Elite of month – Fabritius, Karl Andreas (1826–1881), deputy, historian, pastor, teacher, journalist
Karl Andreas Fabritius (1826–1881), deputy, historian, pastor, teacher, journalist
The Saxon community in the 19th century Transylvania represents an interesting study case for how the changes operated in the entire Habsburg Monarchy manifested at a local level, especially for a group that was German, was a privileged minority in the region and started losing those privileges with the rise of nationalism. The Saxons were brought to Transylvania by various Hungarian kings during the 12th and 13th centuries when it was part of the Hungarian Kingdom. Despite being a demographic minority, they enjoyed longstanding privileges, including land grants, tax exemptions, and the monarch’s protection, even after Transylvania became autonomous under the Ottoman Empire and later the Habsburg Monarchy. However, the situation changed in the 19th century with the emergence of Austria-Hungary and the social transformations of the time. The privileges held by the Saxon community no longer aligned with the new political values of Hungary, which had direct control over Transylvania after 1867, so they were gradually abolished. In response, the Saxons, along with other ethnic groups in Transylvania, adopted various attitudes, influenced by the heterogeneity of political views within their elite. Examining the lives of key leaders within these political groups could provide valuable insight into the impact of these changes and their consequences for individuals. The case of Karl Fabritius offers intriguing insights in this regard. Although he faced massive backlash on the Saxon political scene for his views, he managed to maintain his political position and seat in the Hungarian Parliament, as well as propel some other aspects of his professional life, in the new political climate, which exemplifies the fate of the collaborationists in newly established regimes.
Karl Andreas Fabritius was born on the 28th of October or the 6th of November 1826 in Sighișoara/Schäßburg/Segesvár/, a locality in Transylvania of 3000 inhabitants. From his father’s side, he came from a family attested with the Latin name Fabritius since the 16th century, which gave numerous priests and civil servants. However, the branch of the family of Karl Fabritius was mainly active in crafts and industry, and “belongs to the more prestigious families of Sighișoara due to diligence and marriage connections.”[1] Both his grandfather and his father were craftsmen, the first a tailor, and the latter a bookbinder. His father, also called Andreas Karl Fabritius (1801–1879), married in 1825 Karoline Elisabeth, n. Schuller, daughter of Michael Schuller, a pastor of the Klosdorf/Miklóstelke/Cloașterf branch. Together they had four children: Ottilia (?–1846), who died as an unmarried mother; Sarolta (?–1879), who married a councilor from Sighișoara from Simonis family; Friedrich, who in 1883 was a district judge; and Karl Andreas (1826–1881).
Karl Fabritius studied at the local gymnasium under the guidance of Mihály Gottlieb Schuller (1802–1882), the director of the school, pastor and local personality. Schuller was the son of the pastor Michael Schuller from Cloașterf, thus being K. Fabritius’s uncle on the mother’s side. The relationship with him seemed to have improved Fabritius school performance. He also had as a teacher Georg Daniel Teutsch (1817–1893), a figure that was going to mark Fabritius’s life in major ways later. For higher education, Fabritius wished to pursue a career in law, but at his grandfather’s insistence and with his financial support, in 1847 Fabritius went abroad to study theology and history in Leipzig, where he was involved in the revolution of 1848. Due to financial problems, Fabritius applied later for support from the Austrian government, as well as from Verein für siebenbürgische Landeskunde, a cultural Saxon association from Transylvania, of which he was a member. Still, this was not enough and in 1849 left for Vienna, where he met ministerial school councilor Johann Karl Schuller (1794–1865), who helped Fabritius in his historical pursuits. Fabritius soon moved to Bratislava as an editor for Pressburger Zeitung, and shortly after he received a position at Siebenbürger Bote, a newspaper in Sibiu/Hermannstadt/Nagyszeben, Transylvania. This was the reason for his return to his homeland in August 1850. However, Fabritius’s ideas were not well received by the owners of the newspaper, and he was fired after a month.
Karl Fabritius, cca 1850.
Source: Göllner, Karl. Carl Fabritius. Leben Und Wirken, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1975.
In October 1850 Fabritius obtained a position as a teacher at the gymnasium in Sighișoara, where G. D. Teutsch was a director at the time. Together with his former teachers M. Schuller and G. D. Teutsch, Fabritius also got more involved in the activities organized by Verein für siebenbürgische Landeskunde, and through it, he started disseminating his historical research on which he worked since his studies. Due to some conflicts between the school’s director and the local consistory, Fabritius lost his teaching position in 1855, but soon after he was elected as a second town preacher in Sighișoara, a position much better paid than the one of a teacher. His luck changed afterwards. Fabritius applied for a pastor position in Merghindeal/Mergeln/Morgonda and Stejărișu/Probstdorf/Prépostfalva in 1857, then in Apold/Trappold in 1859. However, he did not succeed in any place, possibly because of his friendship with G. D. Teutsch. In 1861 Fabritius was named the first city preacher, but in reality, his salary was lower than before. He applied again for a pastor position in Brădeni/Henndorf/Hégen in 1865, but he was rejected.
K. Fabritius entered the political scene in 1867, at the time of the political compromise between Vienna and Pest that lead to the establishment of Austria-Hungary. He also became the “spiritual leader” of the “Young Saxons,” a political group of Transylvanian Saxons with liberal leanings and which considered collaborating with Pest, as well as with the other ethnic groups. This was in opposition with the political passivity adopted by the “Old Saxons”, the rival political group on the local scene. Between 1867 and 1881 Fabritius was elected five times as a deputy for Sighișoara on the lists of the governmental parties. He also became pastor in Apold in 1868. The sources do not mention any reason why K. Fabritius insisted on this village again, however, a branch of the Fabritius family had a few members that had previously been pastors or were connected to Apold. In 1872 Fabritius became a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Science, which further facilitated his historical research. In 1876, he received the opportunity to be appointed school inspector and even Lord-Lieutenant. Fabritius refused both positions, the reason being that he did not want any personal gain just for being a deputy.
Albert Kálmán Tóth (1831–1881) Hungarian poet, dramatist, journalist, and politician, and Karl Fabritius.
However, Fabritius’s liberal and collaborationist political attitude with the Hungarian governmental party produced a rupture in his relationship with G. D. Teutsch, who after 1867 became the leader of the “Old Saxons.” Already at the beginning of his second mandate, Fabritius started receiving personal attacks from the opposition’s press. In 1872 Fabritius mentioned to his family his thoughts of quitting politics, because of the harassment he received, mentioning that he was continuing only to get access to the archives and libraries in Budapest. The attacks did not stop only at the political level. G. D. Teutsch became bishop of the Evangelical Church in Transylvania in 1867, and the president of Verein für siebenbürgische Landeskunde in 1869. Teutsch criticized Fabritius’s historical writings and prevented their publication by the Verein für siebenbürgische Landeskunde. Moreover, Teutsch questioned Fabritius on whether he could fulfill his duty in his parish, given his frequent trips to Budapest. The scandal gained proportions around 1875–1876 when Fabritius encountered difficulties in being reelected and received death threats. In 1879, Fabritius quit his position as pastor in Apold. Afterwards, he expressed he wanted to focus just on his historical research and less on politics, given the political losses for the Transylvanian Saxons in the past decade, although Fabritius still had a mandate. However, 1879 is also the last year he published something, his works afterward remaining in manuscript. An accident in the Budapest University Library in December 1880 probably also contributed to this. Fabritius was injured and this led to his death on 2nd February 1881.
Karl Fabritius, 1880.
Source: Göllner, Karl. Carl Fabritius. Leben Und Wirken, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1975.
Very little information has been preserved about Karl Fabritius’s family, despite the long tradition of his family, as well as the number of children he had. Fabritius married in 1852 Friderice, n. Roth (1834–?), the daughter of Fridrich Roth, k. k. district judge in Cristuru Secuiesc/Szeklerkreuz/Székelykeresztúr, and of Amalia, n. Hirling. Karl Fabritius and Friderice had ten children together, of which only six survived to adulthood. Unfortunately, only five of their children could be identified in the parish registers, as not all of them were preserved. However, the ones still existent offer interesting glimpses in Fabritius’s family life. Ludvig Franz (1862–1863), Victorine (1864–1864), and Andreas Oskar (1868–1871) died in early infancy, while two other children survived well into their old age: Guido Robert (1865–1949), and Erich Bernhard (1872–1955). Details in the witnesses’ column for both Karl’s and Friedrice’s wedding, as well as for some of their children’s baptism seem to reveal another family connection. The name of Franz Simonis (1820–1884), another Saxon deputy from Transylvania, appears regularly, alongside that of Adolph Hirling. This makes sense as his sister was married in Simonis’s family, but also that Karl Fabritius might have had a relatively close connection to his mother-in-law’s family, related to that of Simonis through Franz Simonis’s marriage with Caroline Juliane, n. Hirling, in 1849. Also, it cannot be overlooked that one of Fabritius’s brothers, Friedrich, became a district judge, as Fabritius’s father-in-law, although his brother’s location is unknown.
More information about Guido Robert, one of Karl Fabritius’s sons, is revealed in one of his grandchildren’s biographies, namely of Guido Fabritius (1907–after 1989). Guido Robert left his hometown and moved to Sibiu, where he became the owner of the old Bären pharmacy. He married Melitta, n. Gunesch, daughter of pastor Gustav Hugo Gunesch, and together, they had seven children. Guido Fabritius was their only son and followed his father’s footsteps. He studied pharmacy in Cluj-Napoca/Klausenburg/Kolozsvár in 1932, then at the University of Berlin. He returned and worked at his father’s pharmacy, then took it over in his own name in 1936. He also co-founded the Deutschen Apothekerverband von Rumänien. During the war, he was part of the Wehrmacht (the Nazi unified armies). After the war, he lived in different cities in Western Germany, where he worked as a pharmacist, while he researched the Transylvanian pharmaceutical history, as well as his own family history, thus having a similar predilection for history as his grandfather. Regarding his familial life, Guido Robert married twice: in 1938 with Anne Schaffarczik, a secondary school teacher, with whom he had a daughter that died in early adulthood, and in 1952 with Luise Bleckmann-Körner, with whom he had a daughter and a son.
Selected bibliography:
Daubner, Hans D. “130 Jahre seit dem Tod von Carl Fabritius – eine Schäßurger Personlichkeit,” Schäßurger Nachrichten, no. 35 (June 2011): 24–25.
Göllner, Karl. Carl Fabritius. Leben Und Wirken, București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1975.
Kozma, Ferenc. Emlékebeszed Fabritius Károly Levelező Tag Fölött, Budapest: M. T. Akadémia Könyvkaido-Hivatala, 1883.
Kwan, Jonathan. “Transylvanian Saxon Politics and Imperial Germany, 1871–1876,” The Historical Journal 61, no. 4 (2018): 991–1015.
Kwan, Jonathan. “Transylvanian Saxon Politics, Hungarian State Building and the Case of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Schulverein (1881–82),” The English Historical Review 127, no. 526 (2012): 592–624.
[1] Ferenc Kozma, Emlékebeszed Fabritius Károly Levelező Tag Fölött, (Budapest: M. T. Akadémia Könyvkaido-Hivatala, 1883), 4.
