Hedwig Rossi

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Hedwig Rossi (born May 29, 1891 in Vienna , † October 25, 1985 in Old Tappan , New Jersey , United States ) was an Austrian writer and playwright .

Life

Hedwig Rossi was the daughter of the engineer from Mošovce at the Nordbahn Berthold Braun and the singer Hermine Braun, geb. Altmann. Hermine Braun was a singer and read her own poems and novels in the Freundeskreis. Hedwig grew up with three siblings in the Hietzing district of Vienna . In 1902 the mother died of tuberculosis. After primary school, Hedwig attended the Eugenie Schwarzwald high school and then completed a vocal course at the music college. However, she did not become a singer, but studied philosophy with Adolph Stöhr at the University of Vienna and received her doctorate in 1922 with the dissertation Influence of Darwinism on Ethics . She had also started writing poetry and dramas. She also tried to set up war nurseries. In 1915 she married the psychologist Oswald Rossi (1887–1978) and in 1917 her son Harald Rossi was born, who was to become a professor of radiology in the USA .

Hedwig Rossi published poems a. a. in Der Merker , Die Waage and in the Arbeiter-Zeitung and wrote dramas and plays for the stage. Most of her autobiographical childhood stories appeared in the Arbeiter-Zeitung , which she summarized in 1949 in the volume "Das Mädchen Kaja". She worked in the literature department at RAVAG . She also wrote radio plays for the radio.

In December 1932, Hedwig Rossi took part in a competition run by the Arbeiter-Zeitung for the best short story. The first prize was not awarded because none of the submitted works fully met the requirements. The second prize went to Veza Canetti and another three prizes went to Else Feldmann , Rudolf Felmayer and Hedwig Rossi. Hedwig Rossi was a member of the Social Democratic Labor Party and from 1933 of the Association of Socialist Writers , of which she was the deputy secretary. In 1935 she received the Julius Reich Prize for her Voltaire play Der Fall Calas , which was premiered in April 1937 at the Volkstheater in Vienna.

Oswald Rossi left Austria in December 1938 and fled to the USA. In March 1939, Hedwig Rossi and her son managed to escape to Great Britain with the help of Aktion Gildemeester , where they found accommodation with a family in Bristol . A few months later the family was able to reunite in upstate New York , where Oswald Rossi was a lecturer in modern languages ​​at Hobart College in Geneva .

From 1942 Hedwig Rossi was able to perform her exiled drama No Final Defeat (about Volaire's struggle for human rights) and Vienna Legend in the theater workshop of Johns Hopkins University . From 1946 she taught together with her husband at the state Ferris State College in Big Rapids in the US state of Michigan . She taught dramatic speech, German and literature. She also took over the management of the Ferris Little Theater , later Ferris Playhouse . In addition, she published short stories again in Austria, for example in the Arbeiter-Zeitung or in the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten . In 1956, the couple Rossi moved to South Nyack in New York State .

When her piece My Father's Mantle was performed in Guildford , Great Britain, in 1960 , Hedwig Rossi received an award from the Art Council of Great Britain. She was awarded first prize by the American Educational Theater Association for her theater work with students . After the death of her husband in 1978, Hedwig Rossi began work on an extensive, autobiographical novel in two parts. The first part, Consummation of a Marriage, describes life in Vienna until 1938, the exile. The second part, The Assignement of Love, describes life in exile.

Your extensive estate, which u. a. contains extensive correspondence, life documents, diaries, photos of scenes and numerous published and unpublished manuscripts, is located in the exile archive of the German Library in Frankfurt am Main.

Works

Pieces

piece Emergence First publication in print World premiere of the first version
Seven years and a day. Artist drama 1924 at the Vienna City Theater
The legend of the Danube Canal. A game in three acts. 1934 Reproduced by machine. First performed in 1946 as “Vienna Legend” at the Ferris Playhouse in Big Rapids, Michigan
No final defeat. A play in three acts Distributed by the Manuscript Play Project, Baylor University Theater, 1958
My Father's Mantle. A play in three acts (eight scenes). New York: Theron W. Raines 1958
Love in A Cupboard. (Play about Kierkegaard.) Produced by the BBC in 1967 with Glenda Jackson in the lead role

prose

  • The girl Kaja. (A Girl Called Kaja.) Vienna, 1949

Awards

literature

  • Susanne Blumesberger: Handbook of the Austrian authors of books for children and young people. Volume 2: L-Z . Böhlau Verlag Vienna Cologne Weimar 2014. 974f. ISBN 978-3-205-78552-1

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Rossi, Hedwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rossi, Heddy; Rossi, Heddy Elizabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 29, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH October 25, 1985
Place of death Old Tappan , New Jersey , United States