Kathinka Zitz-Halein

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Kathinka Zitz-Halein

Katharina Therese Pauline Modesta Zitz , b. Halein , called Kathinka Zitz-Halein (born November 4, 1801 in Mainz , † March 8, 1877 ibid) was a German writer. Zitz, who spent most of her life in Mainz and married the later revolutionary Franz Heinrich Zitz there , was also socially involved and in 1849 founded the "Humania Association for Patriotic Interests".

Life

Birthplace of Kathinka Zitz-Halein in the old town of Mainz (cherry orchard)

Kathinka Zitz was born as the daughter of the wealthy merchant Anton Viktor Felix Halein in the cherry orchard in Mainz . She was trained in boarding schools in Mainz and Strasbourg and discovered her talent for writing. Her first work was published anonymously in the Mainzer Zeitung at the age of sixteen .

After the death of her mother Anna Maria Kunigunde Halein née. Makowitzka on May 26, 1825 and the bankruptcy of her father, she took a job as a teacher in Darmstadt . In 1827 she worked at the Higher Daughter Institute in Kaiserslautern . She gave up the job again in 1830 because her father died that year and she had to look after her younger sister Julia Charlotte Barnabida Halein, who was 25 and died on June 13, 1833 at the age of 25.

Kathinka Halein broke off the 10-year engagement with a Prussian officer named Wild because the marriage proposal failed to materialize. Years later, on June 3, 1837, she married the wealthy lawyer and politician Franz Heinrich Zitz (1803–1877), who was two years younger than her, after she was alleged to have extinguished his vows with a suicide threat. Zitz was later one of the leaders of the revolutionary Mainz movement and a member of the Frankfurt National Assembly in the Paulskirche. In 1849 Franz Zitz had to emigrate to America for political reasons and never met Kathinka again.

In January 1844, Kathinka Zitz denounced Ludwig Kalisch , the editor responsible for the Mainz Narrhalla , with two letters to the Grand Duke in Darmstadt for "insulting crowned heads ... that strange boy is allowed to vilify and insult kings and citizens". The Narrhalla was the only publication in Mainz that appeared under the fool's garb and therefore only during the carnival campaigns in several editions with satire, parody and humor against prince frenzy and small states, censorship and snooping, but for democracy and freedom of the press. As a result of the denunciation, the newspaper was banned at the height of the campaign in February 1844, and there was no other forum for democratic activities. Kathinka Zitz confirmed her adoration of princes in 1846 by sending "fatherland poems" to the Grand Duke.

A participation of any kind in the revolutionary development can be determined for them, just as a membership in the Democratic Association, which was founded soon after the March days. The texts on this that were only written after the revolution do not go beyond the simultaneous and frequent contemporary reflections in prose and poetry of other citizens. Essentially, their relevant texts can only be written from 1850 onwards.

From 1849 onwards, many women's aid associations were established in the German Confederation . In May of this year, Humania was founded in Mainz , with Kathinka Zitz and Ludwig Bamberger's mother in charge. The aim was to support and help wounded and captured volunteer soldiers, including grants for the escape of politically convicted people. She reported on this in the magazine Der Demokratie . At the beginning of 1850, Kathinka Zitz left the association.

Over the next few years she wrote extensive essays, short stories, poems, translations, newspaper articles, short stories and novels, which she wrote under her maiden name Kathinka Halein and various pseudonyms such as Kathinka, Tina Halein, Emeline, August Enders, Johann Golder, Rosalba, Stephanie , Tina, Viola, Auguste, Emilie, Eugenie, Pauline etc. published.

With 33 other members of the Mainz Women's Aid Association, she received the Hessian Medical Cross for Nursing Activities in Mainz 1870/71 Franco-German War . The cross was a general decoration for civil service in the event of war. Sick of cataracts, she spent the last years of her life in the St. Vinzenzius pension of the Sisters of Mercy in Mainz from 1873.

Literary work

Zitz-Halein left an extensive literary work. Even in her youth she published numerous works in magazines and newspapers. Her poetry was light and cheerful at first, but already showed reflective, melancholy impulses that condensed after the failure of her marriage to Franz Zitz. The volume of poems Herbstrosen in Poetry and Prose , published in 1846, represents her lyrical work before this break. In the revolutionary years it did itself - for example in Donner and Blitz (1850) and major and minor tones. More recent poems (1859) - with free-thinking poems and prose pieces that reflect their social commitment. In the following years, however, she got more and more into financial difficulties, which she tried to combat through increased literary production. However, this did not benefit the literary quality of her works:

"As a result of her scrupulous scrupulousness in the choice of subject matter, her work was ultimately no longer valued: 'Thunder and lightning [see above] by Kathinka Zitz' became a common saying in Mainz to mark flat fiction."

- Ludwig Frankel

Her considerable literary production, mainly as commercial writing following the prevailing taste of the time, was already forgotten 15 years after her death (Mainzer Nachrichten No. 1 of 1893)

At the end of her literary work there are several works in many volumes about famous poets. In particular, there was an eleven-volume work on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ( The novel of a poet's life , 1863), the six-volume Rahel, but thirty-three years from the life of a noble woman (1864) on Rahel Varnhagen von Ense , the six-volume Heinrich Heine the song poet. A romantic life picture (about Heinrich Heine , 1864) and the work Lord Byron published in 1867 . Romantic sketches from a busy life in five volumes on the subject of George Gordon Byron's life. She published several of these biographical novels under the name K. Th. Zianitzka.

reception

  • On November 24, 1998, the city of Mainz named the path between Weihergarten and Hollagäßchen in honor of the writer Kathinka-Zitz-Weg at the suggestion of the author Marlene Hübel, Mainz, a member of Soroptimist International.
  • The German writer Arno Schmidt (1914–1979) made her the eponymous heroine of his story Tina or about immortality , in which the first-person narrator is given the opportunity to travel to a poetry lysium where famous and less famous writers are waiting to be forgotten advised to finally find their peace. The narrator starts an affair with Tina Halein.

Works (selection)

Mirror images in instructive and warning examples. Kötter, Mainz, 1861
  • Imagination blossoms and flirtations . Poems. Müller, Mainz 1826.
  • The stranger . After the French of the Viscount d'Arlincourt. 2 volumes. Schaefer, Frankfurt a. M. 1826. ( digitized first part )
  • Marion de Lorme . Drama in 5 acts, based on Hugo . Kupferberg, Mainz 1833.
  • Triboulet, or the king's court jester . Tragedy in five acts, adapted from Victor Hugoʹs Le Roi sʹamuse. Kirchheim, Mainz 1835
  • Cromwell . A tragedy in 5 acts by Victor Hugo. 2 volumes. Rieger, Stuttgart 1836.
  • Strange stories from the fairy lands . Campe, Nuremberg 1844. ( digitized volume 1 ), ( volume 2 )
  • Stories and short stories . 2 volumes. Campe, Nuremberg 1845. ( digitized volume 1 ), ( volume 2 )
  • Autumn roses in poetry and prose . Faber, Mainz 1846.
  • Variations in humorous fairy tale pictures . Von Zabern, Mainz 1849.
  • Thunder and lightning . Narrative. Von Zabern, Mainz 1850.
  • Bouquet of novels (1850)
  • If I were a king . Poem. 1850.
  • Sweet and sour . Faber, Mainz 1851.
  • New grains of sand from the Rhine . A cycle of novellas. Faber, Mainz 1852.
  • The latest grains of sand from the Rhine . A cycle of novellas. Faber, Mainz 1853.
  • Last grains of Rhine sand . A cycle of novellas. Faber, Mainz 1854. ( digitized version )
  • Champagne foam . Stories and short stories. Faber, Mainz 1854.
  • Serious and cheerful images of life . Stories. 3 volumes. Nöhring, Berlin 1854.
  • The Naiad of the Soolsprudels in Nauheim along with other novels and stories . Faber, Mainz 1854.
  • Coral Tines (1855)
  • Empress Josephine . Faber, Mainz 1855.
  • Flash in the pan . New stories. Faber, Mainz 1855.
  • Schiller's Laura, along with other stories and novels . Faber, Mainz 1855.
  • World pantheon . A festival. (Poems). Faber, Mainz 1856.
  • Contributions to popular literature . Faber, Mainz 1856.
  • Magdalene Horix or Before and during the club's time. A picture of time . Faber, Mainz 1858. ( digitized version )
  • Major and minor tones . Newer poems. Kötter, Mainz 1859
  • Mirror images in instructive and warning examples . Mainz, Faber 1861. ( digitized version )
  • Strong hand . By Gustav Aimard. From d. French broadcast. 4 volumes. Kollmann, Leipzig 1862.
  • The novel of a poet's life . (To Goethe). 11 volumes. Kollmann, Leipzig 1863.
  • Rachel or thirty-three years from a noble woman's life . 6 volumes. Kollmann, Leipzig 1864.
  • Heinrich Heine the song writer. A romantic view of life . 6 volumes. Kollmann, Leipzig 1864. ( digitized version )
  • Lord Byron . Romantic sketches from a busy life. 5 volumes. Schneider, Mannheim 1867.
  • True freedom (poems and prose) compiled and edited by Dietmar Noering, Bangert and Metzler, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-924147-21-3

literature

  • Oliver Bock: Kathinka Zitz-Halein, Life and Work - "Only what the heart teaches me, I breath out in tones" . Igel, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-89621-227-6 .
  • Ralph Erbar : Kathinka Zitz-Halein (1801–1877). A life full of disappointments. In: Susanne Kern, Petra Plättner (ed.): Women in Rheinhessen. 1816 until today. Mainz 2015, ISBN 978-3-945751-17-6 , pp. 31-36.
  • Ludwig Fränkel :  Zitz, Kath. And Franz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 45, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1900, pp. 373-379.
  • Anton Maria Keim : The girl from the cherry orchard. Kathinka Zitz . In: Mainzer Vierteljahreshefte for culture, politics, economy, history . Number 4th year 1981. Krach, Mainz, ISSN  0720-5945 , pp. 113-116.
  • Johanna Kinkel , Gottfried Kinkel , Rupprecht Leppla: Johanna and Gottfried Kinkel's letters to Kathinka Zitz 1849–1861 . Bonner Heimat- und Geschichtsverein 1958. (From: Bonner Geschichtsblätter . 12.1958).
  • Helmut Lehr: Kathinka Zitz - a misunderstanding? In: Mainzer Vierteljahreshefte. I / 2010.
  • Micaela Mecocci: Kathinka Zitz (1801–1877). Memories from the life of the Mainz writer and patriot . Ed. Erasmus, Mainz 1998, ISBN 3-925131-47-7 .
  • Dietmar Noering (Ed.): Kathinka Zitz -Tina Halein-: True freedom. Poems and prose. Bangert & Metzler, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-924147-21-3 .
  • Stanley Zucker: Kathinka Zitz-Halein and female civic activism in mid-nineteenth-century Germany . Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale 1991, ISBN 0-8093-1674-9 .

Web links

Commons : Kathinka Zitz-Halein  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Kathinka Zitz-Halein  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Ludwig Bamberger , Memories , Berlin 1899; Fränkel, in: ADB, vol. 45, p. 374.
  2. ↑ See Heim und Welt , entertainment paper for the Mainzer Tageszeitung from 1924, No. 13 and Ludwig Kalisch, in: Narrhalla v. February 1844, pp. 81-83.
  3. ↑ House archives of the Grand Ducal Cabinet D 12 No. 50/65..
  4. ↑ Kathinka Zitz (1801-1877)
  5. ^ "Mainzer Anzeiger" of June 7, 1872
  6. ^ Fränkel, in: ADB, Vol. 45, p. 377.
personal data
SURNAME Zitz-Halein, Kathinka
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Halein, Kathinka Therese Pauline Modesta (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and women's rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1801
PLACE OF BIRTH Mainz
DATE OF DEATH March 8, 1877
Place of death Mainz