Julia Mark

Julia Mark , married Graepel (born March 18, 1796 in Bamberg , † 1864 or 1865 in Munich ), was the archetype of numerous female figures in ETA Hoffmann 's works .

Life

Julia Mark, a daughter of the consul Philipp Nathan Mark and his wife Franziska, who was also his niece; her brother was Moritz August Mark, her sister was called Wilhelmine, one of her uncles was Dr. Adalbert Friedrich Marcus , another the Kommerzienrat Friedrich Nathan Mark, whose widow Juliana or Juliane married the baron Stephan von Stengel .

Many members of the originally Jewish Marcus family, who came from Gotha , had converted to Christianity; According to Peter Härtling , they probably no longer spelled “Marcus”, “to protect against gossip and resentment”, but shortened the name. The family also came from Wilhelm , Paul and Franz Marc .

When Hoffmann came to Bamberg in 1808, Julia Mark had already lost her father. Hoffmann, who found it difficult to gain a foothold in the city, was hired at the beginning of 1809 as a music teacher for the two daughters of the widowed consul Mark, of whom Julia was the elder. His diary, in which Julia Mark is referred to as " Käthchen " or "Ktch" or "Kthch" for short, bears witness to Hoffmann's love for his pupil. To protect himself from his wife Michalina, known as Mischa, Hoffmann sometimes wrote in Greek , for example on February 16, 1811, when he feared that the affair would lead to "disaster". On February 28 of the same year, he only saw the option of either shooting himself or becoming "great". In January 1812 he revealed his love for the young girl. Julia Mark's mother apparently did not go unnoticed. She then probably pushed ahead with the planned marriage between her daughter and the Hamburg merchant's son Johann Gerhard Graepel, who came to Bamberg to visit in March of the same year. Not only Hoffmann was disgusted by Graepel; According to a description of a third person, Graepel was, "in spite of his youth, the image of an old man, an emaciated human model, the marks of carnal desires lay on the forehead, eyes and cheeks, and the imbecility of his mind shone from every word spoken." Hoffmann was jealous Graepel, but noted on April 25, 1812 that Julia Mark had confided in him that she would “never be happy”.

Weissenstein Castle

On September 6, 1812, a trip to Pommersfelden to Weißenstein Castle took place, in which Hoffmann also took part. Graepel got drunk and finally fell to the ground, whereupon Hoffmann is said to have said to his companion Carl Friedrich Kunz , clearly audible to all bystanders : “You see, there lies the Sch-dog! We drank like him, something like that doesn't happen to us! That can only happen to such a mean, prosaic guy! ”Julia Mark's mother then refused Hoffmann's further visits to her house. However, Hoffmann saw the young woman again later. The wedding took place on December 13, 1812, and a week later the young couple traveled to Hamburg, not without Hoffmann saying goodbye to the newly married couple. Hoffmann left Bamberg on April 21, 1813.

The marriage between Julia Mark and Johann Gerhard Graepel was divorced after a few years and Graepel died soon after. Julia Mark entered into a second marriage in 1821, with her cousin Ludwig Marc, a son of Adalbert Friedrich Marks. After his death she moved to Munich.

Aftermath

Hoffmann's feelings were noted and commented on by various contemporaries; Dr. Friedrich Speyer, a cousin of Julia Mark, spoke of "passion", Carl Friedrich Kunz, who was also present on the trip to Pommersfelden, explained drastically: "A good dose of sensuality had taken place in the house of his imagination." While Kunz maintained "Julia Mark had shown" not the least bit of concession "and Hoffmann's" madness "was at best to be pitied, Mark later spoke of the" influence "Hoffmann had on her and that her" anxious mind "had turned to it .

On March 18, 1813, Kunz concluded a contract with Hoffmann to publish the fantasy pieces in Callot's manner .

Julia Mark left numerous traces in Hoffmann's work. Traits of her person can be found in Cäcilia im Berganza , which also contains a sonnet that Hoffmann had originally directed to Julia Mark, as well as a depiction of the wedding night in which the consummation of the marriage is prevented by a calf bite from Berganza, in Julie in Adventure a New Year's Eve , Clara in Sandman , Aurelie in The Elixirs of the Devil and Julia in Kater Murr , possibly also in Rettel in Master Johannes Wacht . The lovers of these characters, especially Kreisler, usually suffer to the point of madness. "Thanks to the» divine irony «Hoffmann knew how to transform the love affair, which had been distilled to the point of madness and suicidal thoughts, into poetic energies, as he confided in his diary," wrote RB Essig in a commentary on the 200th anniversary of Hoffmann's arrival in Bamberg, in which he mocked the kitsch with which the city celebrated this anniversary. Among other things, butterfly-shaped Danish pastries were sold, in memory of the butterflies with which Hoffmann decorated the diary pages on which Julia Mark was mentioned.

Lange Strasse 13, Bamberg

At the house at Lange Straße 13 in Bamberg a plaque commemorates Julia Mark. The text says:

“House of the golden lion lived
in this house until 20. XII. 1812
Juliana Marc.
ETA Hoffmann student.
Archetype of his most beautiful female figures.
F. u. VV Bbg. 1923 ".

Peter Härtling traced the love story between Hoffmann and Julia Mark in his novel Hoffmann or The Diverse Love ; Rainer Lewandowski, Michalina's point of view in his piece Gemahl Meiniges - Michalina Hoffmann about ETA

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Julia Mark at www.bamberga.de
2. ↑ ^{a b c} E.TA Hoffmann in Bamberg on etahoffmann.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de
3. Jump up ↑ Peter Härtling, Hoffmann, or The diverse love. Eine Romanze , Munich (dtv) 2006, ISBN 978-3-423134330 , p. 114
4. ↑ You Xie, Juliana Marc in Bamberg on www.bamberger-onlinezeitung.de
5. ↑ RB Essig, "So that the fire burns more fun" , in: Die Zeit , September 18, 2008 ( digitized version of the first part )
6. ↑ Adama Ulrich, He came 200 years ago and is still there , March 4, 2008 on www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de