Johann Preyer

Johann Preyer

Johann Nepomuk Preyer (born October 28, 1805 in Lugosch , Austria (now Romania ); † October 11 , 1888 in Kirchberg , Lower Austria ) was a writer and from 1844 to 1858 mayor of the city of Timișoara, which is now part of Romania .

Life

Johann Preyer was the son of an Austrian rent master . After the Piarist High School in Timisoara, the Lyceum in Szeged and the Law Academy in Pest , Preyer studied law at the faculties of Oradea , Bratislava and finally Pest, where he graduated with excellent qualifications in 1828. Until 1830 he hired himself as a court master . He then entered the county service in his hometown and had been in demand there as an economics and finance expert since 1832. As a sympathizer of Hungary's liberal reformers , he was viewed as a subverter .

Preyer as a politician

In the 1830s, the municipal financial situation deteriorated extremely and Timişoara was the site of numerous political feuds. Preyer was a proponent of renovations and modernizations. As the spokesman for delegations, author of petitions with which he wanted to induce the citizens to self-help actions, Preyer acquired numerous opponents in the conservative camp, which also brought him into disrepute at the Viennese court . As a result, he was unable to realize his ideas of local politics until 1842. In 1844 he was elected mayor of Timisoara and exerted intense influence on politics in the state capital of the Banat .

In the course of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848/1849, the Hungarian Revolutionary Army besieged Timisoara, with the defense of the fortress of the Austrian garrison under the command of General Georg von Rukavina . On August 9, 1849, the revolutionary army was defeated in front of Timisoara, and thus the European 1848 movements ended here . Preyer remained in office for the time being. He succeeded in restoring the city, which had been badly damaged by the siege, and its economic potential. In the 1850s, Preyer won some lawsuits for his city, but was considered an unpleasant adversary by the military authorities. On February 8, 1858, he was unexpectedly deposed. Preyer's services during his tenure included:

• the connection to the telegraph network of the monarchy
• the construction of a gas works
• the introduction of public gas lighting
• the connection to the railway network and the expansion of the city into an important transport hub
• the establishment of the savings bank association and the music association and a law academy that was dissolved in 1848

Preyer was later called "one of the most capable, ingenious and energetic mayors of Temesvár" and "financier par excellence". From 1861 to 1876, he was in Timisoara as Judicial Council , President of the Criminal Court and since 1871 as First Judicial Council of the Royal Court operates.

Preyer as a writer

Preyer's literary work corresponded to his humanistic education: he endeavored to recreate classic models in German.

His literary works from 1828 until his death were typical of the time and of regional importance. Verses and short articles by the young Preyer appeared in the magazine Iris in Pest, and in Timisoara he worked for Mayor Josef Klapka , who published the Banat magazine for agriculture, trade, art and trade and, like Klapka, was a sponsor of the German city theater.

The greatest impact came from Preyer's historical and socially critical writings. With his first book The Hungarian Farmer's Past and Present Condition, together with a description of the consequences and effects of the same from 1838, he went into the agricultural conditions in the Kingdom of Hungary and looked for ways to remove existing backwardness, according to his principle: “Without intellectual education there is none Progress is conceivable. ”The events of 1848 proved the correctness of Preyer's reform considerations.

Preyer's ambition was poetry, with which he began in 1828 and which he wrote in the anthology Ver sacrum in 1858 . Summarized poems . Poetry of a political and ideological-confessional character predominated. Attempts of this kind were ignored by contemporaries after 1848. The aphorisms , stories and riddles of Preyer's published in the Pester Iris , in the Viennese collector , in Klapkas Timisoara magazine were quickly forgotten.

Preyer's efforts to promote German regional theater were more significant. In the Budapest magazine Der Spiegel he published theater reviews of the German city theater in Timisoara. As a local politician, he supported the activities of this theater, which he also wanted to help create an independent repertoire through his own stage works. His artist drama Canova from 1853 was Preyer's first play to portray the artist's retreat into private life, but which went largely unnoticed.

Likewise, the drama Die Sulioten of 1854 did not receive public approval at a time when any socially critical utterance was prevented by the censors. It was about the Greek fight for independence. The references to the Hungarian aspirations for freedom were too obvious to be overlooked after the defeat of the revolution. The tragedy Hannibal was completed by Preyer in 1860, but was only able to publish it in 1882 because the equation of Hungary with Carthage and its downfall caught every observer's eye. In contrast to his other plays, the playwright had tried to get a performance in Vienna and Munich, but found no one there who wanted to break a lance on behalf of Hungary and its affairs.

After his dismissal as mayor, Preyer stayed in Gmunden am Traunsee from 1858 to 1861 . He felt this time as his exile , in which he was, however, very productive literarily. After the Banat was returned to Hungary in 1860, he returned to Timisoara in 1861, where he published fiction and socio-historical studies until 1876 and was deputy president of the South Hungarian Historical-Archaeological Association .

In 1863 Preyer published his most famous work, the monograph of the royal free city of Temesvár . In the Banat this representation was perceived as a model, especially the city's history was presented in detail for the first time. A copy dedicated to Emperor Franz Joseph I was meant to remind him of his visit to Timisoara in 1852 and brought Preyer an award. The State of the Jews in the Banate in the 18th Century was published in 1873 .

The Hungarian theme was presented even more clearly in Preyer's last two dramas : instead of symbolic alienation, he finally chose subjects from Hungarian history: Hunyady László from 1882 dealt with the court intrigues that led to the murder of Johann Hunyadi's eldest son . The verse epic Salamon recalled events from the 11th century, which was also about multinational understanding. He tried in vain for the Cotta'sche publishing bookstore to have it printed.

Preyer's goal was to be noticed outside of the regional reference field. The consideration of the historical component, as well as with his domestic German contemporaries after 1848, would have made an approximation possible. Because of his commitment to the rights and freedoms of Hungary and the Hungarians (an unusual behavior in Germany at the time) and the maintenance of the 1848 heritage, his wishes were not granted. So his literary work was mainly reserved for regional historians and literary scholars.

Preyer spent the last years of his life from 1876 to 1888 with his daughter in Kirchberg.

Works :

• The Hungarian farmer's previous and present condition, together with a description of the consequences and effects thereof , Pest: Hartleben 1838.
• Monograph of the royal free city of Temesvár, Temesvár 1853 (new edition bilingual: German and Romanian 1995. Translation by Adam Mager and Eleonora Pascu; foreword by Eleonora Pascu; afterword and notes by Prof. Dr. Ioan Hațegan. Timișoara: Amarcord).
• Canova . Dramatic poem, Leipzig: Brockhaus 1853.
• The Suliots . Tragedy in five acts, Leipzig: Brockhaus 1854.
• Ver sacrum , Gmunden am Traunsee: Habacher 1858.
• Hannibal . Tragedy in five acts, Vienna: Carl Gerold's son 1882.
• Hunyady László . Tragedy in five acts, Vienna: Carl Gerold's son 1882.

Honor and appreciation

As early as the 19th century, a street in the district of Josefstadt was named after him in honor of Küttel , Preyer utcza . The German population called it Preyergasse . Although it was temporarily renamed Strada Iosif Rangheț in Romanian times , it is now called Strada Ioszef Preyer again .

literature

• Ferenc Antal Basch: Preyer Nepomuk János . (Pécs / Fünfkirchen 1927).
• Eduard Castle in: German-Austrian Literary History, Vienna: Fromme, Vol. 3, 1930, pp. 576-583.
• Carl Hirschfeld: The Siege of Temesvar in 1849 , Temesvar 1849.
• Rudolf Hollinger : Preyer as a dramatist , in: Neue Banater Zeitung, December 29, 1968.
• Lajos Kakucs: Preyer and the Timisoara Historical Society . Unknown facts from the life and work of the writer and mayor , in: Neuer Weg from May 15 and 22, 1982.
• Dieter Kessler: The German literatures of Transylvania, the Banate and the beech country. From the revolution to the end of the First World War (1848–1918) , Cologne / Weimar / Vienna: Böhlau 1997, pp. 440–449.
• Heinz Stănescu (Ed.): Marksteine. Letters from the Banat , Timisoara: Facla 1974, pp. 33–61, 322, 329.
• Josef Stein : Preyer as a playwright , in: Schwäbischer Hausfreund, 7th year (1918), pp. 32–35.
• Radegunde Täuber : JN Preyer (1805–1888). Some data from his life and work, in: Forschungsungen zur Volks- und Landeskunde, 1975, Vol. 18/2, pp. 89-102.
• Radegunde Täuber: Johann Nepomuk Preyer. His life and work in words and pictures , Bucharest: Kriterion Verlag, 1977, p. 95 with illustration.
• Radegunde Täuber: Johann Nepomuk Preyer's dramatic work using the example of the tragedy "Hannibal" , in: Timisoara Contributions to German Studies , ed. v. Roxana Nubert , Vol. 3, Mirton, Temeswar 2001, pp. 119-187, online, here pp. 105-168 .
• Franz Wettel: Gedenkblätter (= Deutschbanater Volksbücherei No. 29), Temesvar 1918, pp. 16-25.
• Walter Tonta (ed.): Kulturtagung 2005 Sindelfingen (special issue Preyer, contributions by R. Täuber, E. Marschang, L. Kakues, I. Seitz, J. Wolf), Stuttgart 2006, 191 pp.

Web links

• Literature by and about Johann Preyer in the catalog of the German National Library
• Horst Fassel : Preyer, Johann Nepomuk . In: East German Biography (Kulturportal West-Ost)

See also

• List of Mayors of Timisoara