Song of work
The song of work is considered the anthem of Austrian social democracy . It was performed in public for the first time in 1868 and can still be heard today at SPÖ events , for example every year in Vienna at the May 1st celebrations .
history
The “people's and workers song” is of particular importance in the history of the workers' movement in Austria as well. The text for the song of work was written in 1867 by the then 21-year-old engraver - journeyman Josef Zapf (1847-1902), the setting was done in 1867 by Josef Scheu , the choirmaster of the Gumpendorfer Arbeiterbildungsverein in Mariahilf , who also premiered on August 29th 1868 in Zobel's beer hall in Fünfhaus . The office building for the 15th district with the district museum is located on the site of the beer hall .
The Gumpendorfer Arbeiterbildungsverein was founded on December 8, 1867 as the first of its kind in Vienna and was one of the most active associations of the labor movement in this city at that time. Just one year after its creation, in 1868 it set up a health and disability insurance fund for its members. The “Song of Work” was also presented for the first time at a general meeting of this association. The 3,000 visitors are said to have been so moved by the performance of the workers' choir that they stood up and listened to the song while standing.
text
In terms of content, the lyrics are designed as a “hymn to work”. Of the original ten stanzas in the original version, only the first and last are sung today.
- Agrees to the song of the high bride
- Which already entrusted to man
- Before he was still human.
- What is his on the earth,
- Arose from this faithful covenant.
- Work up!
- Work up!
- When he was vertebrate, still shy and wild
- Through terrifying primeval terrain
- And dark woods crept
- Who gave the arm the first defense?
- It was work, still raw like him.
- Work up!
- Work up!
- And when he had bow, arrow and spear
- And left the nomadic staff
- Moved to his own field
- Who Created the Beneficial Plow?
- The work that never creates enough.
- Work up!
- Work up!
- As later the Herd family
- Increases to parish and city
- Who under the slave yoke
- Did the construction of the first city begin?
- That was a proud deed at work.
- Work up!
- Work up!
- And as his urge for possessions
- It drove him to the pathless flood
- Still undefeated.
- Who pushed the first ship off the beach?
- The eternal hand of work
- Work up!
- Work up!
- And when the thinker mind is already close
- Saw the freedom of spirit dawn
- What a genius sent
- The printed word of mankind?
- It was the work, the education center.
- Work up!
- Work up!
- She has what no Rome has done
- The earth made itself a servant.
- And she is still mistress
- As high as a pass leads through a glacier
- As deep as ore a miner can feel.
- Work up!
- Work up!
- It is she who conquered the seas',
- That tensions all elements
- Into the hard Eisenjoch.
- But her mother was the need
- Do not forget, of age, their commandment:
- Work up!
- Work up!
- The pyramid of Cheops testifies
- What a pressing yoke she once bowed.
- The work broke it after all!
- Therefore hope: The yoke of capital,
- Free labor still breaks it!
- Work up!
- Work up!
- And as Galileo once called,
- When the world slept in error all around:
- And yet she is moving!
- So calls: The work, it receives,
- Work, it moves the world!
- Work up!
- Work up!
melody
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lilli Bauer, Werner T. Bauer: Lied der Arbeit. In: dasrotewien.at - Web dictionary of the Viennese social democracy. SPÖ Vienna (Ed.)