Ricarda Terschak

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Ricarda Maria Terschak (born December 18, 1929 in Sibiu ; † September 30, 2012 there ) was a Romanian-German writer .

Life and work

Terschak was - unlike the majority of the predominantly Evangelical Transylvanian Saxons - of the Catholic faith . She attended the convent school of the Ursulines and Lyceums in her hometown and in Kronstadt . She obtained her university entrance qualification in Timisoara . In 1948 she entered the order of the Benedictines there under the name "Benedicta", despite the tribulation that many nuns were exposed to at that time . After almost all Romanian monasteries had been closed in the same year and Terschak had left the community of the Sisters of St. Lioba in Timisoara , she worked as an assistant teacher in Heltau from 1949 to 1951 and then studied psychology and education in Bucharest. But she gave up her studies after just two semesters. Terschak worked as a draftsman in the Sibiu Brukenthal Museum until 1973 and from 1975 as an occupational and art therapist at a neuropsychiatric clinic. In 1992 she returned to Timisoara, where she studied theology until 1997 . Despite her advanced age, she has been teaching since 2000 at the newly founded “Friedrich Müller Technical School for Curative Education and Elderly Care” in Sibiu.

Throughout her life, Terschak, who was called Mimo ("aunt") by those around her, showed strong care for orphans, the disabled and the sick. She lived with the writer Paul Dragoș Vacariuc , who came from Chernivtsi and who died in 1978, for 13 years .

Ricarda Terschak found her final resting place in the central cemetery in Sibiu.

Terschak's grandfather was the Prague-born composer Adolf Terschak (1832–1901).

Artistic creation

Terschak has published books for children and young people since the 1970s. Her works often have autobiographical traits. In her first children's book, Drei Kinder und ein Dachshund (1st edition 1974), she describes the life stories of three orphans, whose upbringing she took on. The representation is characterized by inner truthfulness and a responsible and ethical-moral attitude. In Brennende Schwalbe (1985) she deals with experiences of the war and the post-war period. The then 15-year-old, like all Transylvanian-Saxon women of her age, was threatened with deportation for forced labor in the Soviet Union , which she only escaped by hiding. The story Die Zauberin Uhle (1st edition 1980), in which an albino girl is forced into an identity that is alien to her through external coercion and violence, and takes refuge in a world that seems unreal, offers a different background . Terschak sees it as a “witness of the times” because the “spiral of fear” in which the protagonist finds herself was experienced by many people in socialist Romania. Terschak also dealt with historical subjects, such as the Saxon Count Johann Sachs von Harteneck (also known as Johannes Zabanius; 1664–1703), which, however, did not result in a literary work.

With Der Hexenmeister Julius , Terschak also wrote a play that premiered on October 7, 1983 at the German State Theater Timişoara . The fairy tale was received with little sympathy by the critic in the form of Horst Samson : It was neither imaginative nor exciting. Nevertheless, the production saw 15 performances.

Most recently, Terschak worked on a Romanian translation of Edith Stein's works . Terschak also worked as a book illustrator and temporarily as an organist at the Catholic parish church in her home town.

Awards

  • 1979: Romanian Writers' Union Prize for: Excuse me, do you need this bed?
  • 2004: Prize of the Romanian Writers' Union Sibiu for: Bootzi, a boy of eleven years

Works (selection)

  • The meteorite with the gem. Ion Creangă Publishing House, Bucharest 1976
  • Three children and a dachshund. 2nd Edition. Kriterion-Verlag, Bucharest 1977
  • Excuse me, do you need this bed? Albatros Publishing House, Bucharest 1979
  • The sorceress Uhle. 2nd edition, Ion-Creangă-Verlag, Bucharest 1984
  • Burning swallow. Kriterion-Verlag, Bucharest 1985
  • Elmolin. Ion-Creangă-Verlag, Bucharest 1985 (St.-Benno-Verlag, Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-7462-0394-5 )
  • Bootzi, a boy of eleven. Hora-Verlag, Hermannstadt 2004, ISBN 973-8226-29-5

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erna Kelp, Ute Maurer: Children's and youth literature: textbook for the XII. Class of the educational lyceum. Editura didactică și pedagocigă, Bucharest 1980, p. 149.
  2. ↑ Horst Samson: Stormy beginning. In: Neue Literatur 35 (1984), issue 1, p. 84.
  3. ^ Horst Fassel : The German State Theater Timisoara (1953-2003). From national identity bearer to experimental theater. Lit Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-643-11413-6 , p. 116.
personal data
SURNAME Terschak, Ricarda
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Terschak, Ricarda Maria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian German writer
DATE OF BIRTH December 18, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Sibiu
DATE OF DEATH September 30, 2012
Place of death Sibiu