Paul Persch

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Paul Barsch (born March 16, 1860 in Niederhermsdorf in the Neisse district ; † August 3, 1931 in Schieferstein am Zobten ; Ps. Fritz Hartwig ) was a German-speaking Silesian poet and narrator .

Paul Persch

Life

youth

Paul Barsch was born into a poor family of craftsmen in the Silesian Niederhermsdorf (today: Jasienica Dolna). His father was the carpenter August Barsch, his mother was Anna Barsch, who had been a hat girl in the area of ​​Mogwitz and Waltdorf. Barsch still financially supported his mother and sister (of the same name) in 1901. His younger brother Carl Barsch died in Potsdam in 1891 , where he was employed as a gardener in the Sanssouci palace gardens .

An older brother and three younger siblings died of consumption, which the seven-year-old survived, but who went blind for several years due to scrofulous ulcers. During this time his mother taught him the poetry and folk songs of his homeland. The ten-year-old suffered lifelong crippling from wearing what he called the “glass croak”, a device for transporting panes of glass and wooden frames. As a result of these illnesses, the boy only attended the village school irregularly and for a total of two years.

Nonetheless, Barsch was one of the few residents of the town who had learned to read and write and was familiar with the poems of Friedrich Schiller at an early age .

Years of traveling as a journeyman craftsman

After his father's death (1875), Barsch himself apprenticed to a carpenter and two years later went on a journey as a journeyman, first to Goldberg , where he succeeded in getting a newspaper editor to be interested in his poetry, which he wrote at night under the workbench To publish poem.

After working as a journeyman with changing employers in Lower Silesia, on the Moselle and on the Rhine , in Belgium , Luxembourg and Lorraine , he also wandered through Austria , Alsace and Switzerland . In Stuttgart he visited Karl Gerok . For the poem Agnes he received a special price of 60 Reichsmarks at a competition organized by the Breslauer Dichterschule Association and was invited by chairman Theobald Nöthig to a reading in Breslau , where he joined the poet school in September 1881.

Barsch worked for several years in Richard Standfuss machine tool factory in Breslau, until he became an invalid due to an accident at work in which he cut the fingers of his right hand. He turned down offers of support from prominent authors like Richard Schmidt-Cabanis and went hiking again. The Silesian dialect poet Max Heinzel and August Kruhl, a reclusive vegetarian and life reformer, accepted him in Reichenbach ; In Hirschberg , Persch worked again as a carpenter. Kruhl discovered Barsch's journalistic talent and conveyed his court reports to Breslauer Blätter.

Editor and poet

Title cover of the novel From One Who Set Out (1905)

In 1884, the editor Maximilian Schlesinger gave Barsch a job as editor of the literary supplement to the Breslauer Rechts-Zeitung, which he held for 17 years, since 1897 as editor-in-chief. In addition, from 1889 to 1893 he was in charge of the monthly newspapers of the Breslauer Dichterschule and published here, among others, first and early works by Rainer Maria Rilke , Stefan Zweig and Karl Kraus . Later the young, then unknown authors Armin T. Wegner and Max Herrmann-Neisse were sponsored by Barsch. The era of the editorship of Paul Barsch is considered to be the "glory period of the club organ". In 1901 the paper was renamed Der Osten , and Barsch took over the editorial office again on January 1, 1904.

Other friends of Barsch in the vicinity of the Breslau poetry school were Hermann Stehr , Carl Hauptmann , Philo vom Walde , Wilhelm Arent , Arthur Silbergleit , Paul Mühsam and Walter Meckauer . He had a lively correspondence with Ludwig Jacobowski , who included him in his anthology New Songs of the Best Newer Poets for the People (1900), as well as with Carl Busse , Karl Bleibtreu and other representatives of naturalism . Alfred Oehlke later brought the poet to work for the Breslauer Zeitung. A trip together with the Catholic folk writer Paul Keller took Barsch in 1903 from Genoa to the Middle East , to Algiers and Tunis and back to Italy, as well as to an audience with Pope Pius X in the Vatican .

The author first published his poetry in book form in 1884 and repeatedly revised the texts in new editions. For the literary historian Arno Lubos , Barsch is "to this day one of the most valued Silesian writers".

In 1905 Barsch published his main work, the novel Von Eine, who moved out , which described his fate in the story of the Silesian journeyman Julius Kattner. Gerhart Hauptmann recommended the manuscript to S. Fischer Verlag ; it then appeared in two volumes by Eduard Trewendt, later by L. Heege, a Silesian publisher in Schweidnitz , and was hymnically reviewed by Detlev von Liliencron in the Neue Freie Presse . The naturalistic depiction of the misery of the country road and the homeless shelters despite all self-irony earned the author the reputation of a “Silesian Gorky ”. The book is also an important source for the special language of the declassed lower class, the Rotwelsch . By 1933 numerous editions and an abridged popular edition appeared in one volume, as well as translations into other languages.

In 1886 Barsch married Hedwig Wigger (1852-1918) from Mecklenburg , who had worked as an educator for a ruling minister in Portugal and Vienna , translated from Portuguese and reported on new publications in Portuguese literature for various journals. Their daughter Julia (1886–1923) performed recitations and worked on the features section of the Breslauer Zeitung. Later she married the Görlitz high school teacher Paul Gatter ; her grandson was the television journalist Peter Gatter .

Fame and last years of life

From April 1, 1901, Barsch lived as a freelance writer. In 1900 he and his family moved to Grüneiche, a rural suburb; from 1905 he lived in Breslau again. He set up a summer house in Schieferstein, where the dialect poet Ernst Schenke also settled and where Carl Busse, Armin T. Wegner and many other authors went on fishing trips. During the Second World War , the former Reichstag President Paul Löbe, who was persecuted by the National Socialists and bombed out in Berlin, found refuge in this house and was arrested here after the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 .

For his fiftieth birthday, the poet was honored on March 16, 1910 with a matinee in the Breslau City Theater; Maximilian Schmergalski portrayed him with a wooden sculpture. For his 60th birthday the city of Breslau wrote him an honorary salary. Paul Schulz created a bronze sculpture by Paul Barsch around 1930, which was installed in the university .

The author, widowed shortly before the end of the First World War, married the poet Marie Muthreich (1884–1961) in December 1920 , who also wrote his biography.

Barsch was a member of the Freemasons ' Union , where he held the office of master of the chair of the Settegast Lodge for German Loyalty in Breslau .

Paul Barsch died on August 3, 1931 in his house in Schieferstein (today: Przemiłów) on Zobten.

Judgments about Paul Barsch

  • “The poet, compatriot, wanderer Paul Barsch lives in the midst of these troubled times, consciously as something peaceful, serious, genuine, lovable. When I talked to Gerhart Hauptmann about him, I found Hauptmann's affection for perch as much as I myself have. " Alfred Kerr
  • “ Paul Barsch only attended a simple village school, but enjoyed lessons that were very instructive for his poetry, in workshops, in taverns and taverns, on country roads, in the corners and alleys of smaller towns, in the country, with boatmen, in gypsy camps , he studied in cold churns and at funny parties ... Life was his high school and seldom has a more docile student entered it. He enjoyed nourishment for his soul from the breast of the greatest alma mater in the world, the eternally wise, eternally doubting, always striving forwards, all, all faculties. Like Maxim Gorky , he was among the little ones until he was, like no one else, able to write the natural history of the little man. “Paul Keller
  • “This book can enrich, promote and delight forever. Paul Barsch is a truly real poet, a good, funny, well-experienced person, a whole fellow. If I have to compare, I would like to say that this precious book holds the middle between Eichendorff's 'good-for-nothing' and Gorky's barefoot stories. Its genuinely German character (I mean Germanness in the sense of the Brothers Grimm) makes it a folk book in the most beautiful, deepest and greatest sense, a folk book that is at the same time one of the most valuable works of art, one of the most intimate prose poems. ” Detlev von Liliencron of One who moved out

Works

Poetry

  • On streets and catwalks. Songs. Published by Karl von Klarenthal. With a foreword by Richard Schmidt-Cabanis. Baumert & Ronge, Grossenhain i. P. 1885
  • Flying leaves. New songs. Baumert & Ronge, Großenhain, Leipzig 1889
  • Above the clod. Poems. Allgemeine Verlags-Gesellschaft, Munich 1904; 2nd revised edition, L. Heege, Schweidnitz 1920; New edition 1927 (The Silesian Song Vol. 2)

prose

  • (under the name Fritz Hartwig :) The rights of the accused. An indispensable advisor and guide in the penal process . Arthur Bergmann, Breslau 1897
  • From someone who moved out. A soul and wandering year on the country road. Novel. 2 vols., Eduard Trewendt, Berlin 1905
  • That. Abridged popular edition Bergstadtverlag Korn, Breslau, Leipzig [1924]
  • Paul Barsch talks about his childhood and youth. With a foreword by Paul Keller. Bergstadtverlag Wilh. Gottl. Korn, Breslau 1933

Editorial activity

  • Karl von Holtei : The vagabonds . 10th edition. Schweidnitz, L. Heege (Oskar Güntzel) 1909
  • (With Carl Biberfeld :) Brause, you freedom song! A commemorative book for the centenary of the wars of freedom, ed. from the city of Wroclaw. L. Heege, Schweidnitz 1913
  • Paul Keller, Marie Muthreich, Marie Klerlein, Hermann Stehr: Stories and poems . L. Heege, Schweidnitz 1914 (The Silesian Books Vol. 1)
  • A book about war. Stories and poems by Richard Rieß, Felix Janoske, Paul Keller, Arthur Silbergleit, Margarete Kiefer-Steffe, Carl Biberfeld, Ernst Zettauer, Paul Barsch. L. Heege: Schweidnitz 1916 (The Silesian Books Vol. 2)
  • Home and freedom. Silesian votes for Silesian law. With an introduction v. Paul Persch. L. Heege, Schweidnitz 1921

Contribution to periodicals

  • General art chronicle. Illustrated magazine for art, applied arts, music, theater and literature
  • Workers youth. Organ for the intellectual and economic interests of young workers
  • Wroclaw Court Newspaper
  • Wroclaw Newspaper
  • The gazebo
  • The Gemittliche Schläsinger . House calendar for the province of Silesia
  • Society. Monthly for literature, art and social policy
  • Hamburger Logenblatt. Bulletin of the Great Lodge of Hamburg and its daughter lodges
  • Home garden. A monthly
  • Modern poetry. Monthly for literature and criticism
  • Monthly sheets. Organ of the Breslauer Dichterschule (from 1901: The East. Literary monthly of the "Breslauer Dichterschule")
  • Upper Silesia. Journal for maintaining knowledge and representing the interests of Upper Silesia
  • The Upper Silesian. Monthly for the local cultural life
  • Paul Keller's monthly newspaper Die Bergstadt
  • The Silesian Books
  • Silesian newspaper
  • Silesian Almanac
  • Silesian muse almanac. A poetic yearbook
  • The real Jacob
  • We Silesians!
  • The contemporary. Berlin monthly magazine for life, criticism and poetry of the present

Settings

  • The mothers. In: Fritz Fleck: Four songs for one voice with piano accompaniment. Challier, Berlin [approx. 1900]
  • Now the forest stands in blossoms (after May ) by Othmar Schoeck , opus No. 12, manuscript in the Zurich Central Library (autumn 1903)
  • Encounter . No. 1 in Paul Graener: Five songs in folk tone for a voice with piano accompaniment , opus 16. Eulenburg, Leipzig 1919
  • May by Fritz Berhausen. In: Paul Keller's monthly sheets Die Bergstadt 9 (1920/21), vol. 2, p. 149 f.

literature

  • Carl Biberfeld (Ed.): Paul Barsch-Heft. Special issue of: The East. Literary monthly of the "Breslauer Dichterschule", vol. 36 (1910), issue 4.
  • Margarete Karfunkelstein (Ed.): A book about Paul Barsch. L. Heege, Breslau / Schweidnitz 1930 (The Silesian Books Vol. 7)
  • Marie Muthreich: friend among friends. Written to Paul Barsch. Self-published, Neuenrade 1955 Partly digitized as pdf

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "The wooden glass stretcher owes its strange name to the fact that its weight forced the wearer to groan and croak." From: "Die Glaskrächze", published in: Paul Barsch tells from his childhood and youth , 1933
  2. ↑ Ludwig Sittenfeld: The history of the association "Breslauer Dichterschule". In: Der Osten, vol. 35 (1902), no. 2, p. 40
  3. ^ Arno Lubos: History of the literature of Silesia. Bergstadt Verlag, Würzburg, Vol. 2, 1967, p. 123
  4. ↑ for example into Latvian ( Pasaules gājējs , literally: "Der Weltgänger", translated by Jānis Jaunsudrabiņš , published in continuation in the daily newspaper Latwija between July 1 and September 26, 1909)

Web links

Wikisource: Paul Barsch  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Perch, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-speaking poet and narrator
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Niederhermsdorf near Neisse , Silesia
DATE OF DEATH August 3, 1931
Place of death Wroclaw