Johanna Ambrosius

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johanna Ambrosius around 1900

Johanna Ambrosius , married. Voigt (born August 3, 1854 in Lengwethen near Ragnit , East Prussia ; † February 27, 1939 in Königsberg (Prussia) ) was a German poet who caused a sensation as a "natural poet" at the end of the 19th century.

Life

Johanna Ambrosius was born in East Prussia, the second of 14 children of a craftsman. She grew up in the poorest of circumstances and attended the village school in Lengwethen until she was 11. From then on, she helped her parents in the fields and in the house and hired herself as a maid and housekeeper on property in the area. In 1875 she married the farmer's son Friedrich Wilhelm Voigt and moved with him to Dirwonuppen in the Tilsit district . Two children were born to them: Marie (* 1875) and Erich (* 1878). In 1883 the couple bought a small house with land in Groß Wersmeningken near Lasdehnen in the Pillkallen district . In the summer of 1900 Johanna Ambrosius became a widow. Eight years later, their first child Marie died at the age of 32. Johanna Ambrosius followed her son Erich to Königsberg in 1908, where she lived until her death in 1939. Her grave is in the new Luisenfriedhof in Königsberg, today's Kaliningrad .

plant

Johanna Ambrosius had already written her first poems in 1884. Her sister Martha had sent some of them - without the knowledge of the author - to several editorial offices. a. to Anny Wothe , editor of the weekly Von Haus zu Haus . As a result, various magazines published individual poems. As a result, the Austrian writer Karl Weiß discovered Johanna Ambrosius as a folk and nature poet and published her poems in December 1894 under the pseudonym "Karl Schrattenthal". Johanna Voigt had agreed to the publication, under her maiden name Johanna Ambrosius, among other things, in order to enable her son Erich to train as a teacher.

Her poems had "an unusual success as a shapely product of a woman coming from the most modest of backgrounds" and the 41st edition appeared in 1904. From the seventh edition, published by Ferdinand Beyer in Königsberg, her poems were accompanied by a portrait and a picture of the poet's house. Some of her admirers insisted on traveling to the East Prussian province and visiting them in Groß Wersmeningken. In 1896 the volume of poems was translated into English and initially published in the USA, where Johanna Ambrosius was celebrated with exuberance as “German Sappho ”, and in 1910 also in England. A second volume of poetry followed in 1897. Your later poems appeared in magazines and yearbooks. a. in From highs and lows. A yearbook for the German house . She did not publish prose, apart from a short text.

Soon after her “discovery” Johanna Ambrosius became acquainted with well-known writers of her time, including Hermann Sudermann , Gerhart Hauptmann , Herman Grimm , Bruno Wille and Heinrich Hart . Sometimes she met them personally, sometimes they exchanged letters. However, these correspondences have not survived, apart from a few letters to Herman Grimm. However, their fame was short-lived. The praise for her “unlearned” poetry was followed by criticism of the “Johanna Ambrosius Rummel”. Participants in the debate about the “value” of Johanna Ambrosius's work a. Carl Busse , Theodor Fontane , Richard Weitbrecht , Ferdinand Avenarius , Otto Rühle , Arno Holz , Ludwig Goldstein and Christian Morgenstern .

She herself wrote about her authorship:

"I don't know any rules of poetry and even if I wanted to know them it would be impossible for me to write poetry according to them, I just write according to my feelings."

- Johanna Ambrosius (1905)

Johanna Ambrosius' best-known poetry was the poem Mein Heimatland, written in 1884, with the opening line “They all say, you are not beautiful”, which became famous as the oldest / first East Prussian song. Her poems have been set to music at least 90 times. a. by Heinrich Schenker and Felix Rosenthal . The estate of Johanna Ambrosius was lost when the Voigt family fled from Königsberg in early 1945.

Works

  • Johanna Ambrosius, a German folk poet. Poems (1894)
  • Poems, Part 2 (1897)

literature

In chronological order

  • Karl Schrattenthal (pseudonym of Karl Weiß): Johanna Ambrosius, a German folk poet . Drodtleff, Pressburg 1895.
  • Bruno Wille: Two village poets. (Johanna Ambrosius and Christian Wagner ) . In: The magazine for literature , vol. 64 (1895), issue 10 of March 9, 1895, col. 295-303.
  • Hermann Bahr : Johanna Ambrosius. In: Die Zeit , Vol. 3 (1895), Issue 36, pp. 153–154. Book edition: Hermann Bahr: Renaissance - New Studies on the Critique of Modernity. S. Fischer, Berlin 1897, pp. 87-93 ( digitized version ).
  • Charles Dudley Warner (Ed.): A Library of the World's Best Literature - Ancient and Modern. Vol. I. Abelard-Amiel . The International Society, New York 1896. pp. 446-452.
  • Ambrose, Mrs. Joh. . In: Sophie Pataky (Hrsg.): Lexicon of German women of the pen . Volume 1. Verlag Carl Pataky, Berlin 1898, p. 10 ( digitized version ).
  • Fritz Abshoff: Forming Spirits. Our most important poets and writers of the present and the past in characteristic autobiographies as well as collected biographies and pictures . Vol. 1. Oestergaard, Berlin 1905, p. 12.
  • Franz Brümmer : Lexicon of German poets and prose writers from the beginning of the 19th century to the present . Reclam, Leipzig 1913, pp. 275f.
  • Margarete Kudnig: Johanna Ambrosius. From their life and work . Landsmannschaft East Prussia, Culture Department, 1960.
  • Elisabeth Friedrichs: The German-speaking women writers of the 18th and 19th centuries. A lexicon . Metzler, Stuttgart 1981, ISBN 3-476-00456-2 , ( Repertories on the history of German literature  9), p. 322.
  • Rolf Bulang: Voigt, Johanna, b. Ambrose . In: Wilhelm Kühlmann (Ed.): Killy Literature Lexicon. Authors and works from the German-speaking cultural area. Vol. 12: Vo - Z . de Gruyter, Berlin, 2nd, completely revised edition 2011. ISBN 978-3-11-022038-4 . P. 14.

Web links

Commons : Johanna Ambrosius  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Johanna Ambrosius  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Margarete Kudnig: Johanna Ambrosius. From their life and work . Landsmannschaft East Prussia, 1960. p. 5.
  2. ↑ Belkino - Groß Wersmeningken / Langenfelde and Johanna Ambrosius , accessed on April 24, 2014.
  3. ↑ Bruno Wille: Two village poets. (Johanna Ambrosius and Christian Wagner) . In: The magazine for literature , vol. 64 (1895), issue 10 of March 9, 1895, col. 295-303.
  4. ^ Article Voigt, Mrs. Johanna . In: Sophie Pataky (Hrsg.): Lexicon of German women of the pen . Verlag Carl Pataky, Berlin 1898. Vol. 2, p. 395.
  5. ↑ Bibliographical evidence in the catalog of the Berlin State Library ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de
  6. ↑ Lucia Hacker: Writing women around 1900. Roles - Images - Gestures . Lit, Münster 2007. ISBN 978-3-8258-9885-4 . P. 117.
  7. ↑ Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon , Vol. 20. Bibliogr. Inst., Leipzig 1909, p. 220.
  8. ^ Margarete Kudnig: Johanna Ambrosius. From their life and work . Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen, 1960. p. 11.
  9. ^ Willis J. Buckingham: Emily Dickinson's reception in the 1890s. A documentary history . University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh 1989. p. 502.
  10. ↑ Thomas Dietzel, Hans-Otto Hügel (ed.): German literary journals 1880–1945. A repertory. Vol. 1: A travers les Vosges - German-Nordic yearbook . Saur, Munich 1988. ISBN 3-598-10646-7 . P. 101.
  11. ↑ Johanna Ambrosius . In: Charles Dudley Warner (Ed.): A Library of the World's Best Literature - Ancient and Modern. Vol. I. Abelard-Amiel . The International Society, New York 1896. pp. 446-452, here p. 447.
  12. ^ Margarete Kudnig: Johanna Ambrosius. From their life and work . Landsmannschaft Ostpreußen, 1960. p. 9.
  13. ↑ Inventory of the Herman Grimm estate in the Hessian State Archives in Marburg .
  14. ↑ Pros and Cons Johanna Ambrosius - The Johanna-Ambrosius-Rummel with numerous statements and reviews, accessed on April 24, 2014.
  15. ↑ Fritz Abshoff: Fine spirits . Berlin 1905, p. 12.
  16. ^ Andreas Kossert : East Prussia. History and myth . Siedler, Munich 2005. ISBN 3-88680-808-4 . P. 146f.
  17. ↑ a b Werner Voigt: Johanna Ambrosius , accessed on April 24, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Ambrosius, Johanna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES White, Johanna
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German author
DATE OF BIRTH August 3, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Lengwethen near Ragnit , East Prussia
DATE OF DEATH February 27, 1939
Place of death Königsberg (Prussia)