Malwida from Meysenbug

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Malwida from Meysenbug

Malwida von Meysenbug , born as Malwida Rivalier (born October 28, 1816 in Kassel ; died April 26, 1903 in Rome ), was a German writer who was also active politically and as a promoter of writers and artists.

Life

Amelie Malwida Wilhelmina Tamina Rivalier in 1816 as the ninth of ten children of the Hessian court official Carl Rivalier born (1779-1847), who in 1825 called increase due from Meysenbug was raised to the hereditary peerage Kurhessian, which also Malwida to the rank of Baroness rose. The Baden diplomat and politician Wilhelm Rivalier von Meysenbug was her brother.

Due to political unrest in Kurhessen , the mother moved with Malwida and her younger sister to Detmold in 1832 . Through her acquaintance with the theology student and pastor's son Theodor Althaus , who became her lover, she broke away from her conservative character in the following years and became a representative of Enlightenment ideas. In particular, she should deal with Christianity throughout her life; in the 1840s she dealt with the philosophy of Hegel and the materialistic Young Hegelians . She vigorously advocated women's emancipation and thus came into contact with socialist circles. Eventually she supported the March Revolution of 1848, which finally brought her at odds with her rather reactionary family. With the help of some friends, she also managed to take part as a spectator in the pre-parliament in Frankfurt's Paulskirche .

From 1850, von Meysenbug studied at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences for women in order to become a teacher. After Theodor Althaus' early death in 1852 , she emigrated to London , also to avoid the threat of arrest . There she met Gottfried and Johanna Kinkel , Carl Schurz , Therese Pulszky and Alexander Herzen , among others . Herz, with whom she lived, introduced her to other personalities in exile in London; among them were Giuseppe Mazzini , Ferdinand Freiligrath and Giuseppe Garibaldi . She took on the upbringing of his daughters Olga (1844–1912) and Natalie (1844–1936) for the widower Alexander Herzen ; she developed a strong maternal affection for the former in particular.

In 1860/61 Malwida von Meysenbug lived with Olga in Paris , the then cultural center of Europe. She was a frequent guest there with Richard Wagner , whose closest friend she was next to Marie von Schleinitz . She was also related to Charles Baudelaire and Hector Berlioz ; Through Wagner she came into contact with Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy , which she - in her own interpretation - adopted for herself.

In 1869 the first volume of the memoirs of an idealist Malwida von Meysenbugs was published anonymously , initially in French; after an extended translation, a second and third volume were published in 1875 and 1876.

Meysenbugs house in Bayreuth with a memorial plaque

As a close friend of Wagner, von Meysenbug was the maid of honor at his wedding to Cosima in 1870. At the laying of the foundation stone of the Bayreuth Festival Hall in 1872, she met Friedrich Nietzsche , whose patron and friend she became and remained. In the summer of 1873 she moved to Bayreuth .

Since 1874, at the age of 58, von Meysenbug had stayed in Italy on medical advice and did not follow Olga any further after their wedding. In the tradition of the salons of Henriette Herz or Rahel Varnhagen , for example , she often invited young artists and writers, such as Nietzsche and Paul Rée to Sorrento in 1876/1877 . Even Lou Salomé was introduced to her and Rée with Nietzsche.

The idealist von Meysenbug did not always agree with the content-related statements of her "boys", but remained friends above all with the person Nietzsche. When, in the early summer of 1888 , she reprimanded Nietzsche for his harsh words in the Wagner case - she had always remained close to Wagner - he accused her of complete incomprehension of his works and broke off contact with her. She later attributed this to Nietzsche's beginning madness.

In 1890 Malwida von Meysenbug met Romain Rolland , 50 years his junior, in Rome ; he became her last close confidante and the correspondence is testimony to a great friendship. In 1903 she died in Rome and was buried there, at her own request, without spiritual accompaniment, on the Cimitero acattolico at the Cestius pyramid .

Others

Malwida von Meysenbug was the first woman to be nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1901 .

Works

Publications during his lifetime
  • Memoirs of an Idealist (1869–1876), first edition: Mémoires d 'une idéaliste: (entre deux révolutions); 1830-1848. Georg: Genève, 1869. The German-language edition from 1876 as a microfiche edition, Saur: Munich, [1994]. Extended new edition edited by Renate Wiggershaus, 278 pages, Edition Klassikerinnen, Ulrike Helmer Verlag: Königstein / Taunus 1998, ISBN 3-89741-007-9
  • The Retirement of an Idealist (1898), The Retirement of an Idealist. Addendum to the "Memoirs of an Idealist" . 7th edition, Schuster & Loeffler: Berlin, 1906. E-edition at tredition: Hamburg 2011. ISBN 978-3-8424-2089-2
  • Individualities (1901). 2nd edition, Schuster & Loeffler: Berlin, 1902, 579 p., ( Online (in Die Decembristen (p. 435-526) Meysenbug discusses a book by Kropotkin about the Decembrists )), microfiche edition, Fischer: Erlangen, 2001.
Works from the estate
  • Mood pictures. Berlin u. a., Schuster & Loeffler, 1905
  • Heavenly and earthly love. Berlin, Leipzig: Schuster & Löffler, 1905.
  • Florence. Novel from Victorian England. Edited by Ruth Stummann-Bowert. On behalf of the Malwida von Meysenbug Society. Würzburg, Verlag Königshausen & Neumann, 2007. ISBN 9783826036972
  • In the beginning was love. Letters to her foster daughter. Munich. CH Beck'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1926
Anthologies

Selected Writings. Edited by Sabine Hering and Karl-Heinz Nickel. 278 S. Ulrike Helmer Verlag, Königstein / Taunus 2000, ISBN 3-89741-039-7 .

literature

Meysenbug tomb
Memorial plaque at the place of the birthplace in Kassel
  • Elsa Binder: Malwida von Meysenbug and Friedrich Nietzsche. The development of their friendship with special consideration of their relationship to the position of women . Revised reprint, Schutterwald / Baden: Dr. Klaus Fischer Verlag 2007. ISBN 978-3-928640-77-0
  • Katherine B. Goodman: German Women and Autobiography in the Nineteenth Century: Louise Aston, Fanny Lewald, Malwida von Meysenbug and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach . Diss. Madison 1977. Ann Arbor, Mich .: Univ. Micofilms 1979.
  • Detlef Grumbach: Malwida von Meysenbug and the Hamburg "University for Women". In: Grabbe-Jahrbuch 1992. ed. on behalf of the Grabbe Society by Werner Broer, Detlev Kopp and Michael Vogt, Bielefeld 1992, pp. 149–161.
  • Hiltrud Häntzschel :  Meysenbug, Malwida from. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , pp. 407-409 ( digitized version ).
  • Vera Leuschner / Ruth Stummann-Bowert (eds.): Malwida von Meysenbug on the 100th anniversary of death . Kassel 2003. ISBN 3-934-37768-8
  • Karl-Heinz Nickel (Ed.), Malwida von Meysenbug: Through louder magic gardens of the Armida. Results of recent research , Georg Wenderoth Verlag: Kassel 2005, ISBN 3-87013-036-9
  • Eckhart Pilick: Malwida von Meysenbug . In: Lexicon of Free Religious Persons. Pp. 107-110. Rohrbach o. J., ISBN 3-930760-11-8
  • Martin Reuter: 1848, Malwida von Meysenbug and the European history of democracy. The politics of an aristocratic democrat in the 19th century , Verlag Winfried Jenior: Kassel 1998. ISBN 3-928172-83-2
  • "Romain Rolland / Malwida v. Meysenbug - A letter exchange" with an introduction by RR: "Dankgesang", memories of Malwida. Engelhorn Verlag Stuttgart, post-war edition 1946.
  • Berta Schleicher: Malwida von Meysenbug . Brauns, Wedel 1947 (The great role models 9).
  • Christiane Schönfeld: Malwida von Meysenbug's Journey into Nachmärz. Political and Personal Emancipation in 'Eine Reise nach Ostend' (1849) , in: Christina Ujma (ed.): Ways to Modernity. Travel literature by writers from the Vormärz. Bielefeld 2009 (Forum Vormärz Research, year 2008). ISBN 978-3-89528-728-2 , pp. 93-104.
  • Carl Schurz : Memoirs up to the year 1852 . Georg Reimer, Berlin, 1911. pp. 264-265.
  • Gunther Tietz (Ed. Ume Nachw. Vers.): Malwida von Meysenbug - A Portrait , Ullstein 1985, ISBN 3-548-30175-4
  • Wulf Wülfing: On Travel Literature by Women in the Nineteenth Century: Malwida von Meysenbug . In: German Women in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. A Social and Literary History . Edited by Ruth-Ellen B. Joeres / Mary Jo Maynes. Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1986, pp. 289-304.

Web links

Commons : Malwida von Meysenbug  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Malwida von Meysenbug  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Malwida von Meysenbug in Bayreuth at geschichtswerkstatt-bayreuth.de, accessed on March 8, 2017
  2. ↑ Nomination Archive. Nominated Women. Nobelprize.org, Nobel Media AB 2014, online ; accessed August 24, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Meysenbug, Malwida from
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meysenbug, Malwida Freiin von; Meysenbug, Malvida by
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 28, 1816
PLACE OF BIRTH Kassel , Hesse
DATE OF DEATH April 26, 1903
Place of death Rome , Italy