rodziny pochodzenia niemieckiego w Warszawie w XIX i XX wieku / Poland from freelance Election: Families of German descent in Warsaw in the 19th and 20th centuries

[5] Alina Brodzka, Słownik literatury polskiej XX wieku , ISBN 978-83-04-03942-1 , Ossolineum 1992, p. 130 (in Polish)

[bw-6] Bronisław Tumiłowicz, Niezapomniani Gebethner i Wolff in the weekly Przegląd , edition (in Polish, accessed on 25 March 2014) 8/2008

[7] The approval was given by Krzystof Brun and Teofil Fukier

[8] Gustav-Adolf Krampitz, Das Bild des Deutschen in der Werke von Bolesław Prus , Volume 36 of the Studies of the Research Center for East Central Europe at the University of Dortmund , ISBN 978-3-447-04830-9 , Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2004, p. 316

[9] Gabriela Matuszek, crises and neuroses: The Stanislaw Przybyszewski work in literary modernism , ISBN 978-3-86815-567-9 , Igel Verlag, 2013, pp 278

[10] Krystyna Tokarzówna, Stanisław Fita and Zygmunt Marian Szweykowski, Bolesław Prus, 1847–1912: kalendarz życia i twórczości , publisher: Państwowy Instytyt Wydawniczy, 1969, p. 365

[11] The local shop ( Librairie Polonaise de Paris ) still exists today, according to an info on the history of the Paris bookstore at Libella.fr (accessed on June 13, 2014, in French)

[12] Eugeniusz Szulc, Cmentarze ewangelickie w Warszawie: Cmentarz Ewangelicko-Augsburski, Cmentarz Ewangelicko-Reformowany , Publisher: Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, 1989, p. 112