Jakub Lorenc-Zalěski

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Jakub Lorenc around 1920

Jakub Lorenc-Zalěski (actually Jakub Lorenc , German Jacob Lorenz ; born July 18, 1874 in Radibor , † February 18, 1939 in Berlin ) was a Sorbian writer and publicist.

Life

Jakub Lorenc grew up as the sixth of nine children in a Sorbian family in Radibor in the Saxon part of Upper Lusatia . In 1887 he became cathedral monastery boy in Bautzen , where he attended the Catholic seminary before attending the German grammar school in Prague two years later . During his two years in Prague he was a pupil of the Wendish seminary and a member of the Sorbian student association Serbowka .

Site of the former Lorenz sawmill in Loop, the train station in the background on the left

From 1891 he learned the forestry trade from his brother Mikławš at Zschorna Castle near Wurzen. After serving in the army, he worked as a forester in western Germany far from Lusatia from 1895. It was not until the end of the First World War that he returned to Lausitz and bought a sawmill in Loop (in the then Prussian part of Upper Lusatia), which was conveniently located on the Berlin-Görlitzer Bahn near the train station.

The income from the sawmill enabled Lorenc to work as a freelance writer. Together with Jan Skala , he published the bilingual Serbski Dźenik (Sorbian daily newspaper) in the neighboring industrial community of Weißwasser .

Lorenc co-founded the Serbska ludowa strona (Wendish People's Party) in 1924 , which he chaired until it was banned in 1933. From 1925 to 1931 he represented the Association of National Minorities in Germany at the European Nationalities Congress as a permanent delegate .

As a nationally conscious Sorbe, he was persecuted after the National Socialists came to power and briefly imprisoned in 1933. In addition, he was banned from writing and not participating in political events. Due to illness, Lorenc moved to his daughter in Berlin in 1938, where he died the following year. The burial took place at his own request in the cemetery of his birth village Radibor. The grave site still exists today.

Literary work

In the birthplace of Radibor , a street was named after Jakub Lorenc-Zalěski

Lorenc is considered to be the most important Sorbian writer of the interwar period. During his training, he published a cycle of hunting stories in the magazine " Łužica " (Lausitz) in 1892 under the pseudonym Zalěski . During his time outside the Lausitz, Lorenc stopped his writing activity, but took it up again after his return. He mainly wrote fairy tales, short stories and novels. From 1924 to 1934 he was chairman of the circle of Sorbian writers.

His work Kupa zabytych (The Island of the Forgotten), published in 1931, is one of the founding elements of modern Sorbian storytelling. The fragment of the novel W putach wosuda (In the fetters of fate), written in 1932 and 1933, has autobiographical features and remained unfinished. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Der-hinter-den-Wald and Zaleski hinter dem Walde .

His grandson was the Sorbian poet Kito Lorenc (1938-2017).

swell

  1. ↑ District Office of the Lower Silesian Upper Lusatia District (ed.): Personalities of Upper Lusatian Life. Part 1: Muskauer Heide (=  local history contributions for the Lower Silesian Oberlausitzkreis . Volume 12 ). Görlitz 1995, p. 62-63 .
  2. ↑ a b Landratsamt Weißwasser (ed.): "… I saw them lying beautifully, our villages" - Sorbem in the district of Weißwasser / Oberlausitz (=  local history articles for the district of Weißwasser / Oberlausitz . Volume 9 ). Weißwasser 1993, p. 69 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Lorenc-Zalěski, Jakub
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lorenc, Jakub; Zalěski (pseudonym); Lorenz, Jacob (German)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Sorbian writer, anti-fascist publicist
DATE OF BIRTH July 18, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Radibor
DATE OF DEATH February 18, 1939
Place of death Berlin