Wilma von Vukelich

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Wilma von Vukelich (born February 8, 1880 in Essek ; † March 24, 1956 in Zagreb ) was a Croatian writer who, according to her memoirs, devoted a large part of her hometown.

Life

Wilma von Vukelich was born into the respected Miskolczy family in Essek, today's Osijek. Her parents were of Jewish origin and her ancestors had emigrated from Hungary .

The family lived secularly. Whatever education the provincial town had to offer, Wilma was delighted to receive it. In order to complete her knowledge and broaden her horizons, she went to a boarding school in Vienna. As was customary in a small town at that time, a suitable marriage opportunity should arise afterwards. However, Wilma was not satisfied with that because she wanted to self-confidently educate herself and study, which was anything but common for women at the time. Last but not least, she wanted to marry out of love and not a candidate that her family had chosen for her. Of all her wishes, she could only assert herself in the free choice of spouse. After giving birth to four children in Budapest and Pécs as the wife of the teacher Milivoj Vukelich, she found that she could not develop freely. She opposed the widespread notion of the so-called "feminine virtues" motherhood, humility, etc.

Wilma moved to Munich with her family , took her A-levels and studied biochemistry for three years. Here she discovered her passion for writing and was also able to let her temperament run free.

In 1918, when the Austro-Hungarian monarchy collapsed, the Vukelichs returned to Croatia. She published her first novel The Homeless (1923). The work is a socially critical analysis of the Jews in Hungary. The novel analyzes five Jewish youth who oppose the norms of bourgeois society.

Because her two sons joined the revolutionary labor movement and were also persecuted by the police, she and her children fled to Paris in 1926.

During the Second World War , she lived as a Jew in Agram (Zagreb) in constant fear of deportation and persecution. It wasn't until years later that she found out that her two sons had died in the war. She spent her last years in seclusion, completely devoted to her daughter and her husband. Between 1947 and her death in 1956 she wrote six novels and her memoirs.

Works

  • The Homeless (novel) 1923.
  • Within narrow limits (novel)
  • Twelve at the table (novel)
  • Traces of the past, Osijek at the turn of the century (memoirs)
  • A chronicler of Judaism in Central Europe

literature

  • Wilma von Vukelich: Traces of the Past; Osijek at the turn of the century. Edited by Vlado Obad, Südostdeutsches Kulturwerk. Munich, 1992

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical data of Wilma von Vukelich in: Handbook of the estates and collections of Austrian authors , by Murray G. Hall, Gerhard Renner, Böhlau Verlag Wien, 1995, page 345
personal data
SURNAME Vukelich, Wilma from
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Croatian writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 8, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Essek
DATE OF DEATH March 24, 1956
Place of death Zagreb