Johannes Gillhoff

Johannes Gillhoff

Johannes Heinrich Carl Christian Gillhoff (born May 24, 1861 in Glaisin , † January 16, 1930 in Parchim ) was a German writer .

biography

Memorial stone in Glaisin

Grave in the Ludwigslust cemetery

Johannes Gillhoff, son of Gottlieb Gillhoff and Helmine geb. After graduating from the preparatory institute in 1876, Martens worked like his father as a teacher in Tewswoos, Spornitz and Parchim. In 1881 he completed the teachers 'seminar in Neukloster and in 1896 the teachers' examination in Schwerin. Finally, in 1899, he passed the rectorate examination. From 1903 he was active in the Prussian school service. He briefly taught in Merseburg , Erfurt , Elsterwerda and Halberstadt before settling in Genthin in 1907 .

In addition to his teaching activities, Johannes Gillhoff traveled through Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Norway and Denmark and in 1888 began collecting colloquial expressions. He gathered around 4,000 Low German expressions, idioms and proverbs within a year and published them in a Parchimer school report. Four years earlier, the teacher Richard Wossidlo , who later became the most famous folklorist in Mecklenburg, had started doing the same in Waren. Lively contact arose between Gillhoff and Wossidlo, which Gillhoff broke off when Wossidlo asked him to hand over his collections. Gillhoff published his results for the first time in 1892 in the Mecklenburg Folk Riddles . The book combines 931 puzzles plus variants, which Gillhoff divided into subject areas. In 1897 Wossidlo's puzzle collection was published, as a result of which Gillhoff's book was undeservedly forgotten. It may be an irony of fate, but it was precisely the mysteries that had such a decisive influence on the careers of both researchers. Richard Wossidlo became known in the international professional world for his puzzles and from now on he plowed the field of Mecklenburg folklore all the more intensively, while Gillhoff turned more and more, in the end very successfully, to literature. In 1917 he published his letter novel Jürnjakob Swehn, Der Amerikafahrer , whose subject was the fate of Mecklenburg emigrants.

In 1924 Johannes Gillhoff retired and returned to Mecklenburg from Genthin. In the years 1925 to 1930 Gillhoff published the Mecklenburg monthly magazine in Ludwigslust . He died on January 16, 1930 in Parchim at the age of 68.

Johannes Gillhoff's main work: Jürnjakob Swehn, the America driver

Main article: Jürnjakob Swehn the America driver

The book first appeared in 1917 and was very successful in the 1920s and 1930s. Johannes Gillhoff published in it the edited letters of a day laborer from Mecklenburg named Jürnjakob Swehn who emigrated to America in 1868. This figure is based on a real role model, an emigrant to America, Carl Wiedow (1847–1913), who wrote letters from there to his former teacher, Gillhoff's father. The lyrics deal, among other things, with the crossing to and arrival in America, the first tough time as " farmhand ", the settlement in the state of Iowa, where Swehn founded his own family and farm, bought land and brought it to prosperity and reputation. There is also a report of the jointly established German school and of a church without pastors: the presentation of a lay sermon ("... you breeding otters ..."). The letters are spontaneous and almost always written to make you smile, peppered with proverbs, idioms and biblical sayings that comment on the individual events; some passages are written in Low German.

In 1952 a radio play version of the work that has not survived was created under the direction of Hans Freundt at NWDR Hamburg .

Works

• 1892: Mecklenburg folk puzzles.
• 1905: Pictures from village life.
• 1917: Jürnjakob Swehn, the America driver . Berlin, Dom-Verlag, 1917. [New edition: Verlag BS, Rostock 2006, ISBN 3-89954-219-3 ].
• 1925 to 1930: Mecklenburgische Monatshefte (editor)

Web links

Commons : Johannes Gillhoff  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Johannes Gillhoff in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature about Johannes Gillhoff in the state bibliography MV
• Works by Johannes Gillhoff in the state bibliography MV
• Works by Johannes Gillhoff in the Gutenberg-DE project