Alice Shellk

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Alice Therese Emma Schalk , pseudonym Paul Michaely, (born August 21, 1874 in Vienna ; † November 6, 1956 in New York City ) was an Austrian journalist, photographer, author, speaker and traveler. As a journalist she wrote both travel feuilletons and war reports on the First World War ; she was the only war correspondent of the Austro-Hungarian war press quarter .

Live and act

Alice Schalk came from a middle-class Jewish family. Her father Heinrich Schalk owned an "advertisement expedition", a kind of advertising agency. She attended the Lyceum of the Vienna Women's Employment Association and learned several foreign languages. She was interested in other countries from an early age. In 1902 she published the novel When will it meet? Under the male pseudonym Paul Michaely . In 1903 she started as a journalist in the features section of the Neue Freie Presse in Vienna, for which she worked for over 30 years. A year later she converted to the Protestant faith.

In 1903 Alice Shellk undertook her first major trip abroad to Norway and Sweden , followed in 1905 by Algeria and Tunisia , and in 1909 she traveled through India, among other places . An extensive tour of East Asia followed in 1911, followed by a short trip around the world through numerous countries in 1913. After her return, Schalk wrote extensive travel reports for the Neue Freie Presse , which later appeared in book form. She also took numerous photos on every trip. The journalist also gave lectures on her travels, including at Urania in Vienna and Berlin. Schalk was also a board member of the Association of Writers and Artists in Vienna and the PEN .

In 1914 she was one of the founders of the Black and Yellow Cross , a charity. At her express request, she was then approved as a war correspondent in 1915 and accredited to the Austro-Hungarian War Press Headquarters in Austria. She reported on the fighting in the Dolomites , the Serbian campaign and the Isonzo front . Schalk was also an avid mountaineer. The journalist's engagement in the war and her enthusiastic patriotic reports met with a mixed response from the public. Karl Kraus was one of the sharpest critics; he accused her of “glorifying war” and set her a negative memorial in his work The Last Days of Mankind . Schalk's brother Norbert, a first lieutenant, demanded after the essay "Somewhere on the Adriatic" Kraus to a duel, he referred to his lawyer and Alice Schalk thereupon brought an insult against Kraus, which she withdrew in 1917. For her undisputed brave war effort, she was awarded the Golden Cross of Merit with a crown on a ribbon of the medal of bravery in 1917 - a very unusual award for a woman. In that year she also quit her work as a war reporter, presumably due to public pressure.

From 1923, Alice Schalk was back as a travel journalist, and in 1929 she was a founding member of the first Austrian club, Soroptimist International . In 1930 she visited the USA . In the late 1920s she openly sympathized with communism and justified, for example, the persecution of the kulaks under Stalin in the Soviet Union . Her book The Big Day was published in Moscow in 1930 . After the annexation of Austria , she was arrested by the Gestapo in 1939 on charges of spreading “atrocity propaganda” against the National Socialist government . With the help of relationships, she was able to obtain her release and initially flee to London via Switzerland . From there she emigrated to the USA in 1940. There she lived in seclusion and died in 1956 in a nursing home near New York.

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literature

The first literary works by Alice Schalk can be traced back to 1902. Her first works appeared under the pseudonym Paul Michaely, all later works she published under her own name. She finished her early prose work in 1909 with the serial novel Pain of Youth .

Themes in Alice Schalk's fictional texts

What the women portrayed, who appear as protagonists in the early works of Schalk, have in common that they come from a middle-class milieu and are confronted with situations and decisions that have a significant impact on their future lives. Topics of the prose works are, for example, the general social situation of women at that time, their intellectual development opportunities (i.e. educational and professional prospects), the degradation to purely sexual beings or conventional topics such as partner choice and marriage. Alice Schalk spoke out explicitly for women's rights , especially in the areas of education and work. Central to almost all texts from this creative phase is the statement that the female protagonists fail to enjoy life and find happiness. Aside from this dreary tenor, Shellk gives an insight into what a better future for women should look like. For Schalk, the emancipation of bourgeois women is not ostensibly based on sexual liberation, but on independence and a better social position.

In addition to the complex of topics relating to women and their social situation, the novel When will it meet? discussed the situation of the Jewish bourgeoisie. Despite opportunities for advancement in society, the life of Jews in Vienna is described as a constant struggle for recognition due to the prevailing anti-Semitism . It goes so far that some protagonists in Schalk's short stories and novels reject their own Jewish identity.

Another important motif in all of Schalk's publications (including her journalistic publications) is nature. This initially serves as a contrast to the restricted, civilized life. In addition, it not only plays a decisive role as a space for the protagonists to act, but also enables transcendental experiences of the subject.

Revolutionary literature - communism

Alice Schalk did not publish further fictional texts until the 1930s: the drama The Big Day , Failed and Poodle and Pug and other stories for the little ones . All three publications refer explicitly to the situation in the USSR around 1930. The central theme of these publications is the class struggle in the sense of communism or Stalinism that was prevalent at the time .

journalism

Start of career and travel articles in the Neue Freie Presse

Her journalistic career began in 1903 with reports on her trips abroad in the features section of the Neue Freie Presse , a newspaper for which she worked for more than 30 years. In addition, she dealt with mountaineering in numerous novels and feature articles. With this hobby as well as with her publications about it, Schalk showed himself to be an emancipated woman, since alpinism was a typically male field of activity at the time. In stark contrast to her narrative works at the beginning of the 20th century, her feature pages appeared in the Neue Freie Presse under her own name from the start. This identification by name was unusual at the time and gives evidence of Schalk's special status in the editorial team.

War reporting in the First World War

During the First World War, Alice Schalk published two books, some of which were based on the features published in the Neue Freie Presse : Tirol in Waffen (1915), in which she reported on the Tyrolean front between Italy and Austria, and Am Isonzo. March to July 1916 (1916) about the events on the Isonzo and Dolomite fronts.

In terms of style and content, the style and content of her texts were influenced by the then prevailing, war-related, but outdated means of expression and images of language, as dictated by intellectuals as well as photographers and journalists. Her reports from the front show a completely outmoded idea of ​​war, which was still very widespread at the beginning of the 20th century, but was completely unrealistic even then. What was new, however, was that Schalk addressed the destruction of nature.

Schalk wrote her reports from the front from her own experience, which made them immediate and exciting, but also made them highly subjective. Her journalistic work from this period drastically played down the events of the war, making it appear altogether folkloristic and trivial. So it is said in Waffen in Tirol : "The whole thing is so grandiose, so generously thought out and laid out and everything else is so completely excluded from this territory that the viewer completely forgets the previous cultural purposes and feels nothing but a kind of diabolical pleasure."

The romanticization of the bloody fights can possibly be explained by Schalk's previous activity as a travel journalist, where she used similar stylistic devices. On the positive side, it should be emphasized that in her texts, Schalk did not limit herself to tirades of hatred against opponents of the war, which was otherwise quite widespread in the First World War. In addition, Schalk's war reporting was characterized by a "hygienization". Her photographs are particularly worth mentioning here as an example. Illustrations of the wounded and dead, which can be found in her book Am Isonzo , convey the impression of death as a “lifelike”, necessary consequence of the war - just as if everything had its natural order.

While she expressed herself emancipatory before the First World War and, thanks to her role model, could well be considered an early women's rights activist, her texts changed in this regard during the war. From then on, male and female roles were portrayed as very contradicting and unequal. While she deliberately almost completely ignored the social activities of women, although she herself worked as a war correspondent, the work of the men at the front was described as consistently heroic. Both before and after World War I, Schalk was far less attached to traditional role stereotypes. However, their journalistic work was naturally subject to strict censorship during the war.

Her reports from the front brought her fierce criticism, but also enthusiastic readers and multiple awards. What is hardly noticed today is the fact that towards the end of the war, Shellk dealt critically with the events.

Journalistic career after the First World War

As far as is known, after the end of the First World War, Shellk did not distance herself from her publications as a war correspondent, which is in striking contrast to her journalistic self-image in the post-war years. The later years of her journalistic career were marked by a more self-critical attitude towards her own profession. The travel articles from the prewar years already dealt with emancipatory issues, but were still strongly influenced by their subjective feelings. On the other hand, Schalk's travel reports after the First World War often represented committed foreign reports, especially the publications of the 1930s. In this way she moved away from the traditional gender roles, which she praised at least subliminally during the First World War, and the firm commitment to women's rights dominated her work. In addition, she dealt with social and political changes in the countries visited during this creative phase.

In spite of numerous points of criticism, there is no question about Schalk's contributions to modern journalism. In 1924 she was the first woman to join the Concordia press club in Vienna . Thereupon she was considered to be the "first Austrian female journalist" on various occasions, which is not the case, since women worked for newspapers and magazines both before and at the same time. For Schalk personally, her journalistic work came more and more to the fore in the post-war years.

photography

Alice Schalk produced around 6,000 black and white photographs from all over the world, which she had archived in over thirty photo albums. This collection is special because it virtually depicts the first third of the 20th century - geographically broad and with a high degree of temporal continuity.

Schalk's photographs are characterized by a sobriety that her written publications often lacked. Often these are snapshots taken quickly. She barely exceeded the medium long shot and always took photos with a sufficient safety distance. First she took the photos with a plate camera , but in the 1920s she was also likely to have used a smaller travel camera. In terms of content, Schalk relied on naturalness: She hardly resorted to unusual points of view or complicated presentations. The only exceptions are representative group photos in which the people depicted appear formally draped.

Alice Schalk's war photography also has an innocent, neutral look that does not take sides. With her photographs, Schalk tried to suggest a “scene” of the war. Thematically, she took up both the destruction and everyday life in the positions.

Publications (selection)

Book publications

  • When will it meet: A Viennese novel. 2 volumes, Vienna, 1902 (pseudonym Paul Michaely)
  • On the tourist steamer: novellas. Vienna, 1905 (pseudonym Paul Michaely)
  • The Miss: Novellas. Vienna, 1905 (pseudonym Paul Michaely)
  • From Tunis to Tripoli. Travel reports, 1906.
  • Pains of youth. Roman, Berlin, 1909.
  • India stroll. Illustrated travel work, Berlin, 1912.
  • South Seas experience. Travel reports, 1914.
  • Tyrol in arms. War reports from the Tyrolean front. Munich, 1915 - Online with Sophie
  • On the Isonzo. March-July 1916. Illustrated war news, Vienna, 1916th
  • In Buddha's land. A stroll through back India. Travel reports, Vienna, 1922 - online with Sophie
  • A stroll through Burma, Java, Siam and Tonking. 1923.
  • Japan, the land of coexistence. A winter trip through Japan, Korea and Manchuria. Illustrierte Reisewerk, Breslau 1925 - online at Sophie
  • The chief steward tells . In: Novellas. Volume 60, Austria. Publishing house (Neue Freie Presse), Vienna, 1927.
  • At the courts of the maharajas. Orell Füssli Verlag, Zurich-Leipzig, 1929.
  • The big day. Moscow, 1930.
  • Failed. Deutscher Staatsverlag, Engels, 1931.
  • Poodles and Pugs and other stories for the little ones. Deutscher Staatsverlag, Engels, 1932.

Articles (online)

literature

  • Ursula Bachinger: Alice Schalk. Feminist (?), War correspondent (?), Revolutionary (?) . University of Salzburg, Salzburg 1990 (diploma thesis)
  • Eva Chrambach:  Schalk, Alice Therese Emma. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 548 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Elisabeth Klaus: "Everything is sounding, romantic, aesthetic". The war correspondent and photographer Alice Schalk. In: PHOTO HISTORY. Contributions to the history and aesthetics of photography. 34th vol., H. 134, 2014, pp. 19-26.
  • Elisabeth Klaus: rhetoric about war. Karl Kraus versus Alice Schalk. In: Feminist Studies. Journal for interdisciplinary women and gender studies. 26th vol., No. 1, 2008, pp. 65-82.
  • Elisabeth Klaus , Ulla Wischermann : Journalists. A story in biographies and texts, 1848–1990. LIT Verlag, Vienna 2012 therein: Alice Schalk (1874-1956) pp. 171ff.
  • Elke Krasny , Christian Rapp : world views of an extreme tourist: Alice Schalk (1874–1956). In: Irmgard Kirchner, Gerhard Pfeisinger (Hrsg.): World travelers. Austrians abroad. Promedia, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-85371-116-2 , pp. 110-117.
  • Elke Krasny, Marcus G. Patka , Christian Rapp, Nadia Rapp-Wimberger (eds.): From Samoa to the Isonzo. The photographer and travel journalist Alice Schalk. [An exhibition of the Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna, November 9th to January 30th, 2000. To be seen at the "Stern" in the publishing house of Gruner & Jahr in Hamburg in July 2000]. Commissioned by the Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna with the support of "Stern", Mandelbaum Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-85476-030-2 .
  • Christine Morscher: "I had my baptism by fire ...". Alice Schalk and the First World War. In: The Sciliar. 78th vol., No. 12, 2004, pp. 61-67.
  • Jörg Wolfram Schröder: “As if you were hearing about a new world”. A sociological literary investigation of the “question of women” and the “question of Jews” in Alice Schalks When will it meet? A Viennese novel (1902). University of Waterloo, Ontario 2005, OCLC 639992363 . (Diploma thesis)
  • Brigitte Spreitzer: When will it meet? Education and knowledge as basic and content-related factors in the writing of Austrian authors around 1900. In: Sonja Rinofner-Kreidl (Ed.): Between Orientation and Crisis. To deal with knowledge in the modern age. Böhlau, Vienna a. a. 1998, ISBN 3-205-98829-9 , pp. 247-308.
  • Brigitte Spreitzer: sacrificial games. Aporias of female self-assertion in Alice Schalks "When will it meet?" In: Brigitte Spreitzer (Ed.): Texturen. Austrian modernism for women. Passagen, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-85165-365-3 , pp. 117–128.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry on Alice Schalk in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
  2. ↑ Martina Bilke: Contemporaries of the torch, Vienna 1981. P. 67
  3. ↑ Elke Krasny, Christian Rapp, Nadia Rapp-Wimberger: On the trail of an adventurer. Comments on the photographer and travel journalist Alice Schalk (1874–1956) . In: Elke Krasny et al. (Ed.): From Samoa to the Isonzo. The photographer and travel journalist Alice Schalk. Jewish Museum, Vienna 1999, p. 12.
  4. ↑ Elke Krasny et al. (Ed.): From Samoa to the Isonzo. The photographer and travel journalist Alice Schalk. Jewish Museum, Vienna 1999, p. 135.
  5. ↑ Krasny / Rapp / Rapp-Wimberger 1999: p. 12.
  6. ↑ Ursula Bachinger: Alice Shellk. Feminist (?), War correspondent (?), Revolutionary (?). University of Salzburg, Salzburg 1990, p. 4f. (Diploma thesis)
  7. ↑ Bachinger 1990: p. 5.
  8. ^ Elisabeth Klaus , Ulla Wischermann : Journalists. A story in biographies and texts, 1848–1990. LIT Verlag, Vienna 2013, p. 31.
  9. ↑ Bachinger 1990: p. 24.
  10. ↑ Bachinger 1990: p. 35.
  11. ↑ Bachinger 1990: p. 63.
  12. ↑ Bachinger 1990: pp. 38-49.
  13. ↑ Bachinger 1990: p. 42 f.
  14. ↑ Bachinger 1990: p. 47.
  15. ↑ Bachinger 1990: pp. 50-55.
  16. ↑ Bachinger 1990: p. 50.
  17. ↑ Bachinger 1990: p. 53.
  18. ↑ Bachinger 1990: p. 65.
  19. ↑ Bachinger 1990: p. 66.
  20. ↑ Bachinger 1990: p. 73.
  21. ↑ Krasny / Rapp / Rapp-Wimberger 1999: p. 12; Bachinger 1990: p. 87.
  22. ↑ Krasny / Rapp / Rapp-Wimberger 1999: p. 10.
  23. ↑ Krasny / Rapp / Rapp-Wimberger 1999: p. 11; Bachinger 1990: p. 53.
  24. ↑ Alice Schalk - Biography ( Memento of the original from March 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . The Sophie Project. Retrieved July 16, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sophie.byu.edu
  25. ↑ Krasny / Rapp / Rapp-Wimberger 1999: p. 12.
  26. ↑ Klaus / Wischermann 2013: p. 31.
  27. ^ Elisabeth Klaus: Rhetorics about war. Karl Kraus versus Alice Schalk. In: Feminist Studies. Special print. Journal for interdisciplinary women and gender studies. Volume 26, No. 1, 2008, p. 77.
  28. ↑ a b c Klaus 2008: p. 70.
  29. ↑ Klaus 2008: p. 67f.
  30. ↑ Krasny / Rapp / Rapp-Wimberger 1999: p. 14; Klaus / Wischermann 2013: p. 32.
  31. ^ Alice Schalk: Tyrol in arms. War reports from the Tyrolean front. Schmidt, Munich 1915, p. 46f.
  32. ↑ Klaus 2008: p. 68f.
  33. ^ Klaus 2008: p. 69.
  34. ↑ Klaus / Wischermann 2013: p. 32.
  35. ^ Klaus 2008: p. 71.
  36. ↑ Klaus 2008: p. 68.
  37. ↑ Christine Morscher: "I had my baptism by fire ...". Alice Schalk and the First World War. In: Der Schlern , Volume 78, No. 12, 2004, p. 67.
  38. ↑ Klaus / Wischermann 2013: p. 32; Rapp 1999: p. 34f.
  39. ↑ Nadia Rapp-Wimberger: From strolling to reporting. Alice Schalks India trips 1909 and 1928. In: Elke Krasny et al. (Ed.): From Samoa to Isonzo. The photographer and travel journalist Alice Schalk. Jewish Museum, Vienna 1999, p. 60.
  40. ↑ Rapp-Wimberger 1999: p. 60.
  41. ↑ Klaus / Wischermann 2013: p. 32.
  42. ↑ Krasny / Rapp / Rapp-Wimberger 1999: p. 16.
  43. ^ Klaus 2008: p. 72; Bachinger 1990: p. 89.
  44. ↑ Klaus 2008: p. 72.
  45. ↑ Rapp-Wimberger 1999: p. 61.
  46. ↑ Krasny / Rapp / Rapp-Wimberger 1999: p. 9.
  47. ↑ Krasny / Rapp / Rapp-Wimberger 1999: p. 17.
  48. ↑ Christian Rapp: "The whole thing is so grandiose organized ...". The world war of Alice Schalk . In: Elke Krasny et al. (Ed.): From Samoa to the Isonzo. The photographer and travel journalist Alice Schalk. Jewish Museum, Vienna 1999, p. 30.
  49. ↑ Krasny / Rapp / Rapp-Wimberger 1999: p. 17f.
  50. ^ Matthias Herrmann: Some observations on the photographs by Alice Schalk. In: Elke Krasny et al. (Ed.): From Samoa to the Isonzo. The photographer and travel journalist Alice Schalk. Jewish Museum, Vienna 1999, p. 20.
  51. ↑ Hermann 1999: p. 20.
  52. ↑ Krasny et al. 1999: p. 62.
personal data
SURNAME Shellk, Alice
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schalk, Alice Therese Emma; Michaely, Paul (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian journalist, photographer and author
DATE OF BIRTH August 21, 1874
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH November 6, 1956
Place of death New York , (NY)