Erika Eichenseer


Erika Eichenseer née Jahn was born in Munich in 1934 and lives in Regensburg, Bavaria. She has led the revival of interest in Franz Xaver von Schönwerth, the 19th-century folklorist who collected fairy tales in the Upper Palatinate region of northern Bavaria, having found 500 tales of his in the municipal archives of Regensburg, most of which had never been published before. She is a writer, a poet, an authority on the folk heritage of the Upper Palatinate, and a well-known storyteller.

Life

Erika Eichenseer completed her schooling in Erding in 1952. She then trained as a primary school teacher, graduated in 1954 at the Teachers’ Training College of Freising. She subsequently studied English and German, graduating in 1959 as a teacher for secondary modern schools. She married Adolf J. Eichenseer the same year. From 1959–1979 she taught in secondary schools in Munich and later in Regensburg, where she initiated school theatre projects, for which she wrote plays and adapted local tales, including some by Schönwerth.
From 1979 to 1994 she worked in her husband's institute for the development of traditional culture, specializing in regional literature, documentation and the reanimation of traditional customs and arts. In this function she guided 400 amateur theatre groups in the region, giving them specialized courses, reviewing the value of their performance material, created opportunities for new plays to be written, and wrote plays herself.
For twenty years, until her retirement in 1994, she produced and directed children's theatrical productions at the instrument-making courses in Pleystein and Waldmünchen. For ten years she was involved in the children's theatre at Burg Wolfsegg, producing texts and directing productions.
In 1976 the Eichenseers were invited to the US to the German Department of the University of Missouri to speak about their work. In 1977 they took part in a University summer programme there on traditional folk instruments. Erika Eichenseer lectured on puppet plays and participated in the German Department's folklore course. In 1995 they took part in the Missouri Big Muddy Folk Festival with lectures and story-telling.
To commemorate the centenary of the death of Franz Xaver von Schönwerth in 1986, Erika Eichenseer produced a booklet of his tales, complete with a teachers’ manual, for all schools in the Upper Palatinate; she helped to arrange a Schönwerth exhibition and a theatrical production which travelled to eight different locations in Bavaria, she opening and introducing each one.
In 2009, she came across around 500 unpublished Schönwerth tales in the Municipal Archive of Regensburg. She selected and edited 136 of them for her book Prinz Rosszwifl, which was published the following year.
In 2010, Eichenseer and her husband founded the Franz Xaver von Schönwerth Society. She produced a further Schönwerth reader with a teachers’ manual for all schools in the Upper Palatinate. During the centenary year the Society organised a whole series of commemorations, Erika Eichenseer herself lectured, spoke and performed at about 100 events.
In March 2012 Eichenseer's book Prinz Rosszwifl was reviewed by Victoria Sussens-Messerer in the English newspaper The Guardian and the discovery of 500 new Schönwerth fairytales hailed as a sensation. This led to considerable international interest. Penguin Classics decided to publish a collection of Schönwerth tales in English – in February 2015 – and translations into other languages may follow.
In 2012 an annual Schönwerth Day was inaugurated at the Open Air Museum in Neusath-Perschen. "Don’t read to us, Grandma – tell us stories!" was the theme of a fairy tale seminar and gala evening. This was followed by story-telling in the International Children's and Young People's Library in Munich.
In June 2013 Erika Eichenseer took part in a 2-day symposium organised by the School of Education in Trinity College Dublin on "The Role of Fairy Tale in Contemporary Theatre".
The premiere of the musical based on Schönwerth's tale Das Fliegende Kästchen was given on 7 July 2013 in Regensburg. The idea and libretto were by Eichenseer, the music by Mathias Wehr; the work was performed by the Cantemus Choir of Regensburg and conducted by Matthias Schlier, and was directed by Gregor Turecek. It was part of the Schaulust Festival Junges Theater Regensburg.
On 21 September 2014 the Schönwerth Fairy Tale Path, which had been initiated by Erika and Adolf J. Eichenseer, was inaugurated in Sinzing by the Lord Mayor of Regensburg.

Broadcasts for Bavarian Radio

Since 1985: at the Weiden Literary Festival seminars and gala performances for authors from the Upper Palatinate
Since 1989: Wöi uns der Schnobl g’wachsn is – Dialect Poetry Readings at the Upper Palatinate Open Air Museum in Neusath-Perschen
Since 2010: For the Franz Xaver von Schönwerth Society

Awards

2004: Hanns-Seidl-Stiftung Folk Music Prize
2004: Bavarian Forest Association Cultural Prize
2005: Bavarian Radio Gold Medal
2009: Waldschmidt Prize
2016: Upper Palatinate Jura Literary Prize
2017: The Anne Izard Storytellers' Choice Award

Publications

Eichenseer has published poetry and essays in the journals Schönere Heimat, Nordgau-Festschrift, Charivari, Literatur in Bayern