Sachs, Hans

Born in 1494 in Nuremberg in the family of a tailor. He attended a Latin school, then in 1509-1511 he studied shoe-making, then for five years he was an itinerant apprentice . At this time, he ended up in Innsbruck at the court of Emperor Maximilian I , apparently, it was there that he decided to study the art of the Meisterzang . He began his studies in Munich with Leonard Nonnenbeck, and from 1520 he settled in Nuremberg, where he became a master of shoemaking and at the same time an active participant and at one time chairman of the Meistersinger Association.

In 1519, he married the 17-year-old Kunigund Kreutzer, who died in 1560. The next year he married a second time, to a young widow Barbara Harsher. From his first marriage, he had seven children, none of whom survived him.

From the very beginning he supported the Reformation in the version of Martin Luther . From 1523 to 1526 he published dialogue flyers with an interpretation of the main provisions of Luther’s teachings, which brought him first fame. For this, Sax was forbidden to engage in literary activities, and he was forced to earn a living as a shoemaker. In 1529, Nuremberg declared himself a Protestant city, and the ban was lifted.

By the middle of the century, Hans Sachs became one of the most widely read authors in Germany, his works were staged. In 1558, he himself began to publish his compositions, and then constantly released new bangs , fasties , dramas , poems and prose dialogues.

Hans Sachs owns more than 6,000 poems, which is especially surprising when you consider that he earned his living not by literary creation, but by a shoe craft. The range of works is strikingly wide and varied. For example, among songs there are both spiritual and secular. The same material is often found in different versions. In “Commendable Word to the City of Nuremberg,” Sachs describes his usual burgher lifestyle, talks about the number and condition of city streets and structures, the specialties of local artisans and fairs ^[5] .

Schwanks and fasteners Sax are written in the Nuremberg tradition. In addition, he owns comedies and tragedies, the plots of which date back to antiquity, the Middle Ages or the biblical tradition. Often they are didactic and / or satirical. The most famous farces are "Schoolboy in Paradise", "Peddler's Basket" .

Hans Sachs is credited with the authorship of thirteen surviving model tunes, or “exemplary tones” ( German: Meistertöne ), to which verses not only Sachs, but also many other mastersinger sang (according to the counterfeiting principle).

After several centuries of oblivion, the literary heritage of Sachs was rediscovered in the 1770s by Wieland and Goethe , who wrote the long poem “The Poetic Vocation of Hans Sachs” (1776) on the 200th anniversary of the poet’s death.

The colorful image of the Nuremberg poet-shoemaker was recreated in his operas by V. Yirovets , A. Lorzing ( Hans Sachs , 1834) and R. Wagner ( Nuremberg Mastersingers , 1868).

• Hans Sachs Selected / Compilation, introductory article and notes by A. G. Levinton. -M. - L. : GIHL , 1959.- 404 p. - 25,000 copies.
• Hans Sachs, ed. A. von Keller and E. Goetze. Stuttgart, 1870-1908 (verses only)
• Hans Sachs: Sämtliche Fabeln und Schwänke, ed. E. Goetze and C. Drescher. Halle, 1893-1913

• Levinton A.G. Hans Sax: introductory article // Hans Sax . Selected / Compilation and notes by A. G. Levinton. - M. - L. : GIHL , 1959. - S. 3-30. - 404 s.
• Genée, Rudolph . Hans Sachs und seine Zeit: Ein Lebens- und Kulturbild aus der Zeit der Reformation. Leipzig: JJ Weber, 1894.
• Der Meistergesang in Geschichte und Kunst, ed. C. Mey. Karlsruhe, 1892; Leipzig, 2/1901 (full edition of Sachs “tones”)
• Das Singebuch des Adam Puschman, ed. G. Münzer. Leipzig, 1906
• The Early Meisterlieder of Hans Sachs, ed. FH Ellis. Bloomington, IN, 1974
• Meisterlieder des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts, ed. E. Klesatschke and H. Brunner. Tübingen, 1993
• Peter Weil . Secrets of the shoe craft (Nuremberg - Sachs, Munich - Wagner) . // "The genius of the place", 1996.