The Branches of the Družba Sv. Mohorja (The Society of St. Hermagors) in Germany in the Years 1888-1918

Abstract

In the years 1888-1915 a network of branches of the people’s publishing house Družba Sv. Mohorja was active particularly among Slovene emigrants in Germany in Westphalia and in the basin of the river Rhine. The Society of St. Hermagoras was founded in 1852 in Celovec (Klagenfurt) to the initiative of Anton Martin Slomšek. The author of the contribution has presented on the basis of annual registers of members in the Koledarji Družbe Sv. Mohorja (Almanacs of the Society of St. Hermagoras) in the form of tables, and registers of membership in the years 1900, 1905, 1909, 1914, and 1917, the structure and activity of 96 St. Hermagoras branches in Germany. Clergymen Viljem Köster, Ivan Jenster, Avgust Henegkötter, Bernard Hülsmann, Teodor Tensundern and Viljem Sondermann, who were as rule commissioners of the Society of St. Hermagoras, had an important role in the activity of those branches. It is not a coincidence that the strongest branches of St. Mohor were in the biggest settlements of Slovene emigrants in Westphalia (Gladbeck, Hamborn, Marxloch, Meerbeck, Mörs, Osterfeld, and Sodingen) where the mentioned clergymen were active in pastoral care and cultural life, and where Slovene emigrant societies existed as well, mainly the Catholic educational Societies of St. Barbara.