Laura Gonzenbach (1842–1878) was a fairy-tale collector of Swiss-German origins, active in Sicily, who collected fairy tales told orally in the local dialects.

Gonzenbach was born in Messina, to a Swiss German-speaking mercantile family and community. Her sister, Magdalena, founded the first school for girls in Messina, the Istituto Gonzenbach. Her important work as a folklorist was thoroughly researched by Luisa Rubini in Fiabe e mercanti in Sicilia. La raccolta di Laura Gonzenbach. La comunità di lingua tedesca a Messina nell’Ottocento (1998).[1] Gonzenbach was a scrupulous avant-garde scholar of popular traditions.[2] She was well educated, mastered several languages and became well known for the Italian folklore she gathered mainly from female informants.[3] After the prompting of Otto Hartwig for material to append to a historical survey of the country,[4] she produced what would become an important two-volume collection in Standard German, Sicilianische Märchen (Sicilian folk-tales), published in 1870.[5][6] Her seminal anthology contained tales told verbally by peasants and other members of the working classes; the assemblage is one of the few major collections of the nineteenth century to be compiled by a woman.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Luisa Rubini (1998). Fiabe e mercanti in Sicilia. La raccolta di Laura Gonzenbach. La comunità di lingua tedesca a Messina nell’Ottocento (1998). Florence: Leo S. Olschki. https://www.olschki.it/libro/9788822246660
  2. ↑ Elena Emma Sottilotta (2021). “From Avalon to Southern Italy: The Afterlife of Fata Morgana in Laura Gonzenbach’s Sicilianische Märchen (1870)”, Women Language Literature in Italy / Donne Lingua Letteratura in Italia (Pisa and Rome: Fabrizio Serra), 3, 103-121.https://www.torrossa.com/en/resources/an/5001589
  3. 1 2 Lee, Linda J. (2008). Donald Haase (ed.). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales: G-P. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 417. ISBN 978-0-313-33443-6. Retrieved 12 February 2011.
  4. ↑ Aus Sicilien: Cultur- und Geschichtsbilder, Cassel und Göttingen (1867-1869)
  5. ↑ The Robber with a Witch's Head: Review by Francesca Orestano, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy.
  6. ↑ Zipes, Jack David (2003). "Laura Gonzenbach and Her Forgotten Treasure of Sicilian Fairy Tales". Marvels & Tales. 17 (2): 239–242. doi:10.1353/mat.2003.0038. ISSN 1536-1802. S2CID 161903212.
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