Adine Gemberg

Adine Gemberg

Adine Gemberg , actually Alexandra ("Adja") Carlowna Gemberg, b. von Becker (also de Baker) (born April 28, 1858 , April 16, according to the Julian calendar, in Saint Petersburg ; † August 10, 1902 in Wittenberg ), was a German writer , novelist and short story writer , journalist and feminist social critic .

life and work

She was the daughter of the German language teacher, court librarian, Imperial Russian real state councilor at the Tsar's court and cabinet secretary of the Russian Grand Duchess Elena Pawlowna and her daughter Maria Michailowna Romanowa , Carl Andreas von Becker (* May 5, 1821 in Einbeck ; † March 4, 1894 in Wiesbaden ) , and his wife, the Georgian-Russian princess Vera Ivanova (or Simeonowna) Gévachoff (also Vera Shewachow) (born September 21, 1836 in Saint Petersburg, † March 8, 1860 in Hyères ). Because of the early death of her mother, she and her sister Sophie, who was one year younger than her, grew up separated from her father in Lüneburg with her paternal grandparents and her unmarried aunt, who took on responsibility for their upbringing. She also spent a year alone with an aunt in Braunschweig . After completing a girls' boarding school in Hanover , she went with her father, who had retired from Russian service in 1873, and her sister to Karlsruhe , where, after a falling out with her father and a further stay in a boarding school in Celle, she worked as a free apprentice daughter at the local school Deaconess was trained as a nurse and worked in the hospital run by the deaconesses, but without being blessed as such and thereby entering the community. On May 19, 1878, Adine von Becker married the widowed officer Gustav Gemberg (born January 23, 1841 in Meyenberg , † March 23, 1912 in Wittenberg ), whose name she adopted and with whom she had six children, a daughter and five sons, one of which, however, died in childhood. The family, which also included a son from Gustav Gemberg's first marriage, first lived in Karlsruhe, then, due to the usual transfers of a young officer, in Engers near Koblenz , in Brandenburg an der Havel and finally in Wittenberg. Gustav Gemberg retired as a major as early as 1888, which also significantly reduced his wife's social duties, whose fragile health he was very worried about, according to his letters, and allowed her to work as a writer based on her professional experience.

An extensive autobiography entitled "A Girl's Life", in which she relentlessly reveals her oppressive living conditions and the incomprehensible and sometimes violent actions of those in her family environment who had made her childhood and youth hell, she took in the year of marriage Attack, but gave up the work for unknown reasons, without having presented the last four years before the marriage and without having achieved the planned chapters “Wedding” and “Conclusion”. So she finally refrained from publishing it, perhaps out of consideration for her husband's professional position and the expected negative reactions on the part of people who see themselves in a bad light. She made her debut as an author in 1887 with humoresques for the Berliner Volkszeitung. Under the pseudonym Tervachoff, she published two historical essays in 1894 (on Tsarina Katharina II and Tsar Ivan IV ), which, according to a plan presented to the Cottaschen publishing house in a letter, “contained a series of several historical novels from Russia's past [...] in the kind of (Gustav) Friday (sic) ancestors ”should follow. Instead, she wrote the essay “Die Evangelische Diakonie . A contribution to the solution of the women's question ”, which appeared in Berlin in 1894 , with which her search for concepts of specifically female meaningful life design and their critical questioning began and for which, as for her entire path as a writer, her own professional experience gained before marriage was of essential importance . In 1895, through the mediation of Paul Lindau , the volume of novels "Morphium" was published by S. Fischer, the title novella of which had previously been rejected by several family magazines due to the open theming of drug addiction and now "caused a sensation". In 1896 she also published the socially critical novel “Aufschriften einer Diakonissin” (Notes of a Deaconess) in Berlin, which highlights the dangers associated with the deaconesses' complete loss of autonomy much more sharply than the essay and which is today considered an early example of feminist literature. In the same year she published the socially critical essay Das heimliche Elend ., In which she criticized the taboo and gross underpayment of female gainful employment and highlighted it as the real cause of the social impoverishment of women from bourgeois backgrounds. In 1898 the volume of short stories “The third brother. Sleep - Death - Madness ", which, among other things, tries to underpin the position represented in" Morphium "by depicting another individual fate of an addict in the novella" Ein Genuss "and in the story" Sick Love "another taboo topic of the epoch, the questionable Conditions in psychiatric clinics, openly discussed. In the following year, the last work of the intense creative period of only six years followed, the novel "Des Gesetz Kompetenz [fulfillment of the law]], which describes the destruction of the love relationship and the family of an artist couple due to grandiosity fantasies and loss of reality on the part of the husband as well as traditional role assignments to the wife also deals with their religiously motivated idealization of their self-sacrifice and contains a critical examination of Friedrich Nietzsche's conception of the superman and its reception, also through the women's movement. After a long and serious illness, Adine Gemberg died on March 4, 1902 at the age of 44.

Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt recognizes her importance as a writer “in the fact that she addresses unusual female fates with her stories, novellas and novels [...], with her literature she wants to provide criticism of the times and thus influence the present” and “that her experiences and Knowledge of the problem areas presented results from direct personal experience and, due to her great human openness and tolerance, she does not shy away from direct contact with people and circumstances to which the usual charitable efforts of women of her social class do not advance. ”Especially by renouncing dramatic She said that she succeeded in exaggerating the fate of women with “authentic and convincing images of life”, whereby she made “an important contribution to demythologizing the imagined images of women and femininity”. Due to her "lack of prejudice and incorruptibility [...] she has developed an independent point of view, especially in relation to the prevailing tendencies of the women's movement of her epoch, which deviates from current opinions" and is "able to recognize the grievances analyze them and place them with a clear view in overarching socio-historical contexts, [...] to show the background and roots of the problems and to name them clearly, ”as well as with the“ courage to openly criticize ”and not be afraid of“ disputes with their sexual mates [. ..] to propose reform approaches which, thanks to their realism, seem to be quite feasible. ”All this as well as the combination of“ narrative and performing publications ”with which she reached“ different circles of recipients ”make her“ an extraordinary author of her time . "

Works

A detailed catalog of works including the journalistic publications by Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), p. 338f.

• The evangelical diakonia. A contribution to solving the women's question. German writers cooperative, Berlin 1894 (socially critical feminist essay).
• Morphine. Novellas. S. Fischer, Berlin 1895.
• Notes of a Deaconess. S. Fischer, Berlin 1896 (novel).
• The secret misery. In: Neue deutsche Rundschau (Free Stage) VII. Year First and second quarter. S. Fischer Verlag, Berlin, 1896, pp. 486-491 (socially critical feminist essay).
• Vision. In: Ernst Brauweiler (Ed.): Master novels of German women. With characteristics of the authors and their portraits (row 1). Schuster & Loeffler, Berlin 1897, pp. 153–162.
• The third brother. Sleep - death - madness. Schuster & Loeffler, Berlin 1898 (short stories); New edition MarsTT Verlag, Wuppertal 2017. https://marstt.de/adine-gemberg/ .
• Gold In: Wiener Rundschau 2, 6 1897/1898, pp. 201–210 (novella).
• Love. In: Wiener Rundschau 3, 7, 1898/1899, pp. 159–164 (novella).
• The fulfillment of the law. C. Reissner, Dresden / Leipzig 1899 (novel).

literature

• Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt: "I stood next to life". Boundaries between rebellion and adaptation. Investigations into the work of Adine Gembergs (1858 - 1902) . (Dissertation. Technical University of Darmstadt). Books od Demand GmbH, Norderstedt 2005. ISBN 978-3-8334-3160-9
• Eda Sagarra in Walther Killys Literature Lexicon : Authors and Works in the German Language . (15 volumes) Gütersloh; Munich: Bertelsmann-Lexikon-Verl. 1988-1991 (CD-ROM Berlin 1998 ISBN 3-932544-13-7 ) Vol. 4 p. 107 (partly incorrect!)
• Gisela Brinker-Gabler, Karola Ludwig, Angela Wöffen: Lexicon of German-speaking women writers 1800–1945. dtv Munich, 1986. ISBN 3-423-03282-0 . P. 106.
• Carola L. Gottzmann , Petra Hörner: Lexicon of the German-language literature of the Baltic States and St. Petersburg . De Gruyter, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019338-1 , p. 455-457 .
• Lou Andreas-Salomé: Adine Gemberg, the third brother. In: Das Literarian Echo 1, 1898/1899, p. 189; also in: this., Essays and Essays , Vol. 3.1 "Living Poetry" (Essays on Literature 1891-1922) , ed. by Hans-Rüdiger Schwab. MedienEdition Welsch, Taching am See 2011, ISBN 978-3-937211-14-5 , p. 243f.
• Christian Morgenstern: Presentation on Adine Gemberg, The Protestant Diakonie. In: ders., Works and letters , ed. by Helmut Gumtau. Urachhaus, Stuttgart 1987, pp. 61-67.

Web links

• Literature by and about Adine Gemberg in the catalog of the German National Library
• ngiyaw eBooks - e-books (e-texts) by this author - including digital copies

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to her adoptive father Dr. Ivan Spassky, Pushkin's family doctor .
2. ↑ According to other sources, probably after her birth father.
3. ↑ On the origin of the Georgian princely family, cf. the article "Javakhishvili" on the English Wikipedia. Adine Gemberg, against numerous other documents, obviously incorrectly gives 1861 as the year of her mother's death.
4. ↑ On the history of the Karlsruhe Diakonissenanstalt cf. "" "Deaconesses - then and now - on history" on the website of the Protestant Diakonissenanstalt Karlsruhe-Rüppurr .
5. ↑ Cf. Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), p. 12f.
6. ↑ Cf. the family tree of the Gemberg family in Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), pp. 312–315, here p. 313.
7. ↑ The fair copy, a manuscript of 488 handwritten pages in three volumes, arrived together with a large number of letters written by the writer and addressed to her as well as with several documents and photographs concerning herself and her parents from the estate of her daughter Irmgard (* 18 November 1879 ; † April 17, 1920 ) initially in the possession of one of their cousins, Sonni Neussell, b. Meier, (born September 19, 1890 ; †? 1987 ), a niece of Adine Gembergs, the older of the two daughters of her sister Sophie ("Sonni") Meier, geb. von Becker, (* July 5, 1859 - October 21, 1893 ) and her husband, who came from Karlsruhe, the concert violinist Eduard Meier (* August 27, 1857 - March 30, 1936 ), from where the material later became the family property passed over by descendants of the Meier family.
8. ↑ Cf. Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), pp. 44–51; P. 328 (letter to Cottaschen Verlag dated August 30, 1894).
9. ↑ Adine Gemberg, The Protestant Diakonie. A contribution to solving the women's question. German Writers' Cooperative, Berlin 1894. On this and other journalistic work on the same topic, cf. Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), pp. 238–247.
10. ↑ Cf. Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), pp. 52–110.
11. ↑ Adine Gemberg, morphine. Novellas. S. Fischer, Berlin 1985. The quotations from Eda Sagarra, Gemberg, Adine in: in Walther Killy's literary dictionary: authors and works in the German language. Bertelsmann-Lexikon-Verlag, Gütersloh, Munich 1988-1991, here vol. 4 p. 107. On the remarkable contemporary reception of Adine Gembergs cf. Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), pp. 275–280. On the phenomenon of morphine addiction cf. Regina Thumser-Wöhs, ... magic laughs Displeasure in blue glory. Addiction and art in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Studienverlag, Innsbruck / Wien / Bozen 2017, esp. Pp. 480–484, which (p. 484), unlike Hildebrandt (p. 107f.), Does not exclude the author's own drug experiences.
12. ↑ Adine Gemberg, records a deaconess. S. Fischer, Berlin 1896. Cf. Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), pp. 111–167.
13. ↑ Cf. Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), pp. 294–310; Adele Gerhard, Helene Simon, Motherhood and intellectual work: A psychological and sociological study based on an international survey with consideration of the historical development, de Gruyter Berlin et al. 2019, p. 173f .; Rajah Scheepers, Transformations of Social Protestantism: Upheavals in the Deaconess Mother Houses of the Kaiserswerther Association after 1945, Stuttgart 2016, p. 52.
14. ↑ Adine Gemberg, The secret misery. In: Neue deutsche Rundschau (Free Stage) VII. Volume First and Second Quarter S. Fischer Verlag, Berlin, 1896, pp. 486–491. Cf. Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), pp. 250–254, for further socially critical journalistic publications, ibid. Pp. 254–274.
15. ↑ Adine Gemberg, The Third Brother. Sleep - death - madness. Schuster & Loeffler, Berlin 1898. Cf. Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), pp. 168–209.
16. ↑ Adine Gemberg, Des fulfilling of the law. C. Reissner, Dresden / Leipzig 1899. Cf. Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), pp. 210–237.
17. ↑ Cf. Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), pp. 229–237.
18. ↑ Cf. Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), pp. 13–15, ibid. P. 14 also the names and dates of the children's lives.
19. ↑ Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), p. 289f.
20. ↑ Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), p. 293f.
21. ↑ Ruth Cornelie Hildebrandt, “I stood next to life” (see literature below), p. 310.