Auguste Fickert

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Auguste Fickert, 1905

Auguste Fickert (born May 25, 1855 in Vienna ; † June 9, 1910 in Maria Enzersdorf ) was an Austrian women's rights activist , social reformer and journalist .

Life

Auguste Fickert (also known as Gusti) was the daughter of Wilhelm Fickert and his wife Louise Fickert. Her father worked as a factor in a printing company, came from Northern Germany and was a Protestant. Her mother (née Luhde) was a housewife, came from a middle-class Viennese suburban family and was Catholic. Auguste Fickert was baptized Catholic, but resigned from the Catholic Church in 1883/1884 .

childhood and education

Auguste Fickert grew up with her sister Marianne and her two brothers Emil and Willy. Two of them later took part in their projects: Marianne Fickert as an active member of the General Austrian Women's Association and her younger brother Emil Fickert, after Augustes death, in a leading position in the magazine Neues Frauenleben and in the Heimhof cooperative home .

Fickert attended elementary school in Vienna, from 1869/70 she was taught in the monastery Englische Fräulein in Burghausen ( Bavaria ). According to the author Dora Leon, her further life was strongly influenced by this monastery education. She acquired qualities that were particularly evident in her later life: “Strictness towards herself, gentleness and empathic understanding for other people; a fanatical need for moral purity and the brooding penetration into difficult questions to the last conclusion. "

Subsequently (1872) Fickert attended the St. Anna Teachers Training College in Vienna, which at that time was the only option for further training for girls. Here she met Ida Baumann, who was a close friend until her death. On July 9, 1876, she received her certificate of maturity with distinction.

Auguste Fickert as a teacher

Fickert dreamed of an acting career, but she stayed in the teaching profession until her death. In the school year 1876/77 she began teaching at an elementary school in Vienna. After the early death of her father (1881), Fickert paid not only for herself with her small salary, but also for her sick mother and siblings. After almost 23 years (1899) she switched to the Grünentorgasse elementary school.

In addition to her job, Fickert worked inexhaustibly in numerous club and assembly activities. In 1882 she joined the “Association of Teachers and Educators” in Austria. As part of this, discussion evenings and assemblies were organized to address grievances in school policy. Fickert participated, among other things, in the debate about discrimination against female teachers against their male colleagues. This was based on the political powerlessness of women. This resolution later became the starting point for Fickert's political activity.

Another school policy issue that Fickert addressed was the relationship between the school and the church. She advocated the strict separation of school and church and spoke in favor of an "non-denominational school in which the creeds had equal rights and in which the church was only entitled to provide religious teachers." Such and other expressions of opinion led to several School authority disciplinary proceedings against Fickert. Ultimately, the proceedings ended with Fickert's pay cut.

Fickert's final politicization came when the Lower Austrian provincial parliament decided in October 1888 to withdraw the right to vote in the provincial parliament again for tax-paying women. She took part in the protest of the Association of Teachers in Austria, and collected signatures against it with her like-minded people. From this point on, she became one of the champions for universal, equal and direct suffrage for men as well as women. Fickert remained politically active, but never joined a political party himself.

In addition to the Association of Teachers in Austria, Auguste Fickert was actively involved in the Central Association of Teachers in Vienna (from 1898) and in the Workers' Education Association (from 1900). She also wrote articles on women's issues for domestic and foreign magazines.

Auguste Fickert as a women's rights activist

Fickert is one of the pioneers of the women's movement in Austria. She was the representative of the radical wing of the bourgeois women's movement. Her care was not only for the academics, but she was also committed to the simplest workers, such as the housemaids.

In addition to the right to vote for women, she campaigned for the reform of marriage and family law and the admission of women to higher education. She called for social rights for all women, regardless of whether they were employed or not. She also fought against prostitution and all forms of discrimination against women . Klaus and Wischermann describe Fickert's stance on gender equality, which they viewed as fundamentally different, as follows: “Since women and men form two opposing sex characters and therefore the contribution of both would be needed to shape a new society, a fundamental renewal could only be achieved if women were socially, economically, politically and legally equal to men ”.

Founding of the General Austrian Women's Association

Auguste Fickert founded the General Austrian Women's Association (AÖFV) together with Rosa Mayreder and Marie Lang in 1893 . Initially, the application to found the association was rejected, as the association's statutes stated that the goal was to advocate women's civil rights. Since membership in political associations was forbidden for women at that time, the founding was only approved after all political tendencies had been eliminated. On January 28th, 1893, the constituent assembly of the association took place in the meeting room of the old Viennese town hall. The association was the central life work of Auguste Fickert, in which she was involved throughout her life. Fickert took over the presidency in 1897 with great energy and designed the AÖFV entirely according to their ideas. She recruited young, employed and enthusiastic women who were given important positions in the club's management. The number of club members fluctuated between 200 and 300.

The aim of the association was to support women in various matters. In 1895 Fickert set up the first legal protection office for women in Austria. The institution was supposed to offer women advice and action in "all disputes arising from social, business, marital and extramarital affairs", said Flich. In addition, Fickert created the organization of state officials, which should serve to improve the poor economic and social conditions of this professional group. Together with Mayreder and Lang, Fickert founded the monthly documents of women , after which she published the magazine Neues Frauenleben .

Memorial plaque to Auguste Fickert (Heimhof)

Her last major life's work was the construction of a cooperative house in which single women got inexpensive rooms and meals. The Heimhof was the first kitchen house of its kind. It consisted of separate rooms for the women, a common central kitchen and a library. Fickert did not live to see her work completed. The Heimhof was opened in October 1911. The 55-year-old Auguste Fickert died on June 9, 1910 in the Wällischhof sanatorium in Maria Enzersdorf.

Honors

  • In 1929 the sculptor Franz Seifert created a memorial for the women's rights activist. This is now in the Türkenschanzpark in Währing and contains the inscription: “Full of courage and energy, she offered her life to high ideals”.
Sculpture by Franz Seifert in the Türkenschanzpark

reception

Auguste Fickert was a very well known person in her lifetime. Through her fight against grievances in society, she won many friends and colleagues, but also many enemies. So the opinions about Fickert were disputed. She was once described as extraordinarily brave and determined, but then again as careless or even immoral. Both opinion representatives agree that Auguste Fickert had its own individuality, with its great advantages and small weaknesses. Hacker writes:

“With Auguste […] a female leader dies, a concept and idea still controversial; With her, a politically and privately controversial actor dies, an autocrat perhaps, a figure of power certainly, a beloved last but not least. "

The closing verses of a poem "To Auguste Fickert", which was written and published by an unknown party, also speak about this great woman:

“I know it well, the friends weeping quietly, The birds sang, the sun's warm glow Brings you into the grave no new desire to be. But when a helpless woman steps over it, the ground shakes from injustice, heavy step, you feel it: you left us too soon "

Journalistic work

Honorary grave in the Neustift cemetery
  • The right of women. Organ for modern women's movements.

Auguste Fickert worked as an editor for the supplement Das Recht der Frau. Organ for modern women's movements in the Volksstimme from 1893 to 1896. From 1896 only narrow columns by her appeared in the main part of the paper.

  • The women's movement

Fickert briefly published club news in the Berlin magazine Die Frauenbewegung .

  • Documents of women

The women's documents were published in 1899 as the organ of the association. Together with Mayreder and Lang, Fickert founded the democratically progressive monthly, but after a short time there were disagreements between the editors. As a result, the magazine was discontinued and Lang left the AÖFV.

  • The new woman's life

From 1902 Fickert published the club magazine Das neue Frauenleben . She designed the magazine according to her ideas and also wrote articles herself.

literature

  • Elisabeth Klaus, Ulla Wischermann: Journalists. A story in biographies and texts 1848-1990. LIT Verlag, Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3643504166
  • Renate Fllich: The Auguste Fickert case - a teacher makes headlines . In: Wiener Geschichtsblätter, 45/1, 1990, pp. 1-24.
  • Hanna Hacker : Who will win? Who is losing? Who is stepping out of the shadows? Power struggles and relationship structures after the death of the “great feminist” Auguste Fickert (1910). In: L'Homme , 7/1, 1996, pp. 97-106, ISBN 978-3205994923
  • Dora Leon: Auguste Fickert . In: Frauenbilder from Austria: a collection of twelve essays, Obelisk Verlag, Vienna 1955, pp. 51–65.
  • Hanna Hacker: Fickert, Auguste (1855-1910) . In: Francisca de Haan u. a. A biographical dictionary of women's movements and feminisms. Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries. CEU press, Budapest 2006, pp. 131-134, ISBN 978-9637326394
  • Karola Auering: "Dear Fraulein" The letters from Stefanie Kummer (1868-1942) to Auguste Fickert (1855-1910) from approx. 1891-1907. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna 1994
  • Margarete Fichna:  Fickert, Auguste. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 135 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Auguste Fickert  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Klaus / Wischermann 2013, p. 109
  2. ↑ Flich 1990, p. 10
  3. ↑ a b c Hacker 2006, p. 131
  4. ↑ Leon 1995, p. 54
  5. ↑ Flich 1990, p. 1
  6. ↑ Flich 1990, p. 21
  7. ↑ Flich 1990, p. 2
  8. ↑ Flich 1990, p. 4
  9. ^ Democracy Center Vienna n.d., p. O. P.
  10. ↑ a b c d ARIADNE Project o. J., S. o. S.
  11. ↑ a b c d Klaus / Wischermann 2013, p. 110
  12. ↑ a b c Flich 1990, p. 3
  13. ↑ a b c d Web Lexicon of the Viennese Social Democracy n.d., p. O. P.
  14. ↑ a b Auering 1994, p. 61
  15. ↑ Hacker 1996, p. 97
  16. ↑ Hacker 1996, p. 98
  17. ↑ Leon 1995, p. 63
personal data
SURNAME Fuck it, Auguste
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian women's rights activist, social reformer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1855
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH June 9, 1910
Place of death Maria Enzersdorf