Rebecca West

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Rebecca West,
photography by Madame Yevonde

Dame Rebecca West DBE (born December 21, 1892 in London as Cicily Isabel Fairfield , † March 15, 1983 ibid) was a British writer and journalist .

Life

Cicely Isabel Fairfield was born to the Irish journalist Charles Fairfield and his Scottish wife Isabella. The father left the family when Cicely Fairfield was 8. The family then moved to Edinburgh , where Fairfield graduated from school. She later began training as an actress; this may also explain the name change - Rebecca West is the name of a character from a play by Henrik Ibsen . She briefly participated in the British suffragette movement .

In 1912 she met the author HG Wells , whose lover she became. Their son Anthony West (1914–1987) comes from the relationship with him. In 1923, Rebecca West separated from Wells. She married the banker Henry Maxwell Andrews in 1930.

West was a radical journalist (from 1911), for The Freewoman, the Daily News, and Clarion , she authored a study of Henry James , novels , short stories (among others published in Wyndham Lewis ' Blast ). Her main work and one of the most important English-language books of the twentieth century is the novella about West's impressions of Yugoslavia ( Black Lamb and Gray Falcon , 1941), written as a travelogue , in which she speaks of the experiences during her three trips to Yugoslavia from 1936 to 1938 lectured on the history of the Balkans, ethnography, mythology, poetry, the meaning of National Socialism and feminism. In this book she identifies unconditionally with Serbian nationalism, which she identifies with "Slavic purity"; the Croatians were attacked "by Austrian influence like a disease". As the founding myth of Serbian nationalism, she sees the medieval Serbian empire and its defeat in the battle on the Blackbird Field , which she interprets as the return of the crucifixion of Christ . She describes the consequences of the murder of King Alexander I and his wife as follows:

The tiger, blood on its claws, crossed itself; the golden beast became a golden youth; church and state, love and violence, life and death were to be fused again as in Byzantium

“The tiger, blood on its claws, outgrew itself; the golden beast became a golden young person; Church and state, love and violence, life and death became one again like in Byzantium "

- Rebecca West : cit. in: Special peoples , Adrian Hastings, in: Nations and Nationalism, Cambridge University Press, Volume 5, Issue 3, July 1999, pp. 381-396; P. 383

The dictator Alexander I , murdered in 1934, was in their opinion

the Balkan spirit incarnate, who was terrible as all Balkan peoples are, because he had twice risen from the dead, he had broken the tomb of Kosovo and after the Austrians had stamped down the earth over him he had kicked it away and stood upright .

"The rebirth of the spirit of the Balkans, which was as terrible as all Balkan peoples because it rose from the dead twice, it broke the grave of Kosovo and after the Austrians had covered it with earth, pushed them away and stood upright again"

- Rebecca West : cit. in: Special peoples , Adrian Hastings, in: Nations and Nationalism, Cambridge University Press, Volume 5, Issue 3, July 1999, pp. 381-396; Pp. 384-385

Her identification with Serbian nationalism is scientifically described as " appalling rubbish" and "racist, even Nazi-like in the rawness of racial stereotypes and the acceptance of violence".

She also wrote a political study of treason in World War II ( The Meaning of Treason, 1947). In the 1920s she was a well-paid journalist for reputable newspapers such as the New Statesman, the Daily Telegraph , The New Republic, the New York Herald Tribune , The New York American; and for leading magazines like Harper's Bazaar and Vanity Fair .

In 1946 the Daily Telegraph sent her to report to the Nuremberg Trials . In 1950 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1972 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters . In 1959 West was ennobled as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) .

West suffered from visual impairment and, in the late 1970s, hypertension. Increasingly frail, she was bedridden in the last months of her life, and sometimes she was even delirious. She complained that she was dying too slowly. She died on March 15, 1983 and is buried in Brookwood Cemetery , Woking .

Works (selection)

  • Henry James, 1916 (literary criticism)
  • The Return of the Soldier, 1918 (novel)
  • The Judge, 1922 (novel)
  • The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews, 1928
  • Lions and Lambs, 1928. With David Low.
  • Harriet Hume, 1929 (novel)
  • Ending in Earnest: A Literary Log, 1931
  • St. Augustine, 1933 (biography)
  • The Modern Rake's Progress, 1934. With David Low.
  • The Harsh Voice: Four Short Novels, 1935
  • The Thinking Reed, 1936 (novel)
  • Black Lamb and Gray Falcon, 1941 (German title: Black Lamb and Gray Falcon. A journey through Yugoslavia)
  • The Meaning of Treason , 1947 (political journalism)
  • The New Meaning of Treason, 1964 (political journalism)
  • A Train of Powder, 1955
  • The Fountain Overflows, 1956 (novel; German title: The fountain flows over)
  • The Court and the Castle: Some Treatments of a Recurring Theme, 1958. (literary criticism)
  • The Birds Fall Down, 1966
  • 1900, 1982. (cultural history)
  • The Young Rebecca, 1982 (formerly, feminist journalism; from The Freewoman and Clarion. ), Ed .: Jane Marcus
  • The Real Night, 1984 (novel)
  • Cousin Rosamund, 1985 (novel)
  • Sunflower, 1986 (novel)
  • Family Memories: An Autobiographical Journey, 1987. Compiled, edited by Faith Evans.
  • The Sentinel, 2002 (early, feminist novel). Unfinished novel, ed .: Kathryn Laing

Film adaptations

  • 1982: Shadows of the Past ( Return of the Soldier )

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Geoff Dyer , The Guardian , August 5, 2006 Journeys into history
  2. ^ Special peoples , Adrian Hastings, in: Nations and Nationalism, Cambridge University Press, Volume 5, Issue 3, July 1999, pp. 381-396; P. 382
  3. ^ Hastings in: Nations and Nationalism 1999, p. 384
  4. ^ A b Special peoples , Adrian Hastings, in: Nations and Nationalism, Cambridge University Press, Volume 5, Issue 3, July 1999, pp. 381-396
  5. ^ Special peoples , Adrian Hastings, in: Nations and Nationalism, Cambridge University Press, Volume 5, Issue 3, July 1999, pp. 381-396; Pp. 383, 385
  6. ^ Honorary Members: Rebecca West. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 27, 2019 .
  7. Carl Rollyson, Rebecca West: A Life , p 427
  8. Rebecca West . In: Necropolis Notables . The Brookwood Cemetery Society. Archived from the original on June 11, 2011. 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. Retrieved April 11, 2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.tbcs.org.uk

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