Joy Adamson

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Joy Adamson , actually Friederike Victoria Adamson (born January 20, 1910 in Troppau , Austria-Hungary ; died January 3, 1980 in the Shaba National Reserve in Kenya ) was a British-Austrian naturalist, painter and writer who was born through her book Frei. A lioness in two worlds (original title: Born Free ) became known, in which she described the raising of the lioness Elsa .

Childhood and youth

Born as Friederike Victoria Gessner in Troppau , she was the daughter of the kuk senior building officer Victor Gessner. The mother's family owned extensive estates in what would later become Czechoslovakia . After her parents divorced in 1922, the girl grew up with her maternal grandmother in Vienna . The artistically gifted girl first studied piano at the music academy, later she practiced sculpture and metalwork and was intensively involved in photography and tailoring and also took singing lessons. After the death of her father, she began to study psychology , anatomy and medicine .

Adult life

From 1935 she was married to Viktor von Klarwill and, among other things, considering his Jewish origins and the threat of National Socialism, she considered emigrating to Africa with him . After a miscarriage in 1937, she went to Mombasa to recuperate on her own and planned to assess Kenya as a possible exile .

On the crossing she fell in love with the Swiss botanist and explorer Peter Bally, who lived in Nairobi , and divorced on her return to Austria in order to marry Bally in 1938. He gave her the nickname Joy because he found her first name too complicated and he didn't like her nickname Fifi . It also piqued her interest in botany. She became a botanist and illustrated books on the flora of East Africa. In March 1938 the two traveled to Africa again. After four years the marriage was divorced by mutual consent and in 1944 Joy married George Adamson in Nairobi, an Indian-born British man of Irish descent whom she had met in 1941 and who was in charge of a game reserve. She was married to him until the end of her life, although she separated from him in 1970. At his side, she began collecting and portraying fossils, reptiles and insects.

Her grandmother died shortly after the end of the Second World War . This plunged her into severe depression, which she had treated in London. While in Europe, she made preparations for an exhibition of her flower paintings at the Royal Horticultural Society in London. The extremely successful exhibition was awarded the Grenfell Gold Medal.

In 1949, the artist was commissioned by the Kenyan government to paint twenty of the local tribes.

In 1956, George brought home three lion cubs whose mother he had previously shot because she had attacked and killed several people. The animals were raised by the Adamsons in the house. However, after six months it turned out that it was impossible to keep all three now almost fully grown lions. The two larger ones were then sold to the Rotterdam Zoo. Elsa , the youngest, stayed with her human foster parents. When the animal was two years old, Elsa's slow acclimatization to an independent life in the wild began. During their time together, Joy carefully recorded the fate of the young lioness. She then used these documents for her book Born Free. A lioness in two worlds ( Born Free ) which has been translated into 33 languages. Almost all of the net profit was left to the animal welfare organization Elsa Wild Animal Appeal . Elsa briefly returned to the Adamsons with three boys a short time after her final release.

Joy wrote a second book, Elsa the Lioness and Her Cubs . Elsa's story was born as Frei - Queen of the Wilderness in 1965 , a sequel followed in 1972 ( Living free , German: Drei Strolche in der Wildnis , directed by Jack Couffer ) and a TV series in 1974.

Adamson drew and photographed the animals and plants of Africa, but also the indigenous population and their living conditions. Many of her paintings have been exhibited in the Nairobi Museum. Following the habits of the lions, she also studied the habits of the cheetahs and leopards .

Adamson, who had meanwhile accepted British citizenship , was awarded the “Cross of Honor for Science and Art” in 1977 by the Austrian ambassador to Kenya .

On January 3, 1980, Adamson went on an evening hike from their camp in Shaba, but never returned from there. The next day she was found dead by her colleague Peter Morson. At first, based on their wounds, it was suspected that lions attacked and killed them. However, during the autopsy, human negligence was found. On February 4, Paul Nakware Ekai, an employee she had fired, confessed to murder. Ekai was sentenced to life in prison on October 28 the following year. Only because of his minority at the time of the murder was the judge waived a death sentence by hanging.

Her third husband, George Adamson, who survived her by nine years, also died violently: he was shot in a shootout by Somali poachers in 1989.

In Opava , at Na Rybnicku 48 ( Teichgasse ), a memorial plaque placed next to the house gate by the local nature conservation association commemorates her: "The world-famous conservationist, painter and writer Friederike Gessner was born here on January 20, 1910."

Fonts

Lioness Elsa

  • Born free. A lioness in two worlds . With letters from George Adamson. Hamburg 1960
  • The lioness Elsa and her cubs . Berlin 1962
  • Forever free. Elsa's lion children find a new home . Frankfurt / M. - Berlin - Vienna 1962

Other works

  • The spotted sphinx . Hamburg 1970
  • Farewell to Pippa . Hamburg 1974
  • The leopard Penny . Berlin 1981

Award

literature

  • Dietmar Griser: You are a big name at home. Amalthea Publishing House
  • Margit Franz: The cultural mediator Joy Adamson in Kenya , in: Margit Franz, Heimo Halbrainer (Ed.): Going east - going south: Austrian exile in Asia and Africa . Graz: Clio, 2014 ISBN 978-3-902542-34-2 , pp. 264-274

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Report suggests Joy Adamson murdered . Rome News-Tribune, January 7, 1980
  2. ↑ The Venus crater Adamson in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature of the IAU (WGPSN) / USGS (English)
personal data
SURNAME Adamson, Joy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Adamson, Friederike Victoria (real name); Gessner, Friederike Victoria (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-Austrian naturalist and painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 20, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Opava , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH January 3, 1980
Place of death Shaba National Reserve , Kenya