Letters to a Lady or Karl Weiß-Schrattenthal in the Preßburger Zeitung

Abstract

The article focuses on the publishing activity of Karl Weiß-Schrattenthal (1846 – 1938) and the perception of his personality in the Bratislava German newspaper Preßburger Zeitung. He spent more than half of his life in Pressburg, later Bratislava (1886 – 1938), where he worked as a teacher at a higher real school. German-language literature of his times was his profession and hobby, he wrote poems, novellas, and short stories. He also devoted himself to literary criticism and especially to literature written by women. He regarded criticism as a tool of possible improvement for the author. Apart from reviews, he promoted authors in articles in the press and also by publishing collections of their poems. The paper takes a closer look at two series of feuilletons published under similar titles before and after the First World War (Literárne listy pre jednu prešporskú dámu [Literary Letters to a Lady of Pressburg], 1886, Listy pre tunajšiu dámu [Letters to a Local Lady], 1919 – 1924). On the basis of these, the author examines what content K. Weiß-Schrattenthal addressed to his fellow citizens, as well as how his texts changed after the establishment of the 1st Czechoslovak Republic. The paper also analyses the articles in the Preßburger Zeitung which concerned his personality and shaped the image of him.

Keywords

• karl weiß-schrattenthal
• genre of the feuilleton
• bratislava
• preßburger zeitung
• establishment of czechoslovakia