Franz Xaver von Schönwerth
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Franz Xaver von Schönwerth (16 July 1810 – 24 May 1886; born Franz Xaver Schönwerth, ennobled in 1859) was a
Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
n civil servant who was an important collector of
folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
in the
Upper Palatinate The Upper Palatinate (german: Oberpfalz, , ) is one of the seven administrative districts of Bavaria, Germany, and is located in the east of Bavaria. Geography The Upper Palatinate is a landscape with low mountains and numerous ponds and lakes ...
region.


Life and career

Schönwerth was born in
Amberg Amberg () is a town in Bavaria, Germany. It is located in the Upper Palatinate, roughly halfway between Regensburg and Bayreuth. In 2020, over 42,000 people lived in the town. History The town was first mentioned in 1034, at that time under t ...
as the first of five children of Joseph Schönwerth, a royal drawing professor. He entered the Erasmus Gymnasium there in 1821 and began university studies in 1832, first in construction at the Munich Academy of Art
Hyacinth Holland Hyacinth Holland (16 August 1827 – 16 January 1918) was a German art and literature historian. Life Born in Munich, Holland was a son of the lawyer Christoph Holland and his wife Karoline Seel. In 1846 he passed the Abitur at the Wilhelm ...
, "Schönwerth, Franz Xaver von", ''
Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, german: Universal German Biography) is one of the most important and comprehensive biographical reference works in the German language. It was published by the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Aca ...
'' Volume 32 (1891) 321–24
online
at German WikiSource .
and in cameralism and mathematics,Heidemarie Sander
"Schönwerth, Franz Xaver von"
''
Neue Deutsche Biographie ''Neue Deutsche Biographie'' (''NDB''; literally ''New German Biography'') is a biographical reference work. It is the successor to the ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, Universal German Biography). The 26 volumes published thus far cover ...
'' Volume 23, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2007, , p. 424 .
then from 1834 in law at the University of Munich. He received his first permanent position with the administration of
Upper Bavaria Upper Bavaria (german: Oberbayern, ; ) is one of the seven administrative districts of Bavaria, Germany. Geography Upper Bavaria is located in the southern portion of Bavaria, and is centered on the city of Munich, both state capital and seat o ...
in 1840. In 1845 he became private secretary to Crown Prince
Maximilian Maximilian, Maximillian or Maximiliaan (Maximilien in French) is a male given name. The name " Max" is considered a shortening of "Maximilian" as well as of several other names. List of people Monarchs *Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (1459†...
of Bavaria. In 1847 first the prince and then his wife
Marie of Prussia Marie of Prussia (german: Marie Friederike Franziska Hedwig von Preußen; October 15, 1825 – May 17, 1889) was Queen of Bavaria by marriage to Maximilian II of Bavaria, and the mother of Kings Ludwig II and Otto of Bavaria. Life Born and rais ...
entrusted him with managing their wealth, which he did well; during the upheavals of 1848, he disguised himself as an odd-job-man, loaded some 3 million
thaler A thaler (; also taler, from german: Taler) is one of the large silver coins minted in the states and territories of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy during the Early Modern period. A ''thaler'' size silver coin has a diameter of ...
s' worth of cash, securities, and valuables on a handcart, and took them to Nymphenburg Palace for safekeeping. After the prince's accession as King Maximilian II, he headed his cabinet as well as continuing to serve as his private secretary and manage his wealth; he was responsible for guiding the king in his patronage of the arts and sciences."Schönwerth, Franz Xaver von"
Oberpfälzer Kulturbund e.V., retrieved 3 March 2015 .
In 1851 he was made a ''Regierungsrat''; in 1852 he transferred to the Ministry of Finance as a ''Ministerialrat''Wolfgang Rappel, "Schönwerth, Franz Xaver von, Ministerialrat und Volkskundler 1810–1886", ''Bosls bayerische Biographie'', ed. Karl Bosl, Regensburg: Pustet, 1983,
online
at University of Regensburg .
and in 1859 he was personally ennobled. Schönwerth read Greek, Latin and Hebrew and also the Scandinavian languages and
Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
, and later in life studied
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
and
cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sha ...
. After beginning his folklore research, he served on the board of the Historical Association of Upper Bavaria from 1868 to 1875. He retired in 1880 and died in Munich in 1886; he is buried in the Old North Cemetery there.


Folklore collecting

Inspired by
Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 â€“ 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm's law of linguistics, the co-author of th ...
, particularly his '' Deutsche Mythologie'', beginning in 1854, Schönwerth researched the lives of the people of the Upper Palatinate."Schönwerth: Lebenslauf"
, Town of Amberg, 17 April 2008 .
His wife, Maria Margaretha Rath, was like him a native of the region and was able to provide him with much information about its folklore and traditions. He also drew on the knowledge of the family's housekeeper and her acquaintances in Munich, and showed an unusual ability to draw information from informants without prying, and in exchange for no more than coffee and cigars. From 1854 he also sent out a standardised questionnaire. In 1857–59 he published some of his observations in a 3-volume work titled ''Aus der Oberpfalz—Sitten und Sagen'' (From the Upper Palatinate—Customs and Legends). In 1860 and 1861 he went on personal folklore collecting expeditions in the region, but most of that material remained unpublished at his death. Schönwerth recorded legends, fairytales, comic stories, children's games, nursery rhymes, children's songs and proverbs. He also observed how people lived, describing the everyday life of peasants, their customs and their
traditional costume A folk costume (also regional costume, national costume, traditional garment, or traditional regalia) expresses an identity through costume, which is usually associated with a geographic area or a period of time in history. It can also indicat ...
s. Grimm wrote in a review: "Nowhere in the whole of Germany has anyone collected more circumspectly, more completely, or leaving so few traces."
Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 â€“ 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm's law of linguistics, the co-author of th ...
, "Schönwerth, Fr., k. b. Ministerialrath u. Generalsekretär, aus der Oberpfalz. Sitten und Sagen. 1. u. 2. Thl. Augsburg, 1857, 58. Rieger. (X, 448; 2 Bll., 460 S. 8) geh. 3 Thlr", ''Literarisches Centralblatt für Deutschland'' 21, 22 May 1858, pp. 336–37: "Nirgendwo in ganz Deutschland ist umsichtiger, voller und mit so leisem Gespür gesammelt worden."
Victoria Sussens-Messerer
"Five hundred new fairytales discovered in Germany"
''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', 5 March 2012: "Nowhere in the whole of Germany is anyone collecting olkloreso accurately, thoroughly and with such a sensitive ear."
His questionnaires and the care with which he recorded the dialect of responses served as models as folklore collecting became more objective and scientific; Grimm, with whom he corresponded from 1858 on, recommended his methods in a letter to
Karl Julius Schröer Karl Julius Schröer (January 11, 1825 in Pressburg, Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary em ...
and told the king that Schönwerth was the only person who could continue his and his brother's work after their deaths. Unlike Grimm, Schönwerth did not seek a unified picture of Germanic folk culture and its
pre-Christian Pre-Christian may refer to: *Before Christianization (the spread of Christianity): **Historical polytheism (the worship of or belief in multiple deities) **Historical paganism (denoting various non-Abrahamic religions) *Before Christ (BC), the era ...
origins, but focussed on the distinct features of the Upper Palatinate; he held a now discredited view that the regional dialect showed close parallels to Gothic. In 2009, unpublished material collected by Schönwerth, including some 500 folktales, was discovered in
Regensburg Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the f ...
by the Oberpfalz cultural expert Erika Eichenseer, who has published some of the tales.


Honours

Schönwerth was made a knight of the Bavarian Order of St. Michael in 1851 and of the Bavarian Order of the Crown in 1859. He was an honorary member of a number of German historical associations. A memorial plaque was placed on the Schönwerth family house in Amberg in 1889. The ''Staatliche Realschule'' in Amberg has been named for him since 2010, and a "Schönwerth summer" was held in the town in 2005. The Franz Xaver von Schönwerth Gesellschaft (Society) was founded in 2008.


Publications

* Fr nz XaverSchönwerth. ''Aus der Oberpfalz. Sitten und Sagen.'' 3 vols. Augsburg: Rieger, 1857, 1858, 1859. 2nd ed. repr. Volkskundliche Quellen 4, Hildesheim: Olms, 2007, * F. X. v. Schönwerth. ''Sprichwörter des Volkes der Oberpfalz in der Mundart''. From ''Verhandlungen des historischen Vereins von Oberpfalz und Regensburg'' 29. Stadtamhof: Mayr, 1873. * Fr. X. von Schönwerth. "Johann Andreas Schmeller und seine Bearbeitung der baierischen Mundarten mit Bezugnahme auf das Oberpfälzische". ''Verhandlungen des historischen Vereins von Oberpfalz und Regensburg'' 28 (1872) 221–49


Posthumous editions

* Franz Xaver von Schönwerth. ''Die Rübenprinzessin und andere Märchen''. Retold by J hannB ptistLaßleben. Illustrations by Albert Reich. Kallmünz: Michael Laßleben,
923 __NOTOC__ Year 923 ( CMXXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * June 15 – Battle of Soissons: King Robert I is killed; the Frankish a ...
* Karl Winkler (Ed.). ''Oberpfälzische Sagen, Legenden, Märchen und Schwänke''. From Schönwerth's papers. Kallmünz: Michael Laßleben,
935 Year 935 ( CMXXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Spring – Arnulf I ("the Bad") of Bavaria invades Italy, crossing through the Upper ...
* Roland Röhrich (Ed.). ''Das Schönwerth-Lesebuch. Volkskundliches aus der Oberpfalz im 19. Jahrhundert''. Oberpfälzer Sprachmosaik. Regensburg: Pustet, 1981. . * Erika Eichenseer and Roland Röhrich (Ed.). ''Oberpfälzische Sagen und Märchen''. Franz Xaver von Schönwerth centennial reader. Bezirk Oberpfalz. Regensburg: Mittelbayerische Zeitung, 1986. * Franz Xaver von Schönwerth. ''Der rote Zwerg''. 12 unbekannte Märchen aus der Oberpfalz. Illustrated by Irmingard Jeserick. Tr. Julia Weigl. Afterword by Lutz Röhrich. Ed. Franz Anton Niedermayr. Regensburg: Niedermayr, 2000. * Franz Xaver von Schönwerth. ''Prinz Roßzwifl und andere Märchen aus der Sammlung von Franz Xaver von Schönwerth (1810–1886)''. Ed. Erika Eichenseer for the Schönwerth-Gesellschaft e.V. Illustrations by Barbara Stefan. Afterword by Daniel Drascek. Regensburg: Morsbach, 2010. . * M. Charlotte Wolf (Tr.). ''Original Bavarian Folktales: A Schönwerth Selection: A Dual-Language Book''. Mineola, New York: Dover,
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GoogleBooks preview
. * Maria Tatar (Tr.). '' The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales''. Penguin Classics. London / New York: Penguin, 2015. . *Franz Xaver von Schönwerth. ''White As Milk, Red As Blood: The FORGOTTEN FAIRY TALES of Franz Xaver von Schönwerth.'' Alfred A. Knopf. Canada, 2018.


References


Further information


Print

* Daniel Drascek, Helmut Groschwitz, Erika Lindig and Manuel Trummer (Ed.): ''Schönwerth – "mit so leisem Gespür gesammelt." Neue Perspektiven auf Franz Xaver von Schönwerth (1810-1886) und seine Forschungen zur Alltagskultur der Oberpfalz''. Regensburger Kulturleben 5. Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2011. . * Roland Röhrich. ''Der oberpfälzische Volkskundler Franz Xaver Schönwerth – Sein Leben und sein Werk''. Kallmünz: Michael Laßleben, 1975. . * Roland Röhrich. "Die Gewährsleute und die Mitarbeiter des oberpfälzischen Volkskundlers Franz Xaver von Schönwerth". In: ''Volkskultur und Heimat. Festschrift für Josef Dünninger zum 80. Geburtstag''. Ed. Dieter Harmening and Erich Wimmer. Quellen und Forschungen zur europäischen Ethnologie 3. Würzburg: Königshausen + Neumann, 1986. . pp. 137–47.


Film

* ''Schönwerths Oberpfalz – Sagengelichter''. Sander-Film, Amberg/Don Bosco, Munich 2007, . * ''Grüße an Herrn Wiesawittl''. DVD, Sander-Film, Amberg, Hofa-Media, 2010, .


External links

*
Material by and about Schönwerth
at German Wikisource * *
Franz Xaver von Schönwerth Gesellschaft e.V.
(schoenwerth.de)

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Schonwerth, Franz Xaver 1810 births 1886 deaths German folklorists Collectors of fairy tales German male non-fiction writers