Marie Amelie by Godin

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Marie Amelie Julie Anna Freiin von Godin (born March 7, 1882 in Munich ; † February 22, 1956 there , sometimes also Amalia Maria ) was a Bavarian writer , women's rights activist , translator and Albania researcher .

Family grave of the Godins in the Munich North Cemetery , where Marie Freiin von Godin is listed at the bottom

Life

youth

Amalie Marie Godin was brought up strictly and in the Catholic tradition. She received home tuition and later attended a convent school. She was headstrong and showed little interest in female virtues , and wanted to  study in Zurich , where women were already admitted to study at that time. Her parents Julie (née von Eichthal ) and the Secret Counselor Bernhard Karl Gottfried Baron Godin, however, did not allow this - Godin lived secluded at home and began to work as a writer. From 1902 she began  to write for the newspapers Kölnische Volkszeitung and Daily Rundschau .

Friendship with Albania

After Godin showed mental health problems in 1905, she and her younger brother Reinhard were sent on a longer trip that took them to Greece and the Ottoman Empire  . On this trip she met an Albanian nobleman whom she  visited in his native Albania in 1908 . During this stay she met Ekrem Bey Vlora ( Albanian  Eqrem Bej Vlora ; * 1885 in Vlora, † 1964 in Vienna), with whom she was a close friend throughout her life. Ekrem Bey Vlora, nephew of Ismail Qemali , belongs to a rich and influential Muslim family from the Vlora region  and went to school in Vienna. The love for him and the country -  Egon Berger-Waldenegg attributed a rush to Albania to her - led Godin to spend six months in Albania. According to the Munich Albania researcher Peter Bartl, it was a love affair. However, the two were not allowed to marry because they belonged to different religions. In his memoirs , Ekrem Bey Vlora hardly writes anything about Godin. The few mentions are usually preceded by the adjective  love .

"… Our dear, precious friend, the Baroness Amelie von Godin, who lived in my house…"

- Ekrem Bey Vlora

Influenced by several Albanian freedom fighters with whom she came into contact, she campaigned for Albanian independence, and later informed about the country's poverty and other needs. In the spring of 1914, when the Muslim peasants rose up in Albania during the reign of Wilhelm zu Wied , she helped out as a medic in the military hospital in Durrës . Godin, who had been in poor health since her youngest childhood, overexerted herself so much that she suffered from it for years.

Godin processed her impressions from Albania and the culture of the country in numerous books and newspaper articles. Various of her novels also had Albania as the setting and were illustrated with her drawings from Albania. In 1930 she published the first part of a German-Albanian dictionary , on which she is said to have worked for around two decades. In April of the same year she visited Franciscans in Shkodra , where she was a guest. They asked them for a translation into German of the Albanian common law Kanun des Lek Dukagjini . Together with Ekrem Bey Vlora and with Franciscan monks, she then worked for several months in Shkodra and, from 1938, systematically on the translation of the extensive body of law, which first appeared posthumously in Albanian in 1933. The translation, enriched by comparisons with other versions of the Kanun, could only be published after the Second World War - spread over several issues of the "Zeitschrift für Comparative Jurisprudence". Both works represent the fundamentals of Albania research.

Activities in the women's association and protection association of German writers

Godin - unmarried and often on trips abroad - led a life that was very untypical for the times. She repeatedly reported on Albania and her travels in lectures. But she also had other scientifically active women - for example the ethnologist, zoologist, botanist and travel writer Therese Princess of Bavaria , who had stayed longer in Albania in 1890 - as guests for appearances and came into contact with many important personalities from politics and the church , Culture and nobility.

Godin was close friends with the women's rights activist Ellen Ammann , who founded the first Catholic station mission and the Munich branch of the Catholic Women's Association. Godin was also involved in the Catholic Women’s Association from the beginning, and was particularly committed to the scientific education of girls and women. After the First World War , she distributed food to the impoverished middle class. Godin later belonged to the board of directors of the Association of German Writers , which fought against state interference in literary creation.

Activity under National Socialist rule

Soon after Ellen Amman's death in November 1932, Godin published her biography. This was  immediately put on the index by the National Socialists  , as Ammann had helped to thwart the Hitler putsch in 1923. In addition to her friendship with Ellen Ammann, she was also monitored by the Nazis because she was a great-great-granddaughter of the Jew Aron Elias Seligmann and a cousin of Michael Freiherr von Godin , who as the chief police officer also played a key role in thwarting the Hitler coup. Michael von Godin fled to  Switzerland after he was released from protective custody  in the Dachau concentration camp . Marie Amelie von Godin did not deny her Jewish ancestry and, as a staunch Catholic, also helped Jewish acquaintances. On her probably last trip to Albania in 1939, she accompanied a Jewish woman to the safe Balkan country. Since she was considered a Jewish "half-breed" II degree according to the Nuremberg Laws , she needed a special permit in order to become a member of the Reich Chamber of Literature and to continue writing. In these years, however, she only published homeland novels that were well received. On the other hand, she was banned from publications on Albanian topics: it was suspected that she was supporting the Albanian resistance fighters and from then on monitored them closely.

Hard-working helper in post-war Germany

After World War II, Godin helped reorganize the Catholic Women's Association and looked after refugees, which she found difficult due to her poor health. She worked as a literary translator and interpreter. She followed the developments in socialist Albania - especially the persecution of the Catholic clergy - critically from a distance. In several books she described the persecution of Catholics in Albania by the communists.

Godin died at the age of 76 after a long illness.

Works

  • To forget...? Novel from the recent history of Albania (1963)
  • The Three Kolaj - Dangerous Paths in Rebellious Albania (1961)
  • The Unterlehner and his son (1957)
  • The Raid (1955)
  • The Shot in the Kampenwald (1955)
  • The great fear - novel with drawings by Johannes Wohlfahrt (1955)
  • Actor (1941)
  • Outlawed by the village (1940)
  • Gjoka and the rebels. Historical novel from Albania today (1939)
  • The distiller from Berchtesgaden (1937)
  • On the path of the apostles through beautiful Albania (1936)
  • The Örtl farmer's wife (1936)
  • The Great Nureddin (1936)
  • Ellen Ammann (1933)
  • The Sacrifice (1930)
  • Dictionary of the Albanian and German languages. Part I. (1930)
  • Dictionary of the Albanian and German languages. Part II. (1930)
  • Saint Paul (1927)
  • Jakub Schara's "Bessa" (1921)
  • Liberation. Novel from Modern Albania (1920)
  • Our Brother Cain (1919)
  • Enemies (1917)
  • From the new Albania: political and cultural-historical sketches (1914)
  • From the land of bondage (1913)
  • Old palaces (1910)
  • Benedetta. Novel of a Hot Love (1909)
Translations

literature

  • Manfred Berger :  Godin, Amalie (Amelie) Marie (Maria) Julie Anna Freiin von. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 21, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-110-3 , Sp. 489-505.
  • G. Grimm: Godin, Marie Amelie Freiin von , in: Biographisches Lexikon zur Geschichte Südosteuropas . Vol. 2. Munich 1976, p. 62 f.
  • Jessica-Hamann-Anetzberger: Maria Amelie von Godin's "Our Brother Cain" (1919). Fratricide and class struggle during the Munich Soviet Republic . In: Ulrich Kittstein, Regine Zeller (ed.): Peace, freedom, bread! Novels about the German November Revolution . Rodopi, Amsterdam et al. 2009, ISBN 978-90-420-2710-7 , pp. 59–76 ( Amsterdam contributions to recent German studies 71).
  • Klaus W. Jonas: Thomas Mann and Marie Amelie von Godin. Attempt a documentation . In: Literature in Bavaria. Quarterly magazine for literature, literary criticism and literary studies . tape 73 , 2003, ISSN  0178-6857 , p. 28-34 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Manfred Berger :  Godin, Amalie (Amelie) Marie (Maria) Julie Anna Freiin von. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 21, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-110-3 , Sp. 489-505.
  2. ^ Texts and Documents of Albanian History: Ekrem Bey Vlora: The Ruling Families of Albania in the pre-Ottoman Period . (No longer available online.) In: Texts and Documents of Albanian History ( Robert Elsie ). Archived from the original on January 27, 2012 ; accessed on July 26, 2012 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.albanianhistory.net
  3. ^ Egon Berger-Waldenegg, Heinrich Berger-Waldenegg: Biography in the mirror . Ed .: Heinrich Berger-Waldenegg, Georg Christoph Berger-Waldenegg. Böhlau, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-205-98876-0 .
  4. ^ Peter Bartl: Encounters with Albanian history . In: Oliver Jens Schmitt, Eva Anne Frantz (Hrsg.): Albanian History - Status and Perspectives of Research . Southeast European works 140. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-58980-1 , p. 253-260 .
  5. ↑ a b c Jessica-Hamann-Anetzberger: Maria Amelie von Godins Our Brother Cain (1919). Fratricide and class struggle during the Munich Soviet Republic . In: Ulrich Kittstein, Regine Zeller (ed.): Peace, freedom, bread! Novels about the German November Revolution. Amsterdam contributions to recent German studies . tape 71 . Rodopi, Amsterdam, New York 2009, ISBN 978-90-420-2710-7 , pp. 59-76 .
  6. ↑ a b Ekrem Bey Vlora: Memoirs (1885 to 1912) . In: Mathias Bernath (Ed.): Southeast European works . tape I . R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1968 .;
    Ekrem Bey Vlora: Memoirs (1912 to 1925) . In: Mathias Bernath (Ed.): Southeast European works . tape II . R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-486-47571-1 .
  7. ↑ Ekrem Bey Vlora: Memoirs (1885 to 1912) . In: Mathias Bernath (Ed.): Southeast European works . tape I . R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1968, p. 272 .
  8. ^ Duncan Heaton-Armstrong : The six month kingdom. Albania 1914 . Tauris, London 2005, ISBN 978-1-85043-761-1 .
  9. ^ A b Robert Elsie (ed.): The Kanun . Dukagjini Publishing House, Peja 2001.
  10. ↑ Volker Dahm: The Jewish Book in the Third Reich . 1993 2nd edition. P. 508 ff.
  11. ^ Albanian customary law. In: Journal for Comparative Law. (ZVR), Volume 56, pp. 1ff; Volume 57, p. 5ff and Volume 58, p. 121ff.
personal data
SURNAME Godin, Marie Amelie from
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Godin, Marie Amelie Julie Anna (real name); Godin, Amalia Maria von (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer, women's rights activist and Albanologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 1956
Place of death Munich