Lorenz Friedrich Mechlenburg

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lorenz Friedrich Marstrand Mechlenburg

Lorenz Friedrich Marstrand Mechlenburg (born February 15, 1799 in Nebel auf Amrum , † October 15, 1875 ibid) was a Danish Evangelical Lutheran pastor and North Frisian poet and linguist.

St. Clemens on Amrum during Mechlenburg's lifetime

Life

Lorenz Friedrich Mechlenburg was the son of the pastor at the Amrumer St. Clemens Church Christian Riese Mechlenburg (1748–1833) and his wife Naemi Dorothea nee. Petersen (1770-1833). From childhood on, in addition to German and Danish, he spoke the Frisian dialect of the island of Amrum Öömrang . After attending the scholarly school in Husum , he studied theology at the University of Copenhagen and also learned several European languages. In 1825 he passed his exams and returned to Amrum to support his almost eighty-year-old father in the administration. When his father retired in 1827 after 40 years in office, Mechlenburg became his successor. After his grandfather Friedrich Marstrand Mechlenburg (1710–1778), who served from 1739 until his death, and his father, he was the third pastor of the Mechlenburg family on Amrum, who originally came from Norway. In the same year he married Matje Tückes (1806–1874) from Amrum, a cousin of Knut Jungbohn Clement , with whom he had ten children. His younger brother Christian Riese Mechlenburg founded the 1836 of King Friedrich VI. “Royally privileged pharmacy” in Leck . Mechlenburg, who felt very much at home on his home island, asked, out of consideration for his family, in 1842 to be transferred to the better paid position at St. Laurentii on Föhr , which together with Amrum formed a parish . Since the reason for the application was obviously of a purely material nature, he did not get the job, but stayed in Amrum until the end of his life.

Although Mechlenburg hardly left Amrum after his studies, his scholarship was well known early on. In 1828 he was invited to work with the Copenhagen Kongelige Nordiske Oldskrift-Selskab and was in correspondence with scientists all over Europe. In the years after 1840 he devoted himself to researching the Frisian language . This interest was possibly promoted by the relationship with Nikolaus Outzen , whose daughter was married to Mechlenburg's uncle, the Copenhagen pharmacist Friedrich Mechlenburg. In addition to linguistic research, he also did archeology and natural history. His collection of local minerals as well as conchylia and "curiosities", which the seafarers among his parishioners brought back to their pastor from their travels, was considered a sight.

Mechlenburg tried to use the North Frisian folk festivals in 1844 and 1845 as an opportunity to recruit employees for an all-Frisian magazine and a Frisian dictionary. However, in the years before the Schleswig-Holstein uprising, interest was less in the Frisian language itself than in the fact that North Frisia belongs to Schleswig-Holstein , as propagated by Clement and Christian Feddersen . Unlike most of the other North Frisian linguists of his time, Mechlenburg was loyal to Denmark. In 1853 he was a candidate for the Folketing . In 1860 the Danish King Frederick VII awarded him the Order of Danebrog during his visit to Amrum . In 1864 he even considered giving up his pastoral office as a protest against the Prussian annexation of Schleswig-Holstein . This pro-Danish attitude led to a falling out with Moritz Momme Nissen , a generation younger , for whose appointment as a teacher in Nebel he had campaigned in 1858.

plant

Mechlenburg's first self-publishing was a poem in Fering in 1847 under the title Gesang in der Westerlandföhrer Mundart, written 130 years ago by Pastor M. Flor . In 1851 the magazine for German antiquity printed a collection of proverbs from Amrum and Föhr.

Much more extensive is his handwritten legacy in the Hamburg State and University Library and in the Öömrang Archiif in Öömrang Hüs in Nebel , which, in addition to his extensive correspondence, contains transcriptions of Amrum's fairy tales, songs and proverbs, as well as works on grammar, phonology and vocabulary of Öömrang and the history of Amrum . Particularly important is the Amrum dictionary or lexicon, arranged alphabetically according to the Amrum dialect , which Mechlenburg completed in 1854. There are also copies that Mechlenburg created from lexicons of other Frisian dialects, which have also only survived in handwritten form, although the original was often lost, such as the dictionary of pastor Friedrich Feddersen (1790–1863) from Stedesand , the brother of the above-mentioned Christian Feddersen.

literature

  • Lorenz Friedrich M. Mechlenburg: Amrumer dictionary . Edited by Reinhard Jannen. 312 p., Verlag Jens Quedens, Amrum 1997, ISBN 3-924422-51-6
  • Reinhard Jannen: Mechlenburg Collection, Öömrang Archiif , Amrum 1999 [1]

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biography for: Jannen, Reinhard: Collection Mechlenburg, Öömrang Archiif , Amrum 1999
  2. ↑ biographies to Jannen, Reinhard: Collection Mechlenburg, Öömrang Archiif
  3. ^ A b Claas Riecken: North Frisian language research in the 19th century ; Bredstedt 2000; Pp. 125-127
  4. ^ JA Petersen: Walks through the duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg : 3rd Section North Friesland ; Kiel 1839; P. 618
  5. ^ Riecken: North Frisian Language Research in the 19th Century ; Pp. 148-152
  6. ^ Riecken: North Frisian Language Research in the 19th Century ; P. 208
  7. ^ Journal of German Antiquity , Vol. 8. Leipzig. 1851. pp. 350-374
  8. ^ Ferring Foundation Archive ( memo from September 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ); Mechlenburg estate
personal data
SURNAME Mechlenburg, Lorenz Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mechlenburg, Lorenz Friedrich Marstrand (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish Evangelical Lutheran pastor and North Frisian poet and linguist
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1799
PLACE OF BIRTH Fog (amrum)
DATE OF DEATH October 15, 1875
Place of death Fog (amrum)