Henriette Roland Holst

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Henriëtte Goverdine Anna Roland Holst (née van der Schalk ) (born December 24, 1869 in Noordwijk ; † November 21, 1952 in Amsterdam ) was a Dutch poet and socialist and communist politician. From 1930 she turned to religious-socialist ideas .

Henriëtte Roland Holst

Life

Henriette van der Schalk was born into a wealthy family of lawyers. Her parents, Theodoor Willem van der Schalk and Anna Ida van der Schalk-van der Hoeven, raised her in a Christian and liberal spirit. Already in her youth she had contact with poets like Albert Verwey and wanted to write herself from an early age. After the accidental death of her father and sister, she met the artist Rik Roland Holst in 1892 , whom she married in 1896. Her first volume of poetry, " Sonnetten en verzen in terzinen geschreven ", was received positively.

The Roland Holst couple showed an early interest in the ideas of socialism. Both joined the Social Democratic Workers' Party of the Netherlands in 1897, a predecessor organization of the Partij van de Arbeid . Henriëtte Roland Holst was very involved in the party until 1909. She appeared as a speaker, gave courses, held a position on the party executive committee, wrote for social democratic newspapers and also supported the party financially. She was in contact with Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky, among others . In the Netherlands she worked with Anton Pannekoek and Herman Gorter . In 1907 she gave a keynote address at the International Socialist Youth Conference in Stuttgart on the subject of “socialist education for young people”.

Many of her political writings have been translated. The translations into Russian were particularly numerous . First in German in 1905 she wrote the article “General Strike and Social Democracy”. She translated Die Internationale into Dutch . The politically influenced poems ( De nieuwe geboort 1903), which were written during this creative phase, were cautiously commented on by the critics.

Within the party, Henriëtte Roland Holst finally belonged to the left opposition. Unlike others, she did not resign from the party in 1909. It was not until 1912 that she left the party without joining any other organization.

It was only during the First World War that she became politically active again and founded the "Revolutionary Socialist Association". As the representative of the Netherlands, she signed the Zimmerwald Manifesto in 1915 . Under her leadership, the Revolutionary Socialist Association joined the Social Democratic Party in 1916. This organization was called the Communist Party of Holland since 1918. Roland Holst was enthusiastic about the Russian Revolution and became head of the editorial department of the magazine De Communistische Gids ("The Communist Leader").

In addition, she continued to publish poems that were less political than in the past. The volume Verzonken Grenz ("Sunken Borders"), published in 1918, was shaped by mysticism. The band received a positive response from the critics.

In 1927 she left the communist party without distancing herself from its goals. Since 1930 she turned to religious-socialist ideas and in 1934 published Tusschen tijd en eeuwigheid ("Between Time and Eternity").

During the Second World War she published illegal writings and spoke out against colonialism . She was a recognized literary and political figure in the last few years of her life.

Publications

Poetry

  • Sonnetten en Verzen in Terzinen , Scheltema en Holkemas Boekhandel, Amsterdam 1896.
  • Het Jeugdwerk (1884 to 1892). Published by Richard Roland Holst, 1969.

politics

  • De groote spoorwegstaking, de vakbeweging en de SDAP . The Hague 1903.
  • Algemeene werkstaking en sociaaldemocratie . Rotterdam 1906.
  • De strijdmiddelen of the social revolution . Amsterdam 1918.
  • De daden the Bolsheviks . Amsterdam 1919.
  • Verslag van het Derde International Communist Congres . 1921.

literature

  • Elsbeth Etty: Liefde is heel het leven niet, Henriette Roland Holst 1869−1952 . Balans, Amsterdam 1997, ISBN 90-5018-503-7 (and other editions).
  • Herman Gorter: Henriette Roland-Holst . Querido, Amsterdam 1933.
  • Remco Ekkers: Liefde as levenswet. Henriette Roland Holst in Ventspils . De Hondsrug Pers, Groningen 2012, ISBN 978-90-8733-014-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Carolien Boon, Ger Harmsen: Schalk, Henriette Goverdine Anna van der . In: Biografisch Woordenboek van het Socialisme en de Arbeidersbewegung in Nederland (BWSA), Vol. 5 (1992), pp. 241-256.
  2. An overview of her works, for reference in Dutch, accessed on March 23, 2010