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In an article from 1979 about seafood manufacturer Carl Warhanek (C. Warhanek - 120 Jahre (Firmenchronik)) I came across the following sentence:

(...) in Mszana Dolna (...), wo er große Buchenwälder kaufte, deren Holz zur Herstellung der bekannten Warhankenschen Russenfaßein diente.

What that "Russenfaßein" could be?

Some context:

  1. In 1885 Warhanek built in Mszana Dolna a canned fish plant and I've read that the process involved storing herrings in wooden barrels. Could that "faßein" be related to "Fass" (a barrel)?

  2. On Wikipedia, in an article about C. Warhanek company there is written:

Die Räucherfische werden in einer speziellen Buchenholzmischung geräuchert.

So maybe "faßein" is something related to that "mischung"?

  1. The prefix "Russen" could be related to something that the factory produced, as in another Wikipedia article, Carl Warhanek, there is written:

Aus dem Holz der Buchen wurden Fässer für die Produktion von Russen hergestellt.

(Note, however, that large parts of that Wikipedia article are based on the article mentioned in the question, where "Russenfaßein" word is present.)

PS I tried to Google phrases such as "faßein" or "fassein", but found no results.

Paweł Kłeczek
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1 Answers1

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I'm pretty sure you got the orthography wrong, maybe in a translation error or an OCR problem: The word should be "Russenfass[e]ln", the plural of "Russenfassl". (When looking at the linked original, what you consider an "i" clearly looks like an "l" to me)

A Russe in Austrian German can obviously mean a citizen of Russia (which it doesn't here, you rarely put them into barrels...), but is also used to denote a marinated herring. Which is clearly the proper choice here.

A Fassl, on the other hand, is a small barrel.

So, your first assumption is right, and the text is talking about barrels for marinated fish.

tofro
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  • Bonus points for knowing what a "Russe" is in Austria. – bakunin Mar 21 '24 at 11:58
  • @tofro: Thanks! I've even found an explanation why those herrings are/were called "Russen" in Austria :) https://www.elfin.at/schon-gewusst/haeufig-gestellte-fragen/#toggle-id-9 – Paweł Kłeczek Mar 21 '24 at 13:04
  • Dinge gibt's... wieder was gelernt. Da ess ich doch gleich 'nen Hamburger und 'nen Wiener oder Frankfurter und danach 'nen Berliner oder Donauwelle ;). – planetmaker Mar 21 '24 at 15:38
  • Maybe it's just a bad transcription of Russenfäßlein, which is even Standard German. – phipsgabler Mar 21 '24 at 17:59
  • @phipsgabler Nah, I don't think so. There's no "German German" dialect that would denote a herring with "Russe", that's a definite Austriacism. Even in Bavaria, Austria's closest neighbour region, where the term "Russ" is known, that's an entirely different thing (a drink made of Weißbier and lemonade, which you could easily put into barrels, but the context doesn't ask for drinks) – tofro Mar 21 '24 at 18:08
  • @phipsgabler: look at the picture linked and you can clearly see the word "Russenfaßeln" in the text. "-el", "-erl" (in dialect also "-al") are replacement suffixes for "-lein" or "-chen" in German High German, signifying diminutives. e.g. "Lercherl" is a small specimen of a "Lerche" (lark, Alaudidae). in German High German this would probably be a "Lerchlein". – bakunin Mar 22 '24 at 12:17