"Where Is the Miner’s Homeland?" – or Carl Stegmayer and the Third Miners’ Anthem

Part 1.

Abstract

Two hundred years ago, a collection of mining-themed poems and songs titled Klänge aus der Teufe (Sounds from the Depths) [1] was published in a limited edition in Vienna. Its author, Carl Stegmayer, was a little-known young Austrian poet who had also graduated as a mining engineer from the Academy in Selmecbánya. At the time, the work garnered little attention in literary circles, holding significance if any only for a narrow professional community: the students and faculty of the Selmecbánya Academy and the professionals who had graduated from it. In my view, however, this provides sufficient reason for us to devote some attention to this song collection and to familiarize ourselves with its author and contents. The aim of this article is, therefore, to briefly outline Carl Stegmayer’s life and literary career, as well as the composition, significance, and legacy of this mining song collection regarding the song culture originating from Selmecbánya; furthermore, by examining one interesting piece from the collection, it seeks to shed light on a previously unknown aspect of the history of mining anthems. The occasion for this article is the publication this year -in anticipation of the 2026 bicentenary of the first edition of this mining song collection -of a Hungarian-language volume [2] containing translations (complete with musical scores) of 30 mining songs and 20 additional poems by Carl Stegmayer originally published in contemporary newspapers and almanacs; the volume is further supplemented by studies on the author’s life and work and the song tradition of Selmec, as well as numerous explanatory notes relating to the lyrical pieces.