Jeanne de Vietinghoff

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Jeanne de Vietinghoff, approx. 1905–1910

Jeanne Celine Emma Baronne de Vietinghoff , née Bricou (born December 31, 1875 in Schaerbeek , today a part of Brussels ; †  June 15, 1926 in Pully near Lausanne ) was a French writer .

Life

Jeanne de Vietinghoff was the daughter of Alexis Bricou, a merchant of sponges and chamois in Brussels and then in Schaerbeek (Brussels). The mother Emma Storm de Grave came from a Dutch patrician family . Jeanne went to the Catholic monastery school "Couvent des Dames du Sacré-Coeur de Jette-Saint-Pierre " in a Brussels suburb as a Protestant external student , where she made friends with Fernande Cartier de Marchienne , later de Crayencour . After a tragically ending engagement to the Swedish Count Sten Lewenhaupt , she sought salvation and consolation in prayer and religion. In 1902 she married the young Baltic Baron Conrad von Vietinghoff . Both were united by a deep mutual human appreciation and a common sense of art, ethics and religion. The marriage had two sons: the younger Alexis, who died relatively early, and the painter Egon von Vietinghoff .

From 1902 (?) - 1907 the family lived in Paris, from 1907 to 1913 in Wiesbaden, from 1913 to 1916 in Geneva and from 1916 in Zurich. In 1922 she received Swiss citizenship because Conrad, as a Russian subject, had become virtually stateless as a result of the Russian Revolution . For 25 years, Jeanne ran a large house as a meeting place for intellectual stimulation and artistic exchange. They were friends with the Nobel Prize laureates Maurice Maeterlinck and Romain Rolland as well as with the writer Guy de Pourtalès and with the musicians Pablo Casals and Carl Schuricht . The family often traveled to their relatives in the Baltic States , Holland and Germany or went on vacation trips to Italy, Austria and Switzerland. Jeanne is the author of philosophically colored works, the best known of which appeared in 1910 under the title L'Intelligence du Bien and was translated into three languages ​​(German 1919 The Wisdom of the Good ). Jeanne died of liver cancer when she was only 50 years old .

Furthermore, she acted as godmother for the later writer Marguerite Yourcenar , with whose mother she was close friends. Jeanne de Vietinghoff was the idol of this writer, which is already documented in her early little works: Seven poems for a dead woman (1927/28, 1956, 1984), In memory of Diotima and The new Eurydice (1931). Jeanne also inspired the writer Yourcenar in several novels, but not in the sense of biographies, but with a lot of literary freedom. Jeanne's marriage to Conrad von Vietinghoff is the template for Yourcenar's novel Alexis, or the vain fight (1929, German 1956). She herself appears in Yourcenar's work in various female figures, most clearly as Plotina in the fictional memoirs of Emperor Hadrian (French 1951, German 1953 I tamed the she-wolf ) and as Valentina in Anna, sorror ... (1981, German 2003 ).

Works

The first four books that follow are psychological-philosophical considerations about life, the essence of the soul, the chances of human crises, the importance of spiritual development and the divine dimension of existence. She consequently developed the perspective of a woman of unshakable inner strength and formulated values ​​that are worth living for. The fifth is a novel with autobiographical features, which is generally considered less successful. The sixth was posthumously compiled from texts from her estate.

  1. Impressions d'Ame. Paris 1909.
  2. L'Intelligence du Bien. Paris 1910.
  3. La Liberté intérieure. Paris 1912.
  4. Au Seuil d'un monde nouveau. Geneva 1921.
  5. L'Autre devoir - Histoire d'une âme. Geneva 1924.
  6. Sur l'Art de vivre. Paris 1927. (posthumous)

Translations of "L'intelligence du Bien"

  • German: The wisdom of the good. Zurich 1919.
  • English: The Understanding of Good - Thoughts on Some of Life's Higher Issues. London / New York 1921.
  • English reprint: The Understanding of Good: Thoughts on Some of Life's Higher Issues , with an introduction by Christine Mary McGinley, Gleam of Light Press, LLC, Lakeland, Michigan, USA, 2016, ISBN 978-0-9972204-0-7
  • Dutch: De Wijsheid van het Hart. Zeist 1925.

literature

  • Christine Mary McGinley: The Words of a Woman - A literary mosaic. New York 1999.
  • Michèle Goslar : Marguerite Yourcenar et les von Vietinghoff. éd. Cidmy, Brussels 2013, ISBN 2-9600248-9-3 .

grades

  1. ↑ Listes électorales de Schaerbeek, année 1868 , Schaerbeek, imprimerie de H. Vandenhoute, rue de la Poste, 166, blz. 6-7: " Bricou (Alexis-Pierre-Joseph), négociant, rue du Progrès, 121, né en 1824, à Bruxelles ". And also: Moniteur Belge , 1873, pp. 1–3: " M. Alexis Bricou, négociant, demeurant à Schaerbeek, agissant pour lui-même en nom personnel etc ... ". Due to a lack of inquiries, he is referred to as an architect in biographies about Marguerite Yourcenar, e. B. Michèle Goslar Yourcenar. Biography , Brussels, 1998, p. 78: " Son mari, architecte, a alors cinquante et un ans ". This false statement was first published in 1959 in the Genealogical Manual of the Nobility : Hans Friedrich v. Ehrenkrook (chief editor), Genealogical Handbook of the Nobility , CA Starke, vol. 21, 1959, p. 459: " Conrad Adalbert Egon Baron v. Vietinghoff, * Salisburg December 17, 1870, + Zurich January 11, 1957; x the Hague April 17, 1902 Jeanne Bricou, * Schaerbeek near Brussels December 31, 1875 , + Pully b. Lausanne June 15, 1926, T (ochter) d (es) architects Alexis B (ricou) in Brussels and Emma Storm de Grave ". Egon von Vietinghoff, Jeanne's son, gave the wrong information to the German Aristocratic Archives .
  2. ↑ H. TARLIER, Almanac du commerce et de l'industrie , Brussels, 1857, p. 11: " Bricou-Koch (A.) négociant en éponges et peaux de chamois. Nouveau Marché aux Grains, 9 ".

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Vietinghoff, Jeanne de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vietinghoff, Jeanne Celine Emma de; Bricou, Jeanne (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian-Swiss writer
DATE OF BIRTH December 31, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Schaerbeek
DATE OF DEATH June 15, 1926
Place of death Pully near Lausanne