Richard Wossidlo

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Richard Wossidlo (1859-1939)
Memorial stone in Waren (Müritz)

Richard Carl Theodor August Wossidlo (born January 26, 1859 in Friedrichshof ; † May 4, 1939 in Waren (Müritz) ) was a grammar school professor and is considered the nestor of Mecklenburg folklore , a co-founder of German-speaking folklore and an important field researcher in European ethnology .

Life

Education and teaching profession

Richard Wossidlo was the fourth of seven children of the manor owner Alfred (Ferdinand) Wossidlo (1830–1863) and his wife, the estate owner's daughter Mathilde Dorothea Kohrt (1834–1916), born in Friedrichshof near Ticino . Wossidlo's birthplace has been deserted since 1971 . On the farms of his grandfather near Waren (Müritz) and his uncle in Körkwitz near Ribnitz , he became familiar with the language of the working rural population ( day laborers, etc.) and the traditions of the fading premodern early on . At the census in Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1867, he was registered as a resident of the city of Bützow together with his already widowed mother Mathilde and his siblings Emma and Carl .

After graduating from the Great City School in Rostock (1876), where Karl Ernst Hermann Krause won him for Low German , Wossidlo studied Classical Philology at the University of Rostock , Leipzig and Berlin until 1883 . A dissertation on the Greek language begun by Richard Foerster remained unfinished. In 1883 he acquired the qualification for Latin and Greek in the upper school. After his probationary period, the probationary year, in Wismar , Wossidlo went to the grammar school in Waren (Müritz) in 1886 , where he remained in school until 1924, but had been released for his research since 1922 and no longer practiced the teaching profession. In 1908 he was appointed high school professor. In Mecklenburg's home movement , Wossidlo became an important symbol. During National Socialism he endeavored to continue his folklore projects, but was far removed from racist ideas and the Nazi party.

Arnold Hückstädt spoke about Wossidlo's relationship to National Socialism in May 1989 at the founding meeting of the Fritz Reuter working group : “But Wossidlo also found spiritual security and protection with Reuter when Nazi abuse threatened his life's work in the brown period. The Nazis would have loved to put him in front of their 'ethnic cart'. But Wossidlo knew - not least by withdrawing in silence, by turning to Reuter - to avoid the degradation of his person and the insult of his work. While the Nazi leaders of Mecklenburg wanted to bestow 'National Socialist honors' on Professor Richard Wossidlo on his 75th birthday in 1934, he preferred to refuse to take part in public celebrations. In the meantime he drove to Eisenach and laid flowers on Fritz Reuter's grave. In order not to be corrupted by the Nazis, Wossidlo went into a kind of 'inner emigration', he always found an excuse to refuse Nazi intrusiveness. ” Nevertheless, all of Mecklenburg celebrated Wossidlo on his 80th birthday on the initiative and under the leadership of the NSDAP. Birthday (1939) as a national hero in a festival week with numerous festive events across the country. Wossidlo died a few months later and found his final resting place on a family site in the Ribnitz cemetery .

Folklore collection and research

While still a student, Wossidlo was still excerpting Low German words and idioms from the works of Fritz Reuter and John Brinckman and began to document the spoken dialect. This collecting work was already folkloric because it captured meaningful references in vocabulary, but not sound and hardly any grammar . It was published with the help of the Association for Low German Language Research in Hamburg . In 1890 the Association for Mecklenburg History and Archeology commissioned Wossidlo with the collection of "folk traditions", which he continued until the end of his life alongside teaching and by sacrificing his fortune, since 1906 with the support of the Mecklenburg Homeland Federation . Here he worked closely with the archaeologist Robert Beltz and the geologist Eugen Geinitz . Wossidlo turned down a professorship for Low German language and folklore that had been offered to him in 1919. Instead of him, Hermann Teuchert was given the chair to which Wossidlo left his linguistic material for the “Mecklenburg Dictionary” . In 1936, the “Mecklenburg Farmers' Museum 'Wossidlo Collection'” was founded in Schwerin Castle on the basis of its material culture collection. Today it is in the Schwerin-Mueß open-air museum .

Cultural significance

The "Rätsel" edited in 1897 made the young private scholar famous in the professional world, even though Johannes Gillhoff had already edited "Mecklenburg Folk Riddles" in 1892. Like Karl Bartsch , who in 1867 issued a collective appeal on behalf of the antiquity association about “sagas, fairy tales and customs”, Wossidlo also made use of the “informant principle”. Wossidlo's network of collecting helpers who noted down local peculiarities and passed them on to him comprises over 1,400 informants, many of them teachers, clergymen and administrative officials, including archivists such as Ludwig Krause . Some members of the lower classes also communicated their collective findings in writing, but usually expressed themselves orally “in the field”. Wossidlo went to them at every opportunity to get over 5,000 of his countrymen to tell stories. He wrote down what he heard in the dialect on small-sized pieces of paper, which he arranged in a system of card boxes according to subject groups, locations and motifs. In the early days he would occasionally write on his cuffs so as not to disturb the flow of conversation. Radio contributions , theater plays and local parades supported the advertising work and kept the method-combined collecting company going.

While about to Wilhelm Wisser limited to fairy tales and anecdotes, is Wossidlo devoted the entire expressive range of linguistic and national cultural traditions: Erzählungs- and songs stood by customs and testimonies of popular belief, Ethno Botanical and folk Zoological next to field names , nursery rhyme and children's play next to crafts and agriculture. Also sexuality in popular culture was not left out, research into which Friedrich Salomon Krauss undertook at the time . All areas were underlaid by vocabulary knowledge and later the subject culture .

Wossidlo already worked according to the principles of modern field research: the partnership between researcher and informant , the longer field stay, familiarity with the indigenous culture and the ability to grasp language nuances. He presented his research practice, the principles of which became a model for folklore and were recognized by many well-known philologists and folklorists. The Finnish folklorist Kaarle Krohn , who founded the first international folkloric research association, brought Wossidlo's achievement close to that of the Danish folorist Evald Tang Kristensen or the Estonian pastor Jakob Hurt .

From 1883 Wossidlo traveled to almost every place in Mecklenburg and his collection became the basis for the Mecklenburg dictionary . One of hundreds of his contributors was Karl Puls from Lank near Lübenheen .

estate

In 1954, based on the Wossidlo estate, at the suggestion of the Rostock student councilor Paul Beckmann (1888–1962) and with the support of Wolfgang Steinitz, a “Wossidlo research center” was founded as a branch of the Institute for German Folklore of the Berlin Academy of Sciences . With the dissolution of the academy, the Wossidlo research center was integrated into the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Rostock .

Around two million documents are now in the Wossidlo archive of the Institute for Folklore at the University of Rostock. The archive was digitized as part of the “WossiDiA” project funded by the DFG and has been available online since then.

Publications

Monographs, multi-volume works:

  • Contributions to the animal and plant book. Animal conversations, legends and sayings. Rostock, 1885.
  • Mecklenburg folk traditions. 4 volumes. Rostock, 1897–1931.
Volume 1: Riddles. (1897)
Volume 2: The animals in the mouth of the people. (1899)
Volume 3: Child Maintenance and Child Breeding. (1906)
Volume 4.1: Nursery Rhymes. (1931; no more published)
  • A winter evening in a Mecklenburg farmhouse. Folk piece. Rostock, 1901 (4th edition: 1937).
  • From the country of Fritz Reuters . Humor in the language and ethnicity of Mecklenburg. With an introduction to collecting folk traditions. Leipzig, 1910.
  • Buernhochtiet. Folk piece. Rostock, 1926 (reprint: Rostock, 1991).
  • Mecklenburg legends. A folk book. 2 volumes. Rostock, 1939.
  • Travel, quarters, in Gottesnaam. The seaman's life on the old sailing ships in the mouths of old sailors. Volume 1: Rostock 1940, Volume 2: Rostock 1943; 7th edition: Hinstorff-Verlag, Rostock 1959.
  • [Initiator and co-editor of] Teuchert, Hermann [Hrsg.]: “Mecklenburg Dictionary.” 7 volumes. 1942-1992. [Reprint: 1996]. Vol. 8: Addendum and Index. 1998.

More than 600 essays and other small letters.

Honors

Wossidlo-Linde in Körkwitz

Richard Wossidlo was a member of several scientific societies, such as the "Finnish Literature Society". He received numerous prizes, including twice the John Brinckman Prize of the Hanseatic City of Rostock , the Great Medal for Art and Science of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin , the Goethe Medal for Art and Science of the Mecklenburg Government (1934) and the silver Leibniz Medal (1937).

Wossidlo was both an honorary senator and an honorary doctorate from the University of Rostock , as well as an honorary citizen of the city of Waren (Müritz) .

  • In 1987 a passenger ship in Waren (Müritz) was named after him

Several schools in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania bear his name:

There is a Wossidlostraße in Ludwigslust , Graal-Müritz , Rostock , Schwerin , Waren (Müritz) , Boizenburg and in Güstrow . The Wossidloweg in Lübeck and the Wossidlopark in Rostock- Brinckmansdorf are named after him. There is also a Wossidloweg in the Volkskundlerviertel in Berlin-Kladow .

Literature (selection)

The state bibliography Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania currently contains almost 500 references to Richard Wossidlo's titles (see web links). Here is a selection of more recent fonts:

  • Silke Göttsch: Richard Wossidlo - a pioneer of folklore. In: Kieler Blätter zur Volkskunde 41 (2009), pp. 9-20.
  • Siegfried Neumann: The folklorist Richard Wossidlo. Lares 52, No. 4 (Ottobre-December 1986). Pp. 477-484.
  • Siegfried Neumann: Richard Wossidlo and the Wossidlo archive in Rostock. From the folklore collection of the private scholar to the Institute for Folklore in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Wossidlo Archive, Rostock 1994.
  • Siegfried Neumann: Richard Wossidlo, the people professor. In: Bull and Griffin. Sheets on the cultural and regional history in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 6 (1996). Pp. 20-25.
  • Kathrin Pöge-Alder: Richard Wossidlo in dealing with his storytellers. The example of Nehl. In: Christoph Schmitt (Ed.): Homo narrans. Studies on popular narrative culture. Festschrift for Siegfried Neumann on his 65th birthday. Münster / New York / Munich / Berlin: Waxmann 1999 (= Rostock contributions to folklore and cultural history; 1). Pp. 325-344.
  • Christian Rothe: Wossidlo as a teacher at the municipal high school in goods. In: Stier and Greif 14, (2004). Pp. 120-129.
  • Christoph Schmitt: Seduced Science? The Mecklenburg folklore in the time of National Socialism with special consideration of Richard Wossidlo's legend edition. In: Monika Schürmann; Reinhard Rösler (ed.): Literature and literary politics in the Third Reich. Doberan Poets Day 1936–1943. Koch, Rostock 2003. pp. 173-209.
  • Christoph Schmitt: Gaining knowledge of virtual card-box systems in early folklore using the example of the Richard Wossidlos collection. In: Christoph Schmitt (Ed.): Large-scale folklore projects. Your history and future. University conference of the German Society for Folklore in Rostock. Waxmann, Münster / New York / Munich / Berlin 2005 (= Rostock contributions to folklore and cultural history; 2). Pp. 99-114.
  • Christoph Schmitt; Susan Lambrecht; Gerd Richardt (Ed.): The great Wossidlo reading book. Hinstorff, Rostock 2009.
  • Christoph Schmitt: Richard Wossidlo and the genesis of Mecklenburg's folklore in its relationship to philology. In: Knowledge in Transition. Disciplinary history in the 19th century. Lectures in the interdisciplinary lecture series of the working group “Rostock University and Science History” in the 2007/08 winter semester. Ed .: Gisela Boeck and Hans-Uwe Lammel 2011 (= Rostock Studies on University History, Vol. 12). Rostock. Pp. 77-104.
  • Christoph Schmitt: Note workshop. Field research-based knowledge circulation around 1900 and the practice of paper learning machines using the case study of the folk researcher Richard Wossidlo. In: Volkskunde in Sachsen 27/2015. Ed .; Institute for Saxon History and Folklore V. Thelem, Dresden. Pp. 7-47.
  • Ralf Wendt: Richard Wossidlo as a collector of material folk culture. In: Kikut. Plattdütsch gistern un hüt 5 (1980). Pp. 27-38.

Web links

Wikisource: Richard Wossidlo  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Erichson: People's Professor Richard Wossidlo . Office for Tourism and Culture Ribnitz-Damgarten, 2000.
  2. ↑ According to contemporary press reports: Ceremony in the presence of Gauleiter Friedrich Hildebrand in Waren with partial radio broadcast and performance of the “Buernhochtied”; Consecration of the name of the "Richard Wossidlo School" in Waren; Festive events in Rostock, Schwerin and Wismar; Wossidlo celebrations in schools; Radio broadcast of the Wossidlo celebration in the village of Mecklenburg; Establishment of a Richard Wossidlo library in Schwerin; Special edition ("Wossidlo-Heft") of the Mecklenburg monthly magazine; Mecklenburgische Sagen , Vol. 1 appears.
  3. ↑ website WossiDiA project ; Revolution in the archive landscape: Wossidlo archive of the University of Rostock is digitized and put online . In: Informationsdienst Wissenschaft from June 16, 2010 ( full text , accessed June 17, 2010)
  4. ^ Dieter Schubert: German inland passenger ships. Illustrated register of ships . Uwe-Welz-Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-933177-10-3 , page 350
  5. ↑ Wossidloweg. In: Street name lexicon of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (near  Kaupert )
personal data
SURNAME Wossidlo, Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wossidlo, Richard Carl Theodor August (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German high school teacher and ethnologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 26, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Friedrichshof
DATE OF DEATH May 4, 1939
Place of death Goods (Müritz)