Stephan Ludwig Roth

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Stephan Ludwig Roth
Stephan Ludwig Roth, lithograph by August Prinzhofer , 1850

Stephan Ludwig Roth (born November 24, 1796 in Mediasch ; † May 11, 1849 executed in Cluj-Napoca ) was a Transylvanian-Saxon pastor, teacher, school reformer, writer and politician.

Life

Stephan Ludwig Roth was born in Mediasch as the son of the teacher and Protestant pastor Stephan Gottlieb Roth. He attended grammar school in Medias and Sibiu , where he passed the school leaving examination in 1816. A scholarship enabled him to study theology at the University of Tübingen from 1817 . In spring 1818 he met Wilhelm Stern on a trip to Karlsruhe , who introduced him to Pestalozzi's ideas . He then interrupted his studies in 1818 to move to Pestalozzi in Yverdon . From January 1, 1819, he took over Latin lessons there using the Pestalozzian method. While still in Yverdon, he began to work on a work on teaching the ancient languages.

At the beginning of 1820 his father asked him to return to Transylvania . Roth began his return journey in April 1820, but made stops in Freiburg, Karlsruhe and Tübingen, where within four days he wrote a treatise on " The essence of the state as an educational institution for the determination of man ", on the basis of which he became a doctor of the PhD in philosophy and masters in liberal arts . On a stopover in Vienna , he had to experience that his new educational ideas were met with little love. He was even banned from carrying his foreign doctorate.

In September 1820 he was back in Transylvania, where he campaigned for his educational reform plans, initially without much success. In 1821 he became a high school professor in Mediasch, in 1828 first vice rector and in 1831 rector of the high school. He tried to introduce some of the Pestalozzi methods in the Medias school system, for example to establish gymnastics and singing as subjects. With his modern ideas Roth came into conflict with the conservative teaching staff. After he had refused two appointments to pastor, he accepted the call to the first preacher at the Protestant Church in Medias in 1834. In 1837 he was elected pastor of Nimesch , where his father had also worked, and in 1847, pastor in the neighboring parish of Meschen .

Meanwhile in Hungary and also in Transylvania, which at that time was still a Habsburg crown land , the Magyarization tendencies of the Hungarians against the non-native speakers of the country increased. When the language question was being debated in the state parliament in Cluj in early 1842 , Roth began work on a text that he wrote in May 1842 under the title “ The language battle in Transylvania. An illumination of the where from and where to? " published. This brought him considerable attacks from the Hungarian side. His resistance to the Magyarization and statements that the Hungarians perceived as provocative, such as

“ I don't see the need to prescribe a new official [sic!] Language for this country. We already have a national language. This is neither the German nor the Hungarian language, but the Romanian language, the language of the majority of the population. "

even attracted the hatred of Hungarians to him.

In order to strengthen the Germanness in Transylvania, Roth campaigned for immigrants to Transylvania in Württemberg . Then came in March 1846 307 families with 1,460 people. This made him the most hated Transylvanian Saxon in the eyes of many Hungarians.

During the revolutionary turmoil of 1848 Roth remained loyal to the emperor and was appointed by Lieutenant Field Marshal Anton Puchner as the imperial commissioner for the so-called "13 Saxon villages" in Kokelburg County, which he placed under the administration of the neighboring Saxon chairs Schäßburg and Mediasch.

After the Hungarian army won a victory against the imperialists in early 1849 and moved into Medias, he was arrested on April 21, 1849 at the instigation of the Hungarian government commissioner in Meschen and transferred to Cluj-Napoca. The court martial met here on May 10th and 11th and sentenced him to death after a trial farce. He was shot dead on the afternoon of May 11, 1849.

Farewell letter to his children (fragment 1)

After being sentenced to death by the military court martial in Cluj-Napoca, Stephan Ludwig Roth only had three hours before his execution. During this time he wrote a farewell letter to his children in Meschen, in which he also addressed some aspects of his social and political actions.

Excerpt from an old copy of Stephan Ludwig Roth's farewell letter to his children:

“[...]
So unless it is closed in God's name.
Klausenburg on May 11, 1849
Stephan Ludwig Roth.
Ev. Pastor in Meschen.
In retrospect, I must add that I have not been an enemy of the Hungarian nation, neither in life nor in death. May you believe this in me as the dying man at my word, at the moment when all hypocrisy falls away. "

Roth was the grandfather of the Landeskonsistorialrat and journalist Heinrich Siegmund .

Fonts (selection)

  • The essence of the state as an educational institution for the purpose of man.
  • The language battle in Transylvania. An illumination of the where from and where to? Google Books

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Salzburg Museum , annual publications
personal data
SURNAME Roth, Stephan Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Transylvanian-Saxon writer, school reformer and politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 24, 1796
PLACE OF BIRTH Medias
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 1849
Place of death Cluj-Napoca