Käte Müller-Lisowski

Life and Work of Käte Müller-Lisowski

Available on CELT: Texte zur Mog Ruith Sage and Die Geschichte des Nuada Find Femin by her (the Irish version is available here Stair Nuadat Find Femin)

4 October 1883	Katharina Müller is born in Arnswalde, a small town in eastern part of Brandenburg Province. [Today Choszczno, Gorzowski district, Poland.]
1890s	The family moves to Guben, where Katharina also goes to school. [Today, the city is on the German-Polish border. It was separated into the German part Guben and and the Polish part Gubin in 1945.]
1900s	Katharina starts her studies at Jena University.
until 1913/14	Katharina continues her studies at the Universities of Berlin, the Sorbonne, Oxford and University College London. In Berlin she studies Old Irish with Kuno Meyer; and Swedish, Gothic, Old Icelandic, Danish Ballads, Metrics, and Old German Religion with Andreas Heusler. As a diversion she also studies Mongolian. In Oxford she studies Modern Irish with Sir John Rhys, also 17th Century English. At University College London she studies Old Irish with Robin Flower who had been appointed Honorary Lecturer in Celtic there while working on Irish MSS catalogues in the Britsh Museum.
Summer 1914	World War I breaks out. On a short holiday in Berlin, Käte Müller is unable to return to London.
between 1914 and 1920	She lectures at the University of Berlin.
20 March 1920	Käte Müller marries Friederich Wilhelm Lisowski, a Social Democrat. They live in Oranienburg, a suburb to the North of Berlin.
1920	Irische Volksmärchen, collected and edited by Douglas Hyde and others; translated into German by Käte Müller (her maiden name), is published with Ernst Rowohlt Verlag, Berlin. [Last edition published by Rowohlt in Reinbek in 1993.]
1921	Stair Nuadat Find Femin Die Geschichte des Nuada Find Femin is published in Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 13, 195–250.
31 August 1922	Son Frederick Peter, the couple's only child, is born in Oranienburg.
1923	Another edition of Irische Volksmärchen, edited by Käte Müller-Lisowski, with a preface by Julius Pokorny, is published with Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Jena, in the series 'Die Märchen der Weltliteratur'. [Over the years, 14 editions have been published; the last in 1992, with Diederichs Verlag, now in Munich.]
1923	Texte zur Mog Ruith Sage is published in Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie 14, 145–163.
1923	Käte Müller-Lisowski submits her doctoral dissertation Die Johanneslegende im Irischen und der Druide Mog Ruith to Vienna University. Her supervisors are Professors Paul Kretschmer and Rudolf Much.
from 1924 on	After receiving her PhD Käte Müller-Lisowski works on Old Irish texts, inspects schools, interviews prospective teachers and looks after the family.
1933	Volkslieder aus dem Irischen und Dänischen, mit Anhang und Erläuterungen is published with Adolf Klein Verlag, Leipzig.
1936	Käte Müller-Lisowski and her husband, a member of the SPD (Social Democratic Party), who has trouble from the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei) visit Ireland several times. Both find the situation in Germany becoming more and more intolerable. Son Peter is sent to Newtown School, a Quaker Boarding School in County Waterford.
1937	The family migrates to Ireland and settles down in the south-side of Dublin in Cabinteely. They have practically lost all their assets and have to start again.
June 1938	La légende de St Jean dans la tradition irlandaise et le druide Mog Ruith is published in Études Celtiques, fasc. III, June 1938, 46–70.
1948/50	Contributions to a study in Irish Folklore: Traditions about Donn., written in 1945, is published by the Folklore Society in Béaloideas 18, 142–199.
1950	Counter-Currents reflected in Old Norse is published in Anthropos.
1952	An addition to Contributions to a study in Irish Folklore, entitled Cocks and the Death is published in Anthropos. Nicknames and namesakes reflecting old relationships between ancient Ireland and Iceland is published in the Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society 13, (no. 3, 1950/52), 150–5.
1954	Donn Fírinne, Tech Duinn, An Tarbh, an addition to Contributions to a study in Irish Folklore, is published in Études Celtiques, 21–29. At this time the Lisowskis still live in Cabinteely.
after 1954	The couple and their son Frederick Peter move to Birmingham, United Kingdom.
30 March 1960	Käte Müller-Lisowski dies in Birmingham.

Sources: This information was kindly supplied by F.P. Lisowski, Hobart, Tasmania.

Compiled by Beatrix Färber

Käte Müller-Lisowski

Life and Work of Käte Müller-Lisowski

CELT

Sponsors