Natalia Nordman

Natalia Nordman on a painting by Ilya Repin , 1900

Natalja Borissowna Nordman ( Russian: Ната́лья Бори́совна Но́рдман ; born December 14, 1863 in Helsinki , Finland ; † June 30, 1914 in Orselina near Locarno , Switzerland ), literary pseudonym Severova, was a Russian writer. She was the daughter of a Russian admiral of Swedish origin and a Russian noblewoman. Nordman was an early suffragette , social reformer, and vegetarian .

Life

Despite a Lutheran baptism, Tsar Alexander II was her godfather. She received an excellent home education and is said to have mastered four to six languages. She was tutored in music, sculpture, drawing, and even photography. As was customary in higher circles at the time, care was left to wet nurses and maidservants. Nordman suffered painfully from being at a distance from her mother. This pain is possibly the key to the rejection of many social conventions. In the autobiographical story “Maman” (1909), which is considered to be one of the best Russian children's stories, she describes the harmful effects of the wet nurse system on the child's psyche.

In 1884 Nordman lived on an American farm for a year and worked as a cowherd. After returning she played in various theaters. Her social drive brought her together with some of the most important Russian personalities. In 1891 she met the Russian painter Ilya Repin (1844–1930), whom she married in 1900.

Repin had been a vegetarian since around 1891 under the influence of Tolstoy. Through him, Nordman turned increasingly to vegetarianism and went through different stages. In the beginning, as with Repin, it was mainly health reasons. Out of love for animals, she later even refused to consume milk, butter, eggs and honey and lived virtually vegan. In the last years of her life she turned to raw food. For Nordman, the vegetarian lifestyle was one of the central issues. She also linked her reform concerns with the simple, natural way of life.

One of their main goals was to improve the situation of the domestic servants. As early as 1861 Alexander II had abolished serfdom . 18-hour days, however, remained the rule. Nordman called for the 8-hour working day to be legally introduced and advocated for more humane treatment and relief of working conditions. She was of the opinion that woman's self-realization should not be limited to being a mother. Their only daughter Natascha died in 1898 at the age of only two weeks.

Ilja Repin : Self-Portrait with Natalia Nordman (1903)

After his mother's death (1898), Nordman bought a property northwest of Saint Petersburg in Kuokkala, Finland, in May 1899 and began building the “Penaten” villa. She had a theater and educational institutions built. During this time Kuokkala developed into a lively cultural center. She set up a studio for Repin. In 1903 Repin settled in Kuokkala and lived there until his death. In her will, the Nordman Repin left the property. Today there is a Repin Museum there. After the winter war of 1940 between Finland and the Soviet Union, Kuokkala belongs to Russia and is now called Repino .

Nordman was actively committed to the vegetarian lifestyle and gave numerous lectures, including at the Psycho-Neurological Institute in Saint Petersburg. Its head at that time was the neurologist Vladimir Bechterew . She preached a simple way of life and campaigned for natural medicine, for example Kneipp water therapy and herbal medicine. Nordman realized that for vegetarianism to spread it was imperative that it be placed on a solid scientific basis.

She wrote to Bechterew and suggested that he set up a chair in vegetarianism. Before she could start putting her plans into practice, however, Natalia Nordman died of tuberculosis .

Her books were only published in small editions and are now rarities (including "Paradiesverheissungen" 1913, "Intime Seiten" 1910 with the story "Maman" and reports on Repin and Nordman's stays in Yasnaya Polyana with Leo Tolstoy ). Repin made numerous illustrations for her stories and books.

literature

• Peter Brang: An Unknown Russia. Cultural history of the vegetarian way of life from the beginning to the present. Böhlau, 2003, ISBN 3-412-07902-2 .

Web links

• Image by Ilja Repin and Natalia Nordman-Severova. In: The Encyclopaedia of Saint Petersburg
• Facsimile (PDF) of the short story Maman (Russian)