Else Jerusalem

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Else Jerusalem 1911

Else Jerusalem , née Elsa Kotányi , married Widakowich (born November 23, 1876 in Vienna , † January 20, 1943 in Buenos Aires ) was an Austrian writer and lecturer. She is considered one of the protagonists in the bourgeois women's movement around 1900.

Live and act

Cover of the first edition of "The Holy Scarab", Berlin: S. Fischer 1909, with the original, riveted cardboard slipcase and green ribbon bookmark

Elsa Kotányi came from a wealthy Jewish family. From 1893 she studied for four years as a guest student (extraordinary guest student ) at the University of Vienna . In 1901 she married Alfred Jerusalem in the City Temple in Vienna. She cultivated good acquaintances in the vicinity of the “Young Vienna”, for example with Hermann Bahr , Jakob Wassermann , Felix Salten and later with Arthur Schnitzler .

She became known for writings on subjects that were considered daring at the time, such as prostitution (collection of novels on the cross and comedy of the senses ) and sex education ( give us the truth , 1902), in which she also submitted reform proposals. Her main work, the novel The Holy Skarab , which is set in a Viennese brothel ( published for the first time in 1909 by S. Fischer Verlag ), attracted a lot of attention when it was published as a "bad manners novel ", reached around 22 editions by 1911 and was banned by the Gestapo in 1933.

“In the Holy Scarab , she reads the riot act to bourgeois society in order to open her eyes to social grievances, and she starts with her sons, who, like many representatives of the Young Vienna, are sensitive aesthetes want to get rid of the founding fathers and yet just as little want to forego capital as they cannot shed the double standard. "

She met Viktor Widakowich (born April 8, 1880 in Vienna), a university lecturer in embryology, who had been appointed professor in Buenos Aires. Together they decided to divorce their respective spouses. After the divorce from Alfred Jerusalem on January 1, 1911, they were able to marry in the same month. Widakowich's first wife, Antonie, committed suicide in February. The couple emigrated to Argentina in 1911 and settled in Buenos Aires , where Jerusalem, in addition to their journalistic activities for South American newspapers and publishers, also carried out ethnological studies. In the future she also used Else Widakowich as the publication name.

Her last book was published in 1939 - her complete works had already been placed on the “List of harmful and undesirable literature” in 1938 - in the renowned Exil-Verlag of the Zurich publisher Emil Oprecht : “The Trinity of Human Basic Forces”. Her son Fritz Jerusalem later called himself Fritz Jensen . She died of cerebral sclerosis in Buenos Aires on January 20, 1943 .

A new edition of her long-forgotten main work The Sacred Scarab was published in October 2016 by the Viennese publisher “Das vergierter Buch”. The Graz-based Germanist Brigitte Spreitzer published it and for the first time provided an extensive afterword on the author's life and work.

Fonts

  • Venus on the cross. Three novels. Meyer, Leipzig 1899.
  • Give us the truth! A contribution to our marriage education. Seemann, Berlin / Leipzig 1902.
  • The sacred scarab. Novel. S. Fischer, Berlin 1909 (1st – 20th edition). 37-40 Edition 1926.
    • New edition, abridged, with an afterword by Marie-Elisabeth Lüders. Berlin: Blackbird 1954.
    • New edition ed. u. with an afterword by Brigitte Spreitzer: DVB Verlag, Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-9504158-3-4 .
  • English edition, abbreviated: The red house. Laurie, London 1932.
  • Stoning in Sakya. A play in 3 acts. Reiss, Berlin 1928.
  • The Trinity of Basic Human Forces. The design, Zurich [1939].

literature

  • Karin J. Jusek: A Viennese brothel novel: Else Jerusalem's “Holy Scarab”. In: Heide Dienst , Edith Saurer (ed.): "Woman does not exist for herself." Gender relations in civil society. Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-85115-123-2 , pp. 139–147.
  • Eva Borst: Above all shame. The problem of prostitution in the literary work of Else Jerusalem, Margarete Böhme and Ilse Frapan with special consideration of the morality and sexual reform movement of the turn of the century. Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1993, ISBN 3-631-46460-6 . (= Studies on German literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, 24.)
  • Brigitte Spreitzer: "I am just a piece of woman's meat" ...: the erasure of the "little thing I" in Else Kotanyi-Jerusalem. In: Textures: the Austrian modernity of women. Passagen, Vienna 1999, pp. 84–87.
  • Eva Borst: Egolessness as a paradigm of female existence: Prostitution with Margarete Böhme and Else Jerusalem. In: Karin Tebben (Ed.): German-speaking women writers of the fin de siècle. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1999, pp. 114-137.
  • Annette Kliewer: Jerusalem, Else: Venus on the Cross (1899). In: Gudrun Loster-Schneider, Gaby Pailer (eds.): Lexicon of German-language epics and drama by women authors (1730–1900). Francke, Tübingen / Basel 2006, pp. 234–235.
  • Brigitte Spreitzer: Else Jerusalem - A search for traces. In: Else Jerusalem: The holy scarab. Edited with an afterword by Brigitte Spreitzer. The forgotten book (DVB Verlag), Vienna 2016, pp. 545–608.

Web links

Wikisource: Else Jerusalem  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Else Jerusalem in the database Women in Motion 1848–1938 of the Austrian National Library
  2. ^ "Austria, Lower Austria, Vienna, registers of the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde, 1784-1911," images,  FamilySearch  (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GB2Q-9G9?cc=2028320&wc=MQB6 -4P8% 3A344266801% 2C344266802% 2C344424301: 20 May 2014), Vienna (all districts)> birth books> birth register F 1874-1877 March> image 281 of 323; Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde Wien (Jewish Community of Vienna) Municipal and Provinical Archives of Vienna, Austria.
  3. ↑ Brigitte Spreitzer: Else Jerusalem - A search for traces. In: Else Jerusalem: The holy scarab. DVB Verlag, Vienna 2016, p. 560.
  4. ↑ Baptismal Book - 01-121 | 01., Vienna - St. Stephan | Vienna, rk. Archdiocese (eastern Lower Austria and Vienna) | Austria | Matricula Online. Retrieved January 15, 2018 .
  5. ^ Austrian National Library: ANNO, Neues Wiener Journal, 1911-02-24, page 5. Accessed January 15, 2018 .
  6. ↑ a b Brigitte Spreitzer: Else Jerusalem - A search for traces. In: Else Jerusalem: The holy scarab. DVB Verlag, Vienna 2016, p. 590 f.
  7. ↑ a b Anna Steinbauer: The Scarab Book. Süddeutsche Zeitung, October 19, 2016, accessed on February 12, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Jerusalem, Else
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kotányi, Else (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 23, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH January 20, 1943
Place of death Buenos Aires