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Kormoczbanya

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(German, Kremnitz), an old mining town, in the county of Bars, in Hungary, 158 m. N. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900), 4299. It is situated in a deep valley in the Hungarian Ore Mountains region. Among its principal buildings are the castle, several Roman Catholic (from the 13th and 14th centuries) and Lutheran churches, a Franciscan monastery (founded 1634), the town-hall, and the mint where the celebrated Kremnitz gold ducats were formerly struck. The bulk of the inhabitants find employment in connexion with the gold and silver mines. By means of a tunnel 9 m. in length, constructed in 1851-1852, the water is drained off from the mines into the river Gran. According to tradition, Kormoczbanya was founded in the 8th century by Saxons. The place is mentioned in documents in 1317, and became a royal free town in 1328, being therefore one of the oldest free towns in Hungary. 'Corner, Karl Theodor (1791-1813), German poet and patriot, often called the German "Tyrtaeus," was born at Dresden on the 23rd of September 1791. His father, Christian Gottfried Korner (1756-1831), a distinguished Saxon jurist, was Schiller's most intimate friend. He was educated at the Kreuzschule in Dresden and entered at the age of seventeen the mining academy at Freiburg in Saxony, where he remained two years. Here he occupied himself less with science than with verse, a collection of which appeared under the title Knospen in 1810. In this year he went to the university of Leipzig, in order to study law; but he became involved in a serious conflict with the police and was obliged to continue his studies in Berlin. In August 1811 Korner went to Vienna, where he devoted himself entirely to literary pursuits; he became engaged to the actress Antonie Adamberger, and, after the success of several plays produced in 1812, he was appointed poet to the Hofburgtheater. When the German nation rose against the French yoke, in 1813, Korner gave up all his prospects at Vienna and joined Liitzow's famous corps of volunteers at Breslau. On his march to Leipzig he passed through Dresden, where he issued his spirited Aufruf an die Sachsen, in which he called upon his countrymen to rise against their oppressors. He became lieutenant towards the end of April, and took part in a skirmish at Kitzen near Leipzig on the 7th of June, when he was severely wounded. After being nursed by friends at Leipzig and Carlsbad, he rejoined his corps and fell in an engagement outside a wood near Gadebusch in Mecklenburg on the 26th of August 1813. He was buried by his comrades under an oak close to the village of WObbelin, where there is a monument to him.

The abiding interest in Korner is patriotic and political rather than literary. His fame as a poet rests upon his patriotic lyrics, which were published by his father under the title Leier and Schwert in 1814. These songs, which fired the poet's comrades to deeds of heroism in 1813, bear eloquent testimony to the intensity of the national feeling against Napoleon, but judged as literature they contain more bombast than poetry. Among the best known are "Liitzow's wilde verwegene Jagd," "Gebet wahrend der Schlacht" (set to music by Weber) and "Das Schwertlied." This last was written immediately before his death, and the last stanza added on the fatal morning. As a dramatist Korner was remarkably prolific, but his comedies hardly touch the level of Kotzebue's and his tragedies, of which the best is Zriny (1814), are rhetorical imitations of Schiller's.

His works have passed through many editions. Among the more recent are: Sdmtliche Werke (Stuttgart, 1890), edited by Adolf Stern; by H. Zimmer (2 vols., Leipzig, 1893) and by E. Goetze (Berlin, 1900). The most valuable contributions to our knowledge of the poet have been furnished by E. Peschel, the founder and director of the Korner Museum in Dresden, in Theodor Korners Tagebuch and Kriegslieder, aus dem Jahre 1813 (Freiburg, 1893) and, in conjunction with E. Wildenow, Theodor Korner and die Seinen (Leipzig, 1898).