Jeremias Gotthelf Research Center

D: Neuer Berner-Kalender (New Bernese Almanac)

Alongside Johann Peter Hebel and Berthold Auerbach Albert Bitzius completed the triumvirate of significant calendar authors of the 19^th century. In the years 1839–1844 he singlehandedly authored and edited the volumes of the Neuer Berner-Kalender (New Bernese Calendar) for the years 1840 to 1845. Far from being a small sidekick in his activities, this task meant a lot more than some paid writing job for the author-priest from Lützelflüh who had just taken a turn in becoming established in the trade. Quite the opposite, it was a tall order, one that he applied himself to with his minute pastoral sense of responsibility.

A frequently quoted basic statement by Gotthelf in a calendar-entry reads: »The calendar is not a prayer book, yet it is a book that aims at the betterment of man, as should be the want of any other book, too; and should a book fail to do exactly that, said book deserves to be prohibited. The difference between the calendar and a prayer book is, however, that while the prayer book expresses this in a spiritual manner, the calendar does so in a worldly way.« The calendar proves to be the place of publication for quite a heterogenous variety of texts under this guiding principle. Anecdotal, witty passages are interwoven with contemporary critical observations as well as with satire when addressing typical calendar contents. Above all, however, Gotthelf’s calendar editing owes massively to his comprehensive Christian-ethical treatises – cases in point are his works on meekness and humility, on faith, on love and hope – all of which assume their own individual characteristics under his pen.

The editions of his calendar-texts have, up to date, typically been limited to representing the ’most important’ calendar stories and subjected these to a fresh order, alongside even some linguistic-stylistic revision. With the new edition, on the other hand, we aim at facilitating access to the calendars’ original feature as well as to the texts in their original form. Additionally, we seek to edit the extensive bequest of manuscripts from the calendar collection, including preliminary studies and as yet unpublished texts. Some of the calendar texts Gotthelf later revised with a view to reuse them in other select publications, these writings will also be absorbed and incorporated. The scholarly edition thus facilitates not only the lecture of the Gotthelf-texts in their original linguistic renditions, but furthermore also allows crucial insight into the medium of the calendar, which Gotthelf revised it in all aspects; and it permits insight also into the workshop of his narrative art form. Gotthelf`s sermons, his publications and his calendar editions represent the stages of his continuous search for the ideal mode of expressing himself; he, the analyst of human and social weakness and the admonisher toward an accountable behaviour, derived from the storehouse of Christian faith.