Michał Frencel

Title page of the New Testament edition translated by Frencel

Michał Frencel (German Michael Frenzel , sometimes Frentzel ; born February 2, 1628 in Pietzschwitz (Oberlausitz), † June 29, 1706 in Großpostwitz ) was a Lutheran pastor. He translated the New Testament into Sorbian . He is considered to be one of the creators of the Upper Sorbian written language in its Protestant version.

Life

Frencel was the son of a cathedral administrator and village judge in Pietzschwitz near Göda . His paternal grandfather Jakub Frencel came to Lusatia as an exile from Bohemia at the end of the 16th century . Michał Frencel attended grammar school in Bautzen and the Princely School near St. Afra in Meißen . From 1649 to 1651 he studied theology at the University of Leipzig . From 1651 to 1662 he was pastor in Kosel and from 1662 until his death pastor in Großpostwitz near Bautzen. As a clergyman, he was not only committed to the salvation of the soul and a better education of the Sorbian farmers, but also tried to protect them against the arbitrariness of the Upper Lusatian nobility. In the course of the 17th century, the social situation of the peasants in Upper Lusatia increasingly deteriorated, as the politically autonomous estates successfully forced them into subservience (so-called second serfdom). In 1660 Frencel called on his Sorbian confreres in the parish office to fight together for a humane existence for the Sorbian subjects. This made him unpopular with the estates, who then tried to thwart his activities as translators of the Bible by confiscating Frencel's manuscripts and forbidding the printing of the New Testament in Sorbian. Michał Frencel successfully sued the Saxon Elector in Dresden against these measures; this ordered the estates to hand over the manuscripts and granted the sovereign permission to print.

When Tsar Peter the Great traveled through Upper Lusatia in 1697 , Frencel gave him his translation of the Bible and other works with dedication in Sorbian and Latin. In a letter to the Tsar, Frencel referred to the relationship of the Sorbs to the Russian nation and other Slavic peoples. This early Sorbian statement on the linguistic relationship of all Slavic peoples is particularly remarkable because this awareness only became common property among the educated Sorbs 100 years later and was to have a lasting impact on the cultural development of the small people in the 19th century.

A serious setback for Frencel's work as a translator was the fire in his rectory in 1701, which also destroyed all of his notes.

After his death, Frencel was buried on the outer wall of the Postwitz church. The tombstone is now in the porch of the church.

Bible translator

Gravestone in the Großpostwitz church

Frencel began work on his Sorbian translation of the Bible by translating the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. As a linguistic basis, he used the Bautzen dialect as it was spoken in his parish Großpostwitz. The two Gospels appeared in print in 1670. In 1693 followed the letters of Paul to the Romans and the Galatians and in 1695 the pericopes of the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. Together with Paul Prätorius and Michael Rätze Frencel then translated the Psalms (printed in 1703). In 1706 the entire New Testament was finally available, but it could not be printed until after Frencel's death.

In addition to the Greek text, the Vulgate and the Luther Bible, he also used Polish and Czech versions of the Bible as templates for the translation . For this he developed a spelling of Sorbian that was mainly based on the Czech alphabet and also included Polish spellings. He had the letters with diacritical marks new in Upper Lusatia cast himself when he was preparing the printing of the first two Gospels. Although the booths intervened again and prohibited the use of the Czech writing system, Frencel's innovations were to prevail in the long term. The character set he developed is by and large still used today for printing in the Upper Sorbian language.

Michał Frencel's work played a major role in the fact that the first complete Bible was published in Upper Sorbian in 1728. Frencel's son Abraham († 1740) continued the work of his father with regard to the written Sorbian language. His son-in-law Johann Böhmer was his successor in the parish office; in 1718 he brought out the first Sorbian hymn book together with other pastors.

Quotes about the Sorbs and their language

We Wends are badly known among other nations that apart from the catechism, the seven penitential psalms and the first two evangelists translated by me, we have nothing in our Upper Lusatian Wendish language. This is why our Wends themselves cannot help themselves much in their Christianity, because they have no Wendish scriptures, and therefore almost reluctantly keep their children to school, then the young people do not grow up the best, partly because their parents do not breed them and Raising admonition, in that in many places, because of almost daily robots and court services, they hardly have enough time and time from morning to evening that they can pray for themselves.

There is no reason to be ashamed of the Wendish language; Many a man owes it to the Wendish language for being promoted: if several gentlemen of the nobility did not have Wendish peasants, things would be very bad for them. Such a language is not, for example, a new language that has been brought together and combined from many languages, as some in the Linguis and historiis non-experts believe.

Fonts

• S. Matthaeus and S. Marcus / As well as the three general main symbols . Budissin 1670 ( digitized version ).
• Postwitzsch Tauff-Stein or Christian and simple-minded German-Wendish sermon of holy baptism . Budissin 1688 ( digitized version ).
• Apostolic Catechism, That is: S. Pauli Epistle to the Romans and to the Galatians . Budissin 1693 ( digitized version ).
• The memory of God's miracles. Which Bey inauguration of the new altar erected in 1688 / in the churches of Postwiz / viewed in a sermon and presented to the congregation of God there . Zittau 1697 ( digitized version ).
• The Psalter of the Royal Prophet David . Budissin 1703 ( digitized version ).
• The New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ / in the Upper Lusatian Wendish language . Zittau 1706 ( digitized version ).

literature

• Frido Mětšk:  Frentzel, Michael. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 403 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Peter Kunze: Frencel (Brancel, Frentzel), Michał (Michael), in: Sächsische Biographie, ed. from the Institute for Saxon History and Folklore eV, arr. by Martina Schattkowsky. On-line
• Fabian Kaulfürst: Studije k rěči Michała Frencla. Bautzen 2012.
• Friedrich Pollack: The discovery of the foreign. Perception and representation of the Lusatian Sorbs in the learned literature of the 17th and 18th centuries. Bautzen 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Fabian Kaulfürst: študije k řeči Michała Frencla. Writings of the Sorbian Institute 55, Bautzen 2012, p. 11
2. ↑ Postwitzscher Tauff-Stein or Christian and simple-minded German-Wendish sermon on holy baptism. Budissin 1688
3. ↑ ibid

Web links

• Literature by and about Michał Frencel in the catalog of the German National Library
• Publications by and about Michał Frencel in VD 17 .
• Karlheinz Tyfa: On the 300th anniversary of Michał Frencel's death (1628–1706) , on the website of the Großpostwitz community