The Circle Closes
Now to the final question that the author asks himself - the search for the original homeland. Philology points the way. Today Gottschee is seen as a significant part of a chain of linguistic islands which were peaceably settled from Austria during the Middle Ages at the southern edge of the Alps in the midst of Europe. All of them were under the jurisdiction of the patriarch of Aquileia. In Italy, there are: Pladen (Sapada), Zahre (Sauris), Tischlwang (Timau), and further south the "Sieben und Dreizehn Gemeinden" north of Vicenza and Verona. South of the
Karawanken (mountain range along the Austrian-Yugoslavian border) in the former dukedom of Carniola, today Yugoslavia, the islands of Deutsch Ruth, Zarz, and Gottschee existed into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first two disappeared through planned assimilation, Gottschee, however, through dissolution, that is, resettlement in 1941—1942. Thus, Gottschee escaped the fate of the once flourishing German culture in Carniola.
Scholars had already discovered Gottschee in the last century and showed interest in its customs, songs, and particularly in its archaic dialect. Aside from Elze of Ljubljana, then Professor Schröer, who was sent to Gottschee in 1867 by the royal academy of sciences in Vienna to do research, Dr. Hauffen, also of Ljubljana, did a thorough study of Gottschee which he published in 1895. His co-workers were Gottscheer teachers such as Josef Perz, Hans and Wilhelm Tschinkel, Matthias Petschauer, and others.
As was already reported by the author elsewhere, scholars did not lose interest in Gottschee even though it was dissolved after World War II. Professor Eberhard Kranzmayer, who taught at the University of Vienna and spoke the Gottscheer dialect, determined the following on the basis of his research: "The Gottscheers originally came from the Carinthian-Tyrolean border region." At the opening of the "Gottschee-Schau" in Schloß Porcia in Spittal in 1965 he said, "The Gottscheers are better Carinthians than we because they still speak that dialect which our
forefathers spoke 600 years ago in Upper Carinthia."
Professor Maria Hornung, former student and assistant of the great Carinthian philologist Kranzmayer, continued the study of the dialect with Walter Tschinkel. Alone and together with Walter Tschinkel she undertook many study trips to the Möll, Lesach, and Puster valleys. The two linguistic islands of Pladen and Zahre were, of course, particularly good sources. Mrs. Hornung has recorded the findings that are so valuable to us in the works "Mundartkunde Osttirols" as well as in the "Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprachinselmundart von Pladen in Karnien". Inevitably her research led her to Gottschee. Decades earlier, Professor Peter Jonke had already discovered that the people around Tilliach (East Tyrol) speak very much like the Gottscheers. For example, "Nachtn hont da Waklein noch galakkn und gawrassn bias racht ischt gaban und schmuargeinsch hent shei toat in Schtolla galagn."
In the chapter "Das Verhältnis der Sprachinsel Gottschee zu Osttirol" on pages 145-149 of her book "Mundartkunde Osttirols", Dr. Hornung lists many words that are pronounced the same or similarly in East Tyrol, Upper Carinthia, and in Gottschee.
Let us quote some of her statements: "Based on the vocabulary and phonology, Kranzmayer determined that the Gottscheers originally came from the Tyrolean-Carinthian border region. Thus, it seems appropriate to discuss this topic in connection with the basin of Lienz and the gate of Carinthia. To be sure, in his theory on the origins of the Gottscheers Kranzmayer is not only considering the basin of Lienz and the linguistically related Mittermöll valley and perhaps the upper Drau valley, but also the southern regions where East Tyrol and Carinthia meet in the vicinity of Obertilliach and in the uppermost Lesach valley. The linguistic island of Gottschee was so spread out and had so many inhabitants that it is not necessary to assume that its settlers came from only one place. Although its dialects basically have the same common characteristics, they nevertheless also show differences that may partly go back to the time of the original settlement. That is why it is much more difficult to determine the origin of this linguistic island that was settled relatively late than that of Pladen, Zahre, or Zarz .. .
Nothing seemed more obvious than that the Ortenburgers fetched settlers for their properties in Carniola which were to be made arable from their ancient realm and its vicinity, perhaps from high mountain villages whose land no longer could support the increasing population and whose people were at the same time capable of enduring the harshest demands .. .
Even though the actual villages from which the settlers came are never mentioned because they seemed unimportant to the record-keepers of that time, the fact that the colonization took place through the Carinthian count of Ortenburg and the linguistic findings that point to the East Tyrolean-Carinthian border region are reason enough to refute those fantastic theories about the origins of the Gottscheers once and for all. These theories have circulated since Wolfgang Lazius' Suevi-Theory (1561) and claimed all sorts of Teutonic and German tribes from the Goths to the Thuringians and Franks as the ancestors of the Gottscheers. It is senseless to continue to bother with these obstinately circulating pseudo-scientific scholarly opinions in light of what we know today. Like the theories about the Silesian origin of the Tilliachers or that of the origin of the inhabitants of the "Sieben und Dreizehn Gemeinden" from the Cimbri and Teutons, they were the product of imaginative scholarship gone astray. It was this kind of scholarship which thought it had to ascribe a mysterious origin to the simple mountain people because of their particularly archaic and hence conspicuous language and life-style."
On the basis of their linguistic knowledge, Mrs. Hornung and Walter Tschinkel were able to determine precisely the only possible land of origin of the Gottscheers in accordance with Eberhard Kranzmayer. Thus, this question may indeed be considered settled.
Together they also visited the three lost linguistic islands in Slovenia. From 1941 to 1942 Tschinkel was still able to speak "huamnarisch" (the old language of their forefathers) with a few very old people in Zarz, but today one only gets Slovenian replies such as "mi smo Tirolerce." This means "We are Tyroleans." This the reethnicized people still know. That was also the case in Deutsch Ruth, whereas in Gottschee one can today still encounter individual Gottscheers who survived.
Various journals, including the Gottscheer Zeitung, especially, however, the "Gottscheer Culture Week," gave the scholars opportunities to report the findings of their research. They determined - and this can be checked by everyone - that the dialects of Upper Carinthia, East Tyrol, Pladen, Zahre, Zarz (Kranzmayer's dictionary), and of Gottschee belong to the same branch. Thus, science had connected them and it was only a matter of time and planning before they met each other. After the appropriate preparations and with the aid of the club of linguistic islands in Vienna, about eighty Gottscheers, among them the "Sing und Trachtengruppe" of Klagenfurt, traveled to Pladen (Sappada) and Innervillgraten in East Tyrol on a weekend in August 1974. In both towns they were warmly received by the mayor and the populace. As part of the festivities in each town, Hermann Petschauer gave a presentation about Gottschee in our dialect. The hosts had no trouble understanding him. Professor Maria Hornung, who was responsible for the entire undertaking, gave a derailed historical and linguistic account of the common bond of the linguistic islands mentioned and thus, after many centuries, symbolically led the Gottscheers back to their original homeland. In the following year (1975), the people of Pladen, as well as many Tyroleans from Innervillgraten led by their mayor, came on a pilgrimage to Klagenfurt. The mayor of the provincial capital of Carinthia greeted the symbolically reunited people from East Tyrol, Pladen, and Gottschee in a festive ceremony. Everyone was profoundly aware that history was being made.
Thus the circle is closed. People of the same origin met as "relatives" after more than 600 years and remembered their common ancestors. It was those ancestors who as pioneers under inconceivable hardships more than six centuries ago made the primeval forest on the Rinse and Kulpa rivers in southern Carniola arable land, land which for the most part is now no longer cultivated. The forest reclaims more and more of it each year. There where less than forty years ago Gottscheer villages with their churches stood in complete loveliness, there is today nothing but forest.
In the beginning there was the forest.
In the end there is again the forest. |
("Jahrhundertbuch der Gottscheer", Dr. Erich Petschauer, 1980)
www.gottschee.de
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