Josef Schiller (writer)

Josef Schiller (Schiller-Seff)

Josef Schiller , called Schiller-Seff (born June 29, 1846 in Reichenberg , † August 17, 1897 in Germania (Pennsylvania) ) was a North Bohemian socialist , writer , poet and politician .

Life

After the early death of his father, a poor weaver, Schiller had to earn his living in the Reichenberg textile factory Johann Liebieg & Co. as a factory worker at the age of nine . After a predominantly self-taught education, he only learned to read and write at the age of twelve, but began to write poetry at eighteen.

Due to the hardship of the Bohemian industrial workers, he soon became the most popular speaker at workers' meetings in Reichenberg and the surrounding area. In 1868/69 Schiller became a supporter of the first social democratic organizations in Bohemia and presented his own poems here, of which Sklavenjoch became one of the best known. Schiller was a co-founder and functionary of workers 'associations, including the general workers' association in Reichenberg, which was not approved by the authorities. In 1870 he participated in the founding of the professional association of manufactory, factory and manual workers. From 1872 to 1873 he was the chairman of this association, which with more than 3500 members was the largest workers' organization in North Bohemia. As publisher and editor of various magazines "The nettle", "social-political Rundschau", later "Radical", "free spirit" and so came Schiller repeatedly for his political agitation in professional difficulties, it was 1873 in Usti dismissed as chemical workers and from then on had to get by in various professions, including as a miner.

As a delegate of the Aussig workers, Schiller was one of the vice-chairs of the founding party congress of the Austrian Social Democracy in Neudörfl in 1874 . From 1879-80 he played a leading role in the central leadership of the Social Democratic Party, which was temporarily active in Reichenberg (among other things as co-responsible for the "Sozial -politische Rundschau", from 1879) and was one of the most popular figures of the Labor movement. As the last editor of the "Arbeiterfreund", Schiller was arrested in 1882; His imprisonment for several months was reflected in the "Pictures from Captivity" (Reichenberg 1890). He joined the radical wing of the North Bohemian Workers' Party from 1882 to 1883, during which time he was co-editor and publisher of the social democratic newspaper "Der Radikalische". In the following years Schiller was imprisoned several times. In the 1880s, Schiller was arrested twelve times and served a total of three years in prison.

In building new social democratic newspapers such as “Der Freigeist” and “Die Maulschelle” (later “Der Mocking Bird”) and organizations, he was again increasingly active from 1890 to 1891. Conflicts with the Reichenberg party leadership led to his resignation from active party activities and in 1896 to his emigration to the USA, where he died soon afterwards.

Works

• Poems, 1880;
• Selected poems, 4 booklets, 1885;
• Self liberation; Festival poem for four people. Listed at the founding festival in Altharzdorf on August 19, 1883, 8 pages.
• Schiller Josef: Pictures from Captivity (1890).
• Collected works, ed. by Paul Reimann, 1928 (with memories of Josef Schiller and a biographical foreword);
• From the poems: - To my dear wife. Fancy fabric. A mood song in the evening. (Including: unpublished poem about the Paris Commune.) By Schiller Seff / Josef Schiller In: From Herder to Kisch: Studies on the History of German-Austrian-Czech Literary Relations - (1961), pages 222-233.
• Selection from his work, ed. by Norbert Rothe (= text editions on early socialist literature in Germany, Volume 23), 1982;
• Heiner Jestrabek (Ed. And Introduction): Schiller Seff. Poems and texts by Josef Schiller, known as Schiller Seff, a north Bohemian working-class poet, free thinker and libertarian socialist. With an afterword "On the German-Czech relationship". Verlag Freiheitsbaum, Reutlingen 2018, 172 pages. ISBN 9783922589709

literature

• Schiller Josef. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 10, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1994,ISBN 3-7001-2186-5, p. 135.
• Schiller, Josef, index entry: German biography
• Emil Strauss: The emergence of the German-Bohemian labor movement. Prague 1925
• Schiller Seff and the beginnings of the North Bohemian labor movement / Paul Reimann In: From Herder to Kisch: Studies on the history of German-Austrian-Czech literary relations - (1961), pages 53-93
• Schiller-Seff and Friedrich von Schiller / J. Adam Stupp In: Sudeten yearbook of the Seliger community. - 32 (1983), pp. 73-74
• Heinrich Barthel: Josef Schiller (first biography), published in the Teplitzer "Freiheit" on February 9, 1897
• Inge Diersen u. a. (Ed.) Lexicon of socialist German literature from the beginnings to 1945. 'Gravenhage (NL) 1973, pp. 445–447

Web links

• A forum from Weimar A free spirit .
• Heiner Jestrabek: Schiller Seff
• Schiller Josef: Poems digital

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Heiner Jestrabek (Ed.): Schiller Seff. Poems and texts by Josef Schiller, known as Schiller Seff, a north Bohemian working-class poet, free thinker and libertarian socialist.