Nikolaus Fey

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Nikolaus Fey (born March 2, 1881 in Wiesentheid ; † July 19, 1956 in Gerolzhofen ) was a German dialect poet in Franconia and an important representative of the (east) Franconian dialect .

Life

Nikolaus Fey was born as the third of nine children to a carpenter family in Wiesentheid / Lower Franconia in the Steigerwald . He completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter in his father's business from 1894 to 1897 and then entered the convent school Sankt Ottilien am Ammersee as a high school student. He later switched to the grammar school in Schweinfurt and finally graduated from high school as a private student in Würzburg in 1904 and then studied philosophy and history in Munich and Berlin .

Fey settled down as a freelance writer in his home village and in 1908 joined the " Hetzfelder Rafters' Guild", a gathering of writers, painters, sculptors, architects and others from the Main Franconian area. In 1910 he went to Berlin for a year to study theater and art history as a guest student at the university. There he lived with the Karlstadt- born painter Bernhard Fech, who was involved in interior design in Berlin. From 1910 to 1912 Fey also worked as a journalist in Berlin. He continued his studies in Würzburg before, after his marriage in 1914 with Ottilie Müller, he took part in the First World War and was seriously wounded. In Würzburg he worked as a freelancer for the Franconian Volksblatt , which, like some important works by Fey, was published by the local Echter Verlag . He met artists from all directions in Würzburg in the Café Ludwig (later called the Theatercafé ) on Ludwigstrasse 1a opposite the Stadttheater , his favorite café .

On August 15, 1918, Fey moved to Lohr am Main with his wife and daughters . Here he bought and ran the Lohrer Anzeiger , which he sold again in 1922. From 1923 he worked again as a freelance writer. He founded his own Philippus publishing house in Lohr am Main and published his poems, stories and essays here.

In 1951 he was made an honorary citizen of his birthplace Wiesentheid. In the last years of his life he wrote plays again and traveled all over Franconia for readings and lectures. On one such trip, Fey died on July 19, 1956 while giving a lecture in Gerolzhofen. He was buried in the cemetery in Lohr.

Literary work

Fey's literary work is determined by his efforts to preserve Franconian customs and dialect. He made a significant contribution to this, especially in his dialect poetry. His depictions of the Main Franconian nature and the social conditions of craftsmen and farmers are shaped by features critical of civilization. Fey was also close to the Rothenfels circle around the Catholic theologian Romano Guardini .

In addition to various publications in newspapers and magazines, Fey particularly stood out with mystery and festivals. The best known, and still performed today (annually since 1980) as an open-air play in front of the ruins of the Geyer Castle in Giebelstadt , was his play Florian Geyer (1925). As early as 1932/1933 he was artistic director of the Erler Passion Play. On the occasion of the 600th anniversary of the city of Lohr am Main in 1936 he wrote the Konrad Wiegand Festival , and on the occasion of the reassignment of city rights in Alzenau in 1951, he wrote the play Lukas the silversmith of Alzenau .

Settings

Several of Fey's texts were set to music by various composers, including a. Gotthard Schüll, Ernst A. Englert and Ludwig Moritz and were especially popular in the Lower Franconian choir. Cornel Schmitt contributed the melodies to two Singspiele .

Nikolaus Fey and National Socialism

When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, he and other poet colleagues began to be increasingly appropriated by Nazi cultural policy, which valued homeland and dialect poetry as an expression of the blood-and-soil ideology and sought to instrumentalize the corresponding authors for propaganda purposes. Although Fey's poetry remained free of the typical blood-and-soil vocabulary, he could not refrain from appointing the Reichsschrifttumsbeauftragter for Lower Franconia in 1933 as an external concession. In two forewords to the songbook Mei Frank'n 1938 and the volume of poems Heemet, dei Harz 1941, he fell into Nazi jargon. At the wedding party of the Gauleiter of Mainfranken , Otto Hellmuth , on June 13, 1936, at which four poets welcomed the wedding couple as symbolic representatives of the estates, Fey, as representatives of the farmers, vintners, woodworkers, fishermen and people wearing traditional costumes, found more folk than Franconian words . In 1937 he was awarded the Rückert Prize for Literature and Literature in Franconia (= Main Franconian Art Prize for Literature and Poetry ). Despite this proximity to the state-controlled cultural policy, the National Socialists did not succeed in persuading Fey to leave the church and suppress the religious part of his poetry.

Its official function in the Third Reich , however, led to the American occupiers being banned from writing in 1945, which was not lifted until 1950. During this time, Fey had to do forest work as a sanction.

Works

  • Behind plowing . Wandsbek 1911
  • The little savior . Roman, Wandsbek 1912
  • With the reapers . Lohr a. M. 1919
  • The shepherds of Bethlehem . Nativity scene, Würzburg 1922
  • Loasa Vöigeli . Lohr a. M. 1922
  • Franconian style . Wuerzburg 1925
  • Florian Geyer - Peasants' War 1525 . Drama, Würzburg 1925 ("Volksspiel in 8 stage sets") and 1937 ("Peasant Freedom Game", dedicated to the standard bearer Michael Konrad)
  • Carter Christof , 1925
  • My Frank'n . Lohr a. M. 1929
  • Folklore . Stories, Würzburg 1929
  • The royal messengers . Drama (about the so-called Franconian apostles Kilian , Kolonat and Totnan ), Würzburg 1930 (first performed from July 5 to 13, 1930 in the inner courtyard of the Würzburg Citizens' Hospital )
  • Appreciation . Drama, Würzburg 1932
  • Mitt'n Dorch Frank'n . Wuerzburg 1935
  • Konrad Wiegand . Festival, Lohr a. M. 1936
  • Heemet, dei Harz . Wuerzburg 1941
  • Franconian people and country . Wuerzburg 1950
  • Lukas the silversmith of Alzenau . Alzenau 1951
  • Nikolaus Fey - A selection from his works . Wuerzburg 1962
  • Through field and Wengert . Market wide 1974
  • Deerhem in Frank'n . Market wide 1981

Song books

  • Nikolaus Fey: My Frank'n. Songs in Main Franconian dialect. 1st episode. Set to music and illustrated by Gotthard Schüll Stürtz. Lohr 1938
  • Reinhard Worschech (ed.): Franconian songs, Volume II. Dialect songs, monophonic tunes and two- to four-part choirs by Ernst A. Englert based on texts by Nikolaus Fey. Wuerzburg 1979

Source and literature

  • Tobias Müller: Franconian homeland and poetry. Nikolaus Fey. In: Kurt Illing (Ed.): In the footsteps of the poets in Würzburg. Self-published (print: Max Schimmel Verlag), Würzburg 1992, pp. 91-101.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tobias Müller: Franconian homeland and poetry. Nikolaus Fey. 1992, p. 92.
  2. ^ Association Florian-Geyer-Spiele ( Memento of the original from September 10th, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.florian-geyer-spiele.de