Un remarcabil traducător de folclor românesc – Johann Karl Schuller (1794-1865)
A Remarkable Translator of Folklore – Johann Karl Schuller (1794-1865)

Summary/Abstract: Johann Karl Schuller, a nineteenth-century Transylvanian Saxon, became a Lutheran priest in Hermannstadt (Sibiu in Romanian), after years of university instruction in Germany and Austria. He had studied both theology and history; and, as a researcher, he started by approaching the history and traditional culture of the Germans (Saxones) colonized by Hungarian kings in Transylvania (beginning as early as the twelfth century). Also, especially after his experience as a refugee in Bucharest (during the turmoil of the 1848 revolution) Schuller became interested in the folklore of the Romanians. Without being himself a first-hand collector, he resorted to collections of Romanian folk poetry published in Moldavia and Wallachia during the former half of the nineteenth century. Due to his perfect command of both German and Romanian, as well as due to his obvious literary talent, Schuller produced impressive “metrical” translations of Romanian carols and ballads into German, by observing the prosodic patterns of the originals. Some of his best translations of that kind were included in his volume Romänische Volkslieder (1859), which included his translation of the famous Romanian ballad Monastirea Argeşului (translated as Kloster Argisch).

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