Lu Märten

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Lu Märten (bourgeois Louise Charlotte Märten ; pseudonyms : Lucifer, Raa Bonares, Allan Loeben ; born September 24, 1879 in Charlottenburg ; † August 12, 1970 in Berlin-Steglitz ) was a German publicist , writer , art critic , socialist theorist and women's rights activist .

Life

youth

She was born the fourth child into a family of a former professional soldier and railway official and had a childhood marked by poverty and illness. All three siblings and the father died of tuberculosis between 1891 and 1905 , and their mother died a few years later. Märten suffered from chronic kidney disease, which was not operated on until 1905. Due to her weak constitution, she was temporarily excluded from attending school and so at home, with the help of her brother, acquired extensive knowledge of history, philosophy , economics , ethnology and art history. The confrontation with illness and death she experienced at a young age shaped her and her way of writing.

As a teenager she became a member of the Apostolic Congregation in Berlin.

Political career

In 1903 she joined the SPD because the election manifesto came closest to what Lu Märten was striving for: complete equality between women and men. By her younger brother and her fiance William Repsold (sculptor and graphic) they came to the land reform movement and joined the National-Social Association of Friedrich Naumann at. Lu Marten's first articles were published in his weekly Die Hilfe . Influenced by Naumann's social ethics , Lu Märten wrote about art production, the division of labor, machine work and their connections.

At that time Märten was working on the lyrical pieces "Meine Liedsprache" (1906) and the roman clef "Torso, Das Buch eines Kinder" (1909). Lu Märten got involved and became a member of an artistic and political group to which other young editors of the weekly newspaper Die Hilfe , such as Theodor Heuss , also belonged. Lu Märten also wrote feuilletons , but these political-critical texts were only published by magazines that dealt with culture from below (the working class ), e.g. B. in Adelheid Popps Wiener Arbeiterinnen-Zeitung and Clara Zetkins Die Gleichheit , but Clara Zetkin refused to publish any more of her articles.

In addition to the principles of women's policy, Lu Märten adopted the demands ( emancipation of women) of the bourgeois women's movement of the time. As a playwright, she achieved a provocative effect with the one-act play "Bergarbeiter". This play was performed in 1911 during a strike in Germany and in 1930 by the revolutionary Shanghai Art Theater (in Chinese translation). With a book on the sociology of art ("The Economic Situation of Artists", 1914) and a pamphlet on workers' art education ("Aesthetics and Workers", 1914, unpublished), Märten developed a program for the unionization of visual artists and the everyday use of art by the working class. Lu Märten was involved in the “Economic Associations of Germany's Visual Artists” (1915), the “Cooperative of Visual Artists” (1919) and the “German Art Association” (1920). Friendships developed with Käthe Kollwitz , Johannes R. Becher , Raoul Hausmann , Hannah Höch , Regina Ullmann and Martin Wackernagel .

In 1918 Lu Märten worked for the Russian news agency (ROSTA) in Berlin alongside Sophie Liebknecht and Eugen Leviné . Since 1920, when she also became a member of the KPD , she worked in the journalism of this party with contributions to art and literature. In 1922 Märten was commissioned by the Russian state publisher to fundamentally develop her ideas on Marxist aesthetics . With "Nature and Change of Forms / Arts, Results of Historical-Materialistic Investigations" (1924, 1927), she created a production aesthetic against a universal historical background with the thesis that artistic work , which had become independent since the industrial revolution, should become one again, following the example of the medieval workshop conduct a uniform manufacturing process (on a machine basis). This would create “forms” that would make an independent “art” superfluous. The KPD rejected this procedure, however, while it was used in the literary theory of Czech poetism ( Bedřich Václavek ) and in the Bauhaus (an art school founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar).

Book burning on May 10, 1933 in Berlin on Opernplatz

In 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power, many books were burned on May 10th on Opernplatz in Berlin (as in other German cities) , including the works of Lu Märten. She was a member of the Reichsschrifttumskammer, but did not publish anything worth mentioning and was then expelled in 1941. From 1936 it was very difficult for Lu Märten to publish her socially critical texts. She had no choice but to write a few film scripts. She also took the opportunity to finish her two-volume novel “Yali”, which, however, remained unpublished. She received a small income from renting out her room and from the support of Wilhelm Repsold. Despite the difficult circumstances, she remains true to her socio-political attitude. In 1940 she started writing again. Occasionally she worked at the Prussian State Library and wrote industrial chronicles (company and production history).

After the Second World War

After 1945 she tried to build on previous successes, but did not succeed. Their criticisms are considered out of date (frowned upon in the West, unorthodox in the East) and are therefore no longer relevant. While she was working in the Bund for the democratic renewal of Germany, she reissued her Marxist aesthetic for the younger generation in 1949. Lu Märten addressed them (the young generation) with an epic, simply narrated didactic play, "Mayor Czech and his daughter, memories of March 1844". Lu Märten lived in West Berlin and participated in the cultural life of East Berlin until 1961. From 1949 she received an honorary pension from there in honor of her work.

Most recently she worked as a lecturer and helped expand the Steglitz public library .

Works

  • 1987 Women and Film Issues 42–47 (Rotbuch Verlag)
  • 1982 forms for everyday life. Writings, essays, lectures. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden ( Fundus series 79)
  • 1972 Fat Otto
  • 1949 Nature and change of forms and arts (Verlag Werden und Wirken)
  • 1948 Mayor Czech and his daughter: Memories of Vormärz (1844) , (Altberliner Verlag L. Groszer)
  • 1924 Miners: Play in one act , 2nd edition (Verlag Taifun)
  • 1920 Historical-materialistic about the nature and change of the arts: (a pragmatic introduction) , (Verlag der Jugendinternationale)
  • 1914 Die Künstlerin (New edition 2001 by Chryssoula Kambas in Aisthesis-Verlag ISBN 3895282987 )
  • 1913 100 silhouettes (Verlag Beyer)
  • 1909 Torso, a child's book (Piper Verlag)
  • 1907 My song languages: Poems (Hilfe Verlag)

Quotes

At the turn of the century, there were hardly any female art critics who dared to write a different opinion than that of their male colleagues. Lu Märten expressed her opinion at the time with the following quote:

  • “All problems of today's woman as an artist and worker are social problems, which is why they only require social solutions - everything else of 'nature' and 'determination' (...) is chatter. What do we know about our destiny or nature's intention. "

Another quote clearly reflects her socio-political conviction and that she always strived for equal rights for women in society:

  • “I emphasize that I purposely no longer get involved in the question or assertion whether or not women are ever capable of acts of art - genius, etc. Rather, I assume that they are, and examine the inhibitions of this spiritual and social expansion - of being ingenious. "

Others

The "Lu Märten Association for Women's Research in Art and Cultural Studies" has existed since 1987.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Socialist art theory: Lu Märten (1879–1970). Retrieved August 15, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Women and Film, editions 42–47, Rotbuch Verlag, 1987, p. 68
  3. ↑ Lu Märten quoted in: Valeska Doll, Suzanne Valadon: (1865: 1938), Herbert Utz Verlag: München 2001, ISBN 3-8316-0036-8 , p. 11.
  4. ↑ Lu Märten quoted in: The artist as worker (at) society. Lu Martens contemporary reflections on the economy of nameless genius Review by Verena Kuni, No. 6, 2002, online version
  5. ^ The artist as a worker (at) society. Lu Martens contemporary considerations on the economy of nameless genius, review, Verena Kuni, 2002 online version
personal data
SURNAME Märten, Lu
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bonares, Ra (pseudonym); Lucifer (pseudonym); Bonares, Raa (pseudonym); Loeben, Allan (pseudonym); Märten, Louise Charlotte (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publicist, writer, art critic, socialist theorist and women's rights activist
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlottenburg
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1970
Place of death Berlin-Steglitz