Ebenspanger, Johann/Johannes; Ps. Felix Schützer
Banat Teacher, Writer & Poet
Born 03 May 1845 in Kukmirn (west Hungary); famous poet and teacher in Lugosch and Liebling; school inspector in Temeschwar. He died on 24 Jan 1903 in Oberschützen (district of Oberwart in the Austrian state of Burgenland).
Contributor to Nagl-Zeidler’s literary history, most recently Prof., Dir. And Ehrendir. at the schools in Oberschützen; hean dialect poet. Collector of Westung. -German folk poetry. Johannes Ebenspanger also dealt a lot with ethnological studies.
Pastor Andreas Gruber and senior Matthias Kirchknopf persuaded his father to let him study. He attended elementary school in Kukmirn and Körmend and from 1859 to 1863 the teachers’ seminar in Oberschützen. In 1863/64 he was an assistant teacher in Raabfidisch, in 1864/65 he was an educator in Szemes, from 1965 to 1967 at the Hungarian – German elementary school in Lugos and then until 1870 at the German elementary school in Liebling (Temes county).
In 1872 Ebenspanger was sent to Germany by the Minister of Culture and Education to study the school system there. He visited many schools in Saxony and seminars in Dresden, Weißenfels and Gotha. From 1873 to 1877 he was secretary in the school inspectorate in Temesvár. From 1877 he was professor in Oberschützen and then from 1888 the director. He led Hungarian language courses in Steinamanger and Raab. He wrote poems in Hungarian and German. In 1902/3 he crashed due to a fall from the library manager.
Ebenspanger was also important as a literary historian, folklorist and poet, as a dialect and customs researcher. In a contribution to Nagl – Zeidler ‘s German – Austrian literary history, he presented for the first time an overview of the literary work of western Hungary. He was an employee of the “Oberwarter Volkskalender”, founded by the book printer Ludwig Schodisch. In 1897 his dialect poems “Heanzische Verschn” were printed. A … “booklet that signaled the world of the village, because in this inner emigration to the narrowness of the village community they saw the only way of surviving and preserving and profiling their own. It was an escape from national threat into a healthy one and intact community and it was an effort to to preserve this intact world in the onslaught of foreign and national healing. The dialect seal played an important role in this intellectual defense process, and Johannes Ebenspanger was one of the first to recognize this new task in literature. He was preparing that movement. which led to Josef Reichl, Robert Zipser … and not least to Mida Huber, Johann Neubauer and the representatives of the dialect poets of today “. (BF from January 18, 1978).
References & Sources:
Burgenländischer Dolksliedsammler und Mundartdichter — as school principal in Oberschützen, died. Folk songs from the estate of Johannes Ebenspanger, quarterly book II / 2, p. 138 ff. https://www.zobodat.at/pdf/Burgenlaendische-Heimatblaetter_3_1930_0065-0081.pdf
Ebenspanger Johannes, Hianzische Veaschln (bespr. von A. H.) 256
Johannes Ebenspanger, Die 50-jährige Geschichte der evangelischen Schulanstalten zu Oberschützen, Oberwart 1895 (im Weiteren: Ebenspanger 1895), S. 5–11 https://www.museum-oberschuetzen.com/kontakt/images/Museumsbl%C3%A4tter1.pdf
Deutsche Literatur im Banat (1840-1939) der Beitrag der Kulturzeitschriften zum banatschwäbischen Geistesleben. Author: Engel, Walter. Publisher: Julius Groos Verlag, Heidel.
L .: Brümmer; Nagl-Zeidler-Castle 2, pp. 242f .; O. Kernstock, Aus der Festenburg, 1911, pp. 151ff. (A handbook on the history of German poetry in Austria-Hungary. by Nagl , JW, Jakob Zeidler and Eduard Castle).
Austrian Biographical Lexicon and Biographical Documentation. Publication: ÖBL 1815-1950, Vol. 1 (Lfg. 3, 1956), p. 208
Last updated: 07/26/2025