Matija Majar
Matija Majar - Ziljski, actually Matthias Mayer ( born February 7, 1809 in Wittenig, Slovenian: Vitenče; † July 31, 1892 in Prague ) was a Roman Catholic priest, ethnographer, linguist and political writer and agitator of the Slovene minority in Carinthia, who was best known as the author of Manifesto for a United Slovenia. His initial pseudonym Ziljski ( = " Gail Valley " ) has become a common feature of his name. The spelling with a hyphen is more common.
Origin, youth
Majar comes from one of the small villages in Southern Carinthia's Gail Valley (Slovene: Zila ), which now belong to the municipality of Hermagor. He grew up in what was then a mixed-language Slovenian- German environment, and the clever boy received, as was often the case in Carinthia, of wealthy farmers of the Slovene minority the opportunity for a higher education in Klagenfurt to become a priest. During the studies at the Klagenfurt Lyceum he came in contact with the spiritual director of the seminary Anton Martin Slomšek (1800-1862), who later became the first bishop of Maribor ( Maribor Slow ), and for the use of Slovene in schools, offices fought in public life.
Vormarz
Majar, which then also at the Graz lyceum, studied at the Graz University was downgraded in 1782 by Joseph II, was after his first Mass priest in at that time mainly Slovene-speaking Carinthian places, first in Rosegg (Slovenian: Rožek ), then in Camporosso (Slovenian: Žabnice ), today's Campo Rosso, with the much visited Carinthian Marian pilgrimage church on the Luschariberg in now belonging to Italy Kanaltal. From 1837 he worked in the diocesan administration in Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt from 1843 he was Domkaplan the Diocese of Gurk. During this time he made the acquaintance of several Slovenian ethnographers and journalists who were involved in the Slovene language and culture as Urban Jarnik (1784-1844), Anton Janežič (1828-1869), Matthias Achazel (Slovenian: Matija Ahacel; 1779-1845 ) and Davorin Trstenjak ( 1817-1890 ).
Under the influence Jarniks, a Slovenian priest from the Gail as Majar himself, he was an avid collector old Slovenian Volksguts and so become one of the most important Slovenian ethnographer. He collected myths, fairy tales, riddles, proverbs, especially songs. One could say that the Slav stunted without singing, as the blossom without sunshine, writes Majar 1843 of the wealth of songs his Slovenian Carinthia, often they sound melancholy like a suit for a missing golden age, often wistfully as a hope song to an unknown better future; but still the song goes to the heart, because it comes from the heart. In 1846 he published a collection of religious, some very old songs Pesmarica cerkvena.
But Majar has also written for the newspaper Novice in Ljubljana a series of essays in which he for cultural concerns of Slovenes - came - school, adult education, nationalist consciousness. 1844 praised the Klagenfurt Domkaplan to Novice to the delight of the editor Janez lead Weis that the style of the sheet nice, smooth, easy to understand, in a word, is nationally - Slovenian, suggested, however, that editors should not only, as it announced programmatically had to turn to the " Carniolian Slovenes ", but to all " Slovenes in the Carniolan, Styrian, Carinthian, in Gorizia, Veneto, etc. ". In addition, they may also approximate expression the dialects of nearby Slavs in Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, etc..
The Illyrian movement in Croatia and especially the Slovenian- Croatian poet and agitator Stanko Vraz led Majar to its development of pan-Slavic ideas so that it 1848, the grammar of a South Slavic language of art published, the " easy to understand for Slovenes, while Croats and Serbs " should be. Unlike Vraz, who was so convinced of the necessity of a South Slavic language which, if he his Slovene mother tongue completely abandoned because of their numerical inferiority and supposed insignificance and poetry in the new Croatian of Ljudevit Gaj, targeted Majar and his successors as Luka Svetec (1826 -1921/22 ) or the Vienna Slavic professor Knights of Miklosich (Slovenian: France Miklošič, 1813-1891 ) a different way to a common South Slavic literary language to: were by focusing on those Slovene dialect forms, Croatian or Serbian closest ( and vice versa), the merger should be achieved. Although such never happened, so it never came to a " Yugoslavian ", the modern standard Slovenian was ultimately the Serbo- Croatian far more similar than it would otherwise become probable by the acceptance of their reforms.
For the union of all Slavic languages is Majar represented a stage plan: First, then, should the South Slav " dialects " to a " Illyrian ", as he had designed it, and merge in the same way the West Slavic to a " Czechoslovak "; later these should then be fused with Polish and Russian. This should apply to the South Slavic written language unit of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs formed his grammar on the basis of postulated graphemischer units be allowed for the oral intercourse but phonemic and morphological tolerances.
1848
On March 17, the revolutionary year 1848, four days after the fall of Metternich, formulated Majar, " the left-most of the time ," as he called Josip Apih, Slovenian historian of the Slovenes of 1848, the Slovenian demands in a memorandum that he Klagenfurt brought into circulation and on 28 March in the Ljubljana newspaper Novice under the title " Blessed be God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good heart," published. He wrote it about the importance of a revolutionary period for the enforcement folkish rights and goals - Since the sun is shining, there is no meaningful time for all Slovenes - and formulated a political manifesto " What do we want Slovenes " ( Kai Slovenci terjamo ), in which he became a politically autonomous administrative unit called " Slovenia " called for the unification of all Slovene-speaking territories of the Austrian monarchy. A transcript of his the Austrian Emperor Ferdinand handed petition is also found in the materials of the first Slav Congress in Prague. Under the name " United Slovenia " ( " Zedinjena Slovenija " ) was then extended by the Viennese Association Slovenians Slovenija Društvo to a detailed program of this manifesto.
Restoration
Such emanating from Klagenfurt political activities not behagten the Carinthian diocesan line; also to the more cautious Anton Slomšek he got thereat in opposition, which is why you Majar in the distant parish of Göriach / Gorje, now a district of the municipality Hohenthurn (Slovenian: Straja vas ), offset, where he spent isolated more than one and a half decades.
Radicals Late Period
By The dislocation apparently in his attitude as radicalized in his Allslawismus, he broke out in 1867 and undertook without permission of the diocese of a four-week trip to Moscow for the second Slav Congress. Designated as the only Slovene participants of this later as " Slavs pilgrimage " pan-Slavic major event he presented in the " Ethnographic Exhibition " be based on the Gail Valley costumes and ancient parish and school chronicles. The then because of unauthorized absence from his parish imposed on him by the bishop fine eventually led to his break with the ecclesiastical authorities in Carinthia, and Majar hit 1870 institutions to return to public life.
Now he pleaded even for the introduction of the Cyrillic alphabet for every slavic utterances, an idea that the " Illyrian " Croats as imminent sign of Serbian hegemony not in vogue, while the Serbs just her Cyrillic regarded as " an expression of the Serbian identity" and against the ingress of " Kroatizismen " protested; Majar but published now in his own " Pan-Slavic " language of art in both Latin and Cyrillic. Especially his Slovenian compatriots should make use of " Slavic" font, for which he published a corresponding textbook with the texts in both fonts.
Retirement
His ethnographic studies published Majar - Ziljski in various Russian magazines, and he stood for the " Slavs pilgrimage " to Moscow with the Russian Pan-Slavs, Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin in correspondence. The presented him in 1870 a professorship in Odessa in views where he could have been better track than in the native parish, where he always felt that he was harassed by the church authorities his pan-Slavic ideas. But this came to nothing, for he was still a Roman Catholic priest, the Russian authorities refused him entry. Majar retired with his little Benefiziat on Klagenfurt Kreuzbergl back, did not give up his hopes of a linguistic unification of the Slavs and propagated from 1873 on his pan-Slavic ideas in his own journal Slavjan ( di " The Slav "), whose success but rather moderate was stopped and their appearance after two years as a result of the easing of the Pan-Slav enthusiasm again. Resigned and ailing Majar moved to Prague in 1885, where he remained until his death.