Maria Marschall-Solbrig

"As long as I breathe, I am an echo!" The poetry of Maria Marschall-Solbrig (1897-1979)

The city archive harbours many treasures. One of these is the literary estate of Maria Marschall-Solbrig. It consists of around 550 poems which, with a few exceptions, have never been published. Uncovering this treasure and exploring her lyrical gems is like a voyage of discovery. A selection of them will be brought to light here in the next few issues. The almost six hundred A5-sized pages are neatly typed and numbered in a folder. They are said to have been passed from hand to hand within his own circle of friends as soon as they were written. A separate booklet lists the title and the first verse in sequence as a table of contents. Her poems are characterised by a lyrical ego that speaks with touching psychological depth throughout. It is neither abstract nor over-candid, but true to life and down-to-earth. Nevertheless, each individual song is given an artistic shading. Maria Marschall-Solbrig also uses subtle metaphors, such as in the poem "Youth": "A seagull throws itself into the wind, stretches its wings fighting towards it" . There is no lack of humour in her verses either, for example when she lets a grumpy man, a philosopher, Don Juan and a lover ponder love. Her lines have a cheerful and life-affirming mood without being unworldly or blindly optimistic. The majority of them are written in stanzaic form that rhyme evenly and rhythmically. The poet wanted to use a gentle tone to encourage her readers to reflect, to give them something to think about. Her poetry is therefore aimed at all people, regardless of their background or position. In addition to the lyrical singing voice, very personal themes also emerge time and again, such as a long poem about coming to terms with the death of her father. Hermann Richard Solbrig was a pastor in Frankenberg, Saxony, where Maria was born 120 years ago on 17 December 1897. Her mother was Clara Alwine Marie Frida, née Balduan. A sheltered and Christian childhood sharpened the budding poet's eye for social justice and charity, which she wanted to put into practice beyond her professional life. After finishing secondary school in Chemnitz, she endeavoured to study social sciences and law. However, the outbreak of the First World War put paid to these plans. At home, Maria had enjoyed access to books and education from an early age, so she chose this passion as an alternative way of earning a living. This is not the only reason why her literary estate contains poems dedicated to her role models Thomas Mann and Rainer Maria Rilke. After successfully completing her training, she received her librarian's diploma in 1919. She was then employed until 1934 at the Leipzig City Library, which at the time was still called the Leipzig Bookshops. Maria Marschall-Solbrig had also clearly felt the political darkening on the horizon in 1914, and this is where the origins of her poetry lie. She dedicated her first poem to "peace" as a leitmotif: "There is an aching murmur through the world of bitter, heavy, incurable pain". Although other poems followed, she did not rate her talent highly, dismissing it as a minor 'hack'. This changed thanks to the dedicated encouragement of the well-known features editor of the Leipziger Volkszeitung, Gustav Morgenstern. The journalist, translator and later librarian knew a thing or two about the art of words. Maria Marschall-Solbrig's literary traces may have been lost over time, but they are certainly not to be forgotten!

Maren Gündel, City Archive

Wintry day The fog brews over the fields,

shroud the earth in a twilight haze.

Above, the dense, silvery grey clouds

Clouds deny the heavenly favour.

Sun! And yet you stand on the blue

wide vault in constant splendour.

Behind the clouds, the mountainous grey ones

I still know you and feel you completely.

Maria Marschall-Solbrig