Johann Koell

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Johann Koell ( Koːl ; * around 1500; † May 16, 1540 July in Tallinn ) was a clergyman of the Reformation who worked in Estonia . He is the author of the first printed text in Estonian that is still extant today.

life and work

Johan (n) Koell (also Koel, Kol, Koll or Kohl ) was probably of Estonian origin. In 1525 he was a preacher of the "un-German" (i.e. Estonian) congregation of the Tallinn Olaikirche . From 1527 to 1531 he was assistant pastor and from 1532 pastor of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Tallinn.

In 1535, Koell's translation of the catechism into Estonian was published by Hans Lufft in Wittenberg . The catechism of Johann Koell and Simon Wanradt in Estonian and Lower Franconian is the first printed text in Estonian that has survived today. The book was about 120 pages long. The edition was 1500 copies. Wanradt, who came from Kleve , wrote the Lower Franconian part and compiled the work, Koell translated the Estonian part. The Tallinn Councilor Johann Seelhorst took over the printing costs. However, two years later, the Tallinn Council banned the distribution of the translation work - allegedly due to linguistic errors.

11 pages of the work were discovered in 1929 by the Baltic German historian Hellmuth Weiss in the cover of a more recent book in the library of the Estonian Literary Society . This also includes the final sheet of the book with the entry Printed tho Wittemberch dorch Hans Lufft / am XXV. days of Mantes Aust. MD XXXV . The pages are now in the Tallinn City Archives. The fragment is especially valuable in terms of linguistic history.

literature

  • Eesti Elulood. Tallinn: Eesti Entsüklopeediakirjastus 2000 (= Eesti Entsüklopeedia 14) ISBN 9985-70-064-3 , p. 170
  • Gunnar Mickwitz: "Johann Seelhorst and the printing of the oldest Estonian book." In: Contributions to the customer of Estonia , Volume XXI (1938), pp. 1–8
  • Hellmuth Weiss, Paul Johansen : "Fragments of a Low German-Estonian catechism from 1535." In: Contributions to the customer of Estonia , Volume XV No. 4 (1930), pp. 95-133

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cornelius Hasselblatt : History of Estonian Literature. Berlin, New York 2006 ( ISBN 3-11-018025-1 ), p. 107
  2. ↑ http://www.murre.ut.ee/vakkur/Korpused/Tekstid/Info/vanimad.htm
personal data
SURNAME Koell, Johann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kohl, Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Estonian clergyman and translator
DATE OF BIRTH around 1500
DATE OF DEATH May 16, 1540
Place of death Tallinn