Christiane Ritter (author)
Christiane Ritter , née Christiane Knoll , (born July 13, 1897 in Karlsbad , † December 29, 2000 in Vienna ) was an Austrian painter and author.
Life
Ritter's great-grandfather was the founder of the porcelain manufacturer Carl Knoll in Fischern near Karlsbad, her father a well-known lawyer and his mother a versatile artist. At first she wanted to pursue a career as a dancer, but then she became interested in the visual arts. Her foundations as a painter and illustrator were laid at various schools in Munich, Vienna and Berlin.
At the age of 20 she married Hermann Ritter (1891–1968), who had just received his ship officer license . A short time later, their daughter Karin was born. Ritter spent a year in a lonely hut on Svalbard , far from civilization. She landed in Ny-Ålesund by ship in the summer of 1934 and, accompanied by her husband, went to Gråhuken , the northernmost point of Andrée-Land , in the north of Spitsbergen between Woodfjorden and Wijdefjorden . Here she spent the winter largely on her own, while her husband often hunted for days, and stayed until the summer of 1935. Ritter's book about her time on Svalbard, A woman experiences the polar night , which also includes some of her pictures from it Time reproduced has been translated into seven languages. It is one of the standard works of German-language polar literature and is still published today. Jürgen Domian mentions the book in his novel Demons .
While until this time expeditions and other stays in the Arctic were mostly only described as extremely deprived and exhausting, Ritter managed to describe the value of Arctic nature for people and their psyche. She comprehensibly reports on her own changes during her stay in the far north.
After the Second World War, the family moved to Leoben in Styria . In 1985 Christiane Ritter moved to Vienna. Here she died at the age of 103 and was buried in the Grinzinger Friedhof (group 28, row 3, number 8).
Works
- A woman experiences the polar night. 1st edition. Propylaea Publishing House, Berlin 1938.
- A woman experiences the polar night. 22nd edition. Ullstein, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-548-37284-6 .
- Foreign language editions: 1952 Paris, 1954 New York, 1956 London, 1964 Mexico, 1966 Bratislava, 1967 Sofia, 2018 Amsterdam
literature
- Henner Reitmeier: A must without a toilet. Christiane Ritter's much published report from the polar night , in: Die Brücke , No. 167, Sept.-Dec. 2014, p. 122
Web links
- Book Description
- Life story with photos ( Memento from August 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- over Woodfjord and Gråhuken
- virtual tour through the “knight's hut” at Gråhuken
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gütersloh 2017. p. 137.
- ↑ The article can also be read online with a slightly different introduction
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Ritter, Christiane |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Knoll, Christiane (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian painter and author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 13, 1897 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Carlsbad |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 29, 2000 |
| Place of death | Vienna |