Djavidan Hanum

Djavidan Hanum, ca.1909

Zubeida Djavidan Hanum , also Scheherezade Hanoum (born June 15, 1877 as May Török von Szendrő in Philadelphia ; † August 5, 1968 in Graz ; pseudonyms: Bajan Djavidan ; Inschaallah ; Djanan Djavidan ) was an Austro-Hungarian writer , painter and pianist , who married the Viceroy of Egypt and achieved fame at times after unveiling the "Houses of Bliss" with her book Harem in 1930 . Later, however, Princess Djavidan Hanum was forgotten.

USA, Austria - birth, childhood, youth, travel

Djavidan Hanum was born on June 15, 1877 in Philadelphia as May Countess Török von Szendrő. Her Hungarian father, Josef Török, was an officer in the k. & k. Army, her Austrian mother, Sophie, was a born cousin of the Lily. Soon after May's birth, her parents separated, and so Theo Puskás became her "second father". Theodor Puskás von Ditró was Thomas Alva Edison's European representative until 1889 and presented a further developed version of the telephone during the 1878 World Exhibition in Paris . In the following years, Puskas drove the construction of telephone networks in Europe's metropolises at high speed; and so he and his family lived alternately in Paris, Budapest, Vienna, London, on his estates in Hungary or at Waasen Castle, south of Graz. May grew up as a child, appropriately urbane and multilingual: besides Hungarian and German, she spoke French and English, Italian and Russian. Her musical talent on the piano was shown very early on.

May's older brother, Josef Török (* 1873), was born at the Vienna Theresianum , the k. & k. Military academy , educated; When May visited him alone there in 1890, at the age of only thirteen, she met a fellow student of her brother, the Turkish-Egyptian Prince Abbas Hilmi .

Egypt - In the harem

Abbas II Hilmi

In 1900, May was 23, she and Abbas Hilmi met for the second time, this time in Paris. This encounter was associated with unforeseen consequences for both May and Abbas, who had succeeded his late father, Mohammed Tewfik Pascha , as Khedive Abbas II, to the Egyptian throne in 1892, at the age of just 18 . May accepted Abbas Hilmi's invitation to come to Egypt and was to live in his harem for the next thirteen years or so. At first the couple could only marry in secret, because the Walde-Hanum , the mother of the Khedive, was against marriage to an "infidel". May, brought up as a child without religious affiliation, now accepted Islam as a faith and called himself Zubeida and from then on Djavidan. The official wedding could not take place until February 28, 1910, and May Countess Török von Szendrö became Hanum-Effendi , the wife of the Lord and Turkish viceroy of Egypt.

What at first glance looked like a fairy tale from the Arabian Nights , on closer inspection, turned out to be a life full of sharp contrasts: on the one hand, greatest wealth and infinite display of splendor, on the other hand, the strictest religious and courtly ceremonies, according to which women were excluded from official life. It is considered one of the great merits of Djavidan that in her book Harem , published in 1930, she dealt with many prejudices and false images of the "houses of bliss", as the haramliks , the harems, were also called; This was not only possible for her on the basis of her own views, but above all as a result of diligent studies of Islam, history and language. However much Djavidan had prepared for her life at the Egyptian court, at heart she had remained an enlightened and emancipated European. To make matters worse, the marriage between her and Abbas Hilmi had remained childless; Abbas Hilmi's liaison with the Parisian dancer Andrée de Lusange (Georgette Mesny), who later blamed the former faithful and Hilmi advisor Clemens von Arvay for the fact that Princess Djavidan left the Khedives (... ) and that his most loyal friends and most devoted employees turned away from him.

Vienna - In the art scene

In 1913, after the divorce from Abbas Hilmi, Djavidan Hanum returned to Austria, settled in Vienna and founded a “beauty institute”, which she financed with the proceeds from the sale of jewelery, clothing and silver. The clientele consisted of women from the “highest” and “best” society in Vienna. Djavidan's contacts to artists such as the writer Robert Musil , the pianist Eugen d'Albert , the poet Gerhart Hauptmann , the draftsman Olaf Gulbransson or the author couple Otto Kaus and Gina Kaus also fall during this period . Djavidan took piano lessons from Eugen d'Albert; In a later recommendation letter from the composer and pianist it says: Princess Djavidan Hanum studied with me for a long time in Vienna and her piano playing has always interested me. I only recently heard them again and I have made great progress. I can recommend her in every way, she is an excellent pianist today.

Berlin - radio, film, espionage

Djavidan Hanum lived in Berlin from around 1920. She wrote radio plays for radio , composed and gave piano concerts, wrote short stories and published in various daily newspapers, such as the Vossische Zeitung , the Berliner Tageblatt and the Neue Berliner Zeitung . She achieved her greatest success in 1930 with the book Harem ; 37 reviews were published. Harem was soon translated into several languages ​​and Gerhart Hauptmann wrote to her about the work: Gracious Princess! Thank you for sending me your book, parts of which I knew. It shows you, and very emphatically, as a writer of standing.

In 1921, in Danzig , Djavidan Hanum had another encounter that was to give her life another decisive turn. While visiting a friend's estate, she met Simon "Senia" Kulatschkoff, a tsarist officer who had deserted from the Belarusian army and was employed on the estate as a farm worker. Djavidan noticed Kulatschkoff because he was very emaciated and spoke hardly any German. She knew a little Russian and eventually took him to Berlin, where she financed his vocal training and helped him to practice his original profession, acting again.

In Berlin, Djavidan Hanum and Simon Kulatschkoff also came into contact with film; Djavidan wrote in a newspaper article: ... I have already filmed as an extra, that is, as a noble extra. I have Parisian toilets, and when it comes to social scenes, I'm at the forefront. I also always get into the machine. I'll give the make-up lady ten marks, you have to do something for art! She makes me up for a full two hours. The eyelids green, which looks softer than brown. Everyone else has to wait, of course. (...) After the last film, “The Lust of the Siberian Nights”, I was invited to supper by the director, the unit manager and the assistant director. Not together ... separately from each other. (...) Everyone poured out their hearts to me. But I don't want to talk about that - I know that discretion is the first prerequisite for a career in film ...

Simon Kulatschkoff was also able to establish himself as a singer and actor in Berlin; in the silent film The Tsarevich produced in 1928, he played the Tsar's adjutant. In Berlin's upper class society at that time it was en vogue to deal with spiritualism and clairvoyance, and so Kulatschkoff was also active as a graphologist and astrologer ; Occasionally he is said to have even helped the police to find people who had disappeared.

Princess Djavidan and Simon Kulatschkoff lived together from then on, albeit in separate apartments. They frequented the highest levels of society, in which, however, mediocre figures sometimes mingled; So the two were often guests in the house of the Polish major Jerzy Sosnowski , who was famous for his elegant parties and honorable guests. However, he was later exposed and arrested as a high-profile spy . With the help of two bribed or blackmailed secretaries in the Reichswehr Ministry , nota bene as early as 1934, he had obtained the German deployment plan against Poland. On the evening of the raid, of all places, Djavidan Hanum was not among Sosnowski's guests.

Vienna, Innsbruck, Paris - writing, interpreting, public relations

Between 1936/38 and 1945 Princess Djavidan and Senia Kulatschkoff lived again in Vienna. Here Djavidan Hanum wrote again for radio ( RAVAG ) and for magazines. In 1942 she published her second book, Gülzar - Der Rosengarten , a volume with stories from the Orient, in the Zinnen-Verlag in Munich . When the Red Army approached Vienna shortly before the end of the war, the couple reacted by fleeing to Innsbruck, since Simon Kulatschkoff, as a former tsarist officer, could not expect anything good from the victorious communist troops. On April 24, 1945 Djavidan reported to the police in Innsbruck under the name "Bajan Djavidan"; as a profession she put "writer" on record. After the end of the war, from mid-July 1945, she was employed as an interpreter by the French military government in Tyrol. From 1946 to 1951 some articles and short stories by her appeared in the Tiroler Tageszeitung , in the Heimat-Rundschau, in the Neue Front and in the Mannheimer Tagblatt, which she signed with "Zubeida Djavidan", "Princess Zubeida Djavidan" or "Djavidan Hanum" .

Driven by increasing economic worries, especially since after 1944, with the death of Abbas Hilmi, all appanage from Egypt had dried up, as well as on the advice of friends, Djavidan Hanum sought contact with Guido Orlando, the then "King of Advertising" in Paris, a colorful advertising expert and image consultants, whose clientele included crowned heads, worn-out film stars, publicity-addicted millionaires and lackluster politicians. He was able to help everyone, as his campaigns always caused a tremendous "noise" in the forest of leaves. And so in 1951 the international press rolled the life story of Djavidan Hanum under titles such as “I was queen on the Nile” or “Favorite woman of the Khedive seeks position as a cook” or “Film role for Egypt's dethroned queen” - not without truth and poetry or to mix less well dosed - again on; to the pleasure of the readers, to the pleasure of the editors, and to the satisfaction of Guido Orlando, whose fee was of course due in advance.

In a weekly newsreel by the Gaumont company from the summer of 1951 there was a short 35-second report whose “drama” bears Guido Orlando's signature all too clearly: When queens dream of becoming stars. This anonymous stroller lives in a very modest Parisian hotel , leads a mediocre, hopeless life and has to take care of every move in everyday life; now and then she remembers her glamorous youth: Princess Djavidan was Queen of Egypt for seventeen [sic!] years. Today she has nothing left but the glorious past, but maybe she still has a bright future ahead of her, because an impresario wants to make test shots with her: The Queen of Egypt plays the Queen of Sheba - what a program!

In London preparations were being made for the film Queen for a Day , in which Gloria Swanson had accepted the lead ; the story was about a cleaning lady who gets into a competition and is "accidentally" chosen to play the role of a queen. Guido Orlando immediately called the producer of the film, and the next day it was in the newspapers that Gloria Swanson was to be replaced by the "real queen" Djavidan Hanum. However, nothing came of the test recordings because the princess did not receive a visa for England. After the hype subsided there was little left other than a few royalties; and so Djavidan and Kulatschkoff went back to Innsbruck, where they lived until March 1952.

Styria, Graz - painting, piano playing, old age, death

Hainfeld Castle

Djavidan now moved to relatives, descendants of the orientalist Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall , at Hainfeld Castle in Styria , where she and Kulatschkoff lived for two years before moving to Graz and - as always - living in separate apartments. The princess began painting in her old days; Her tiny apartment, as reported by contemporary witnesses, was full of pictures over and over - right down to the toilet . She also took up her piano again and practiced vehemently, occasionally at night, sometimes to the annoyance of her neighbors, whom Kulatschkoff then had to appease.

When Princess Djavidan Hanum was buried on August 8, 1968, three days after her death, in the St. Leonhard Cemetery in Graz , only a small group of mourners followed her coffin, including students from the Orient who hurried to join them from the nearby university had been asked because no one else knew how to say prayers according to Islamic rite. Her unadorned tombstone only bears her name - no dates, no location.

On the wall of the house at Wittekweg 7, in 2003 the then cultural capital Graz put up a plaque with the following words as part of a project to honor unknown women of Graz:

In honor of Djavidan Hanum (1877-1968)

artist

Born in the USA, of Hungarian nobility,

she married an Egyptian prince.

She freed herself from constraints and assigned roles,

she wrote and made music, she composed and painted,

was a world citizen in Graz.

Works

Memories:

• Harem. Memories of the former wife of the Khedive of Egypt Princess Djavidan Hanum , Verlag für Kulturpolitik, Berlin 1930
• Harem. Memories of the former wife of the Khedive of Egypt Princess Djavidan Hanum , Verlag Vis-à-vis, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-924040-30-3

New edition:

• Harem. Memories of Princess Djavidan Hanum, former wife of the Khedive of Egypt , Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-423-11342-1

Fairy tale:

• Gülzar. Der Rosengarten , Zinnen-Verlag, Munich 1942 (under Zubeida Djavidan)

Radio plays:

• The big seven (under the pseudonym "Inschaallah"), undated
• Back to Paradise (under the pseudonym "Inschaallah"), undated
• Soul and body (under the pseudonym "Inschaallah"), undated
• Mysterious Orient (under the pseudonym "Inschaallah"), undated
• The voice of love (lost)
• Weighing (under the pseudonym "Inschaallah"), undated

Film manuscript:

• A child in the puppet theater of life (by Princess Djavidan Hanoum and Senia Kulatschkoff), undated

Theater play (mystery play):

• The incapacitated death (missing; mentioned in a letter from Djavidan Hanum to Margarethe Hauptmann, August 1, 1949)

Painting:

• More than one hundred and fifty paintings, drawings and sketches, mostly with oriental motifs (Cologne, private property; made between ~ 1954 and ~ 1967, mostly 70 cm × 50 cm, enamel colors on pressboard)

Composition:

• An orchestral work (lost), approx. 1918/19

Exhibitions

Group exhibitions:

• Amsterdam, Kunstzaal Magdalena Sothmannì, October 28 - November 19, 1957
• Graz, Thalia (Club of Working Women), last week of May 1962

Solo exhibitions:

• Graz, Landesmuseum Joanneum, February 1st - 22nd, 1959
• Vienna, Austrian State Printing Office, Visions on the Nile , February 1968
• Cologne, 1983 (posthumous)

Literature, radio, film

• Karl Corino : Epilogue to the paperback edition, in: Harem. Memories of Princess Djavidan Hanum, former wife of the Khedive of Egypt , Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1991, p. 249 ff., ISBN 3-423-11342-1
• Samir Raafat: Queen for a Day , in: Al-Ahram Weekly , Cairo, October 6, 1994 [2]
• Heinz Trenczak: The Queen of the Nile , in: ZeitZeichen , WDR Cologne, 3rd radio program, August 5, 2003 (on the 35th anniversary of death)
• Walter Grond : Three Men , Novellas, Haymon Verlag, Innsbruck 2004
• Heinz Trenczak : Queen for a Day , portrait of Djavidan Hanum, in: Quart , Heft für Kultur Tirol 10/07, Haymon Verlag, Innsbruck 2007, pp. 110 ff., ISBN 978-3-85218-548-4
• Djavidan - Queen For A Day , video collage by Heinz Trenczak & Arthur Summereder, Austria 2010/11
• Imre Török : The Queen of Egypt in Berlin , Pop Verlag, Ludwigsburg, 2017

estate

• Part of Djavidan Hanum's estate is in the Robert Musil Literature Museum in Klagenfurt [3]
• The majority of the paintings from the estate are in Cologne (privately owned)
• The largest part of the estate is in Bruck an der Mur (privately owned)
• Small parts of the estate are in Graz (privately owned)

Web links

• Literature by and about Djavidan Hanum in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ * 17. January 1848
2. ↑ * 27. November 1851
3. ↑ Cf. From the secrets of the royal courts. Abbas Hilmi, the last khedive. From the memories of his advisor Clemens von Arvay ; in: National-Zeitung, May 3, 1928 (1st supplement of the 8 o'clock evening paper to No. 103)
4. ^ Certificate of divorce dated August 7, 1913
5. ↑ Hanum . Institute for Beauty Care, Vienna I., Tegetthoffstraße 4; Advertisement in: "Illustrated magazine for the noble world", Vienna, November 18, 1917
6. ↑ Musil mentioned May (first phonetically: Meh ) in the diaries and portrayed her in 1919/20 under "Time Figures". Karl Corino points out that May Török's traits both in Musil's posse Vinzenz and the girlfriend of important men and in the figure of Bonadea in his man without qualities . Compare Karl Corino: Robert Musil. A biography ; Pp. 675, 874, 663, 673-675, 847-849, 1668, 1713, 1889. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2003, ISBN 3-498-00891-9
7. ↑ Cf. Gina Kaus: And what a life ... with love and literature, theater and film (autobiography), Albrecht Knaus Verlag, Hamburg 1979, p. 81; ISBN 3-8135-0711-4
8. ↑ Cf. Princess Zubeida of Egypt: Experiences with Eugen d'Albert , in: Die Neue Front, May 13, 1949
9. ↑ of July 23, 1928
10. ^ Letter of October 25, 1930
11. ↑ * 10. April 1893, Orel; † 5. February 1978, Graz
12. ↑ I get a role ... from Djavidan Hanoum, in: Neue Berliner Zeitung / Das 12 Uhr Blatt; January 15, 1929, No. 12, 11th year
13. ↑ Production: Hegewald-Film, Berlin; Directed by J. and L. Fleck
14. ↑ Renate von Natzmer and Benita von Falkenhayn
15. ↑ February 27, 1934
16. ↑ Cf. Michael Graf Soltikow: Rittmeister Sosnowski , Verlag der Stern Bücher, first edition, Hamburg 1954, p. 285; A novel based on the motives of the espionage affair
17. ↑ Maria-Theresien-Strasse No. 25
18. ^ ID from the French military government dated July 13, 1945
19. ↑ Abbas II. Hilmi (* 1874) last lived as a banker in Geneva
20. ↑ See Der Stern from May 27, 1951
21. ↑ See Münchner Illustrierte, Nos. 20 - 24, year 1951
22. ^ Point de Vue , Images du Monde; No. 147, March 29, 1951
23. ^ New York Herald Tribune, March 31, 1951; by Art Buchwald and Robert Yoakum
24. ↑ "Quand les pure REVENT de devenir vedettes", July 14, 1951
25. ↑ Cf. Gerhard Kurzmann, Ottfried Hafner: Djanan Djavidan in: Tot in Graz. Living Austrian history in the St. Leonhard cemetery ; Ed .: Cultural Office of the City of Graz, undated [1990]
26. ↑ See Woment! 20 + 03 places [1]
27. ↑ Writing by Princess Djavidan Hanum and her sister Thea Ronay; with 4 picture panels
28. ↑ Vol. 2 of the series Literature and Reality, Ed .: Barbara Schmidt; with a foreword by Cornelia Stabenow
29. ↑ Date of broadcast Berliner Funkstunde : September 25, 1933
30. ↑ Transmission dates Berliner Funkstunde : June 25, 1935, June 10, 1937
31. ^ Radio Vienna; Broadcast: May 7, 1936
32. ↑ Mentioned in: Mask & Palette No. 10, p. 210, Leipzig o. J.
33. ↑ Imre Török | Pop Verlag Ludwigsburg. Retrieved on July 30, 2017 (German).