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In the 1930s and 40s the leading political figures of the German minority in Romania embraced a pro-fascist attitude. Therefore, after the WWII, Germans had to suffer expropriation, deportation and privation of civil rights. Since 1949 they were permitted to rebuild their cultural life which – according to the communist paradigm – had to be „Marxist in its content and national in shape“. In 1956 an Institute for Social Studies and the Humanities of the Romanian Academy was created in Sibiu in order to continue important scientific projects of the German minority, and since 1959 the review Forschungen zur Volks- und Landeskunde appeared as a tribune of Transylvanian studies. Although the editorial staff had to make concessions to the communist regime, its members tried to keep high scientific standards. Therefore the review Forschungen, the sole scientific periodical of the Romanian Academy published in German, was one of the most important reviews of the time.
The paper deals with letters of the publicist, poet and translator Viktor Orendi-Hommenau addressed in 1944 to Rudolf Spek (1893-1953), the director of the Brukenthal-Museum in Sibiu. The letters are preserved in the handwritings collection of the Museum’s Library. Before the 23rd of August 1944, when Romania was an ally of the Axis in WWII, Orendi-Hommenau enjoyed high esteem, but when the country changed sides and joined the Allies, the German minority was considered the “Fifth Column” of Nazi Germany and consequently had to suffer. The poet became so poor, that he was forced to ask Spek for help in order to survive. In 1946 the worst was overcome and Orendi-Hommenau became optimistic again.
Mathilde Roth belongs to a small group of Transylvanian ladies who, by the end of the 19th century, benefitted by the relative opening of the Transylvanian Saxon society, which permitted women to embrace a profession. The gifted young woman followed her vocation and studied for several years painting in Vienna and Munich, being in the aftermath active for almost a decade in her native city, Sibiu/Hermannstadt, where she exhibited paintings, organized Christmas exhibitions and gave art lessons. After her marriage, Mathilde left Transylvania in 1910 and settled in Zurich. Being also a gifted writer, she contributed travel reports to different periodicals. The paper aims at presenting the almost forgotten artist both, as a painter and as a writer.
The paper aims at presenting the Boer Wars (1881–1882 and 1899–1902) as they are reflected in „Siebenbürgisch-Deutsches Tageblatt”, the most important daily newspaper of the Transylvanian Saxons. From the beginning of the second conflict, the Saxons felt great sympathy for the Boers, because they considered them relatives due to their Germanic roots. They also drew a parallel between the Boers’ fight for independence and their own fight against the attempt of forced Hungarization by the authorities from Budapest. In the newspaper there were published not only articles about the armed conflicts but also contributions on the way of life and the habits of the Boers. A novel on the topic of the “Jameson Raid” which took place on New Year’s Eve 1895/1896 was also published. During the “Second Boer War” the Saxons created “Associations of Boer Friends” aimed to help their “brothers” from South Africa who lived in great misery.
Regine Ziegler was a Transylvanian Saxon poet and writer, who by the turn of the century lived for some years in Berlin, where her brother Karl Ziegler (1866–1945) was a successful portrait painter. In 1913 she assessed that in her writings she aimed to present the Saxons in their whole complexity, wishing that in the future all Germans should know Transylvania and its German inhabitants. Contiguous to the Saxons she presented the „sultry and passionate” Romanians, the „primitive and impulsive” Gypsies and the „nationalistic” Hungarians, she all had known from her multiethnic village Arkeden/Archita. Regine Ziegler’s approach, although characteristic for the epoch of fierce nationalism, breathes great sympathy for all Transylvanian ethnic groups.
