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Etta Federn

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Gecko990 (talk | contribs) at 15:01, 4 December 2015. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

  • Comment: As I'm also not sure this fully satisfies notability guidelines, this could simply still use any more available information and sources overall. SwisterTwister talk 17:38, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment: Fully satisfies notability guidelines. I used some reviews and online sources from the German article. Polentarion Talk 20:51, 3 December 2015 (UTC)


Etta Federn
BornApril 28, 1883
Vienna, Austria
DiedMay 9, 1951, age 68
Paris, France
OccupationWriter, Translator
LanguageGerman, Spanish, Danish, Russian, Ancient Greek, Yiddish, English
GenresLiterary Biography, Women's History

Etta Federn-Kohlhaas (born 1883 in Vienna; died 1951 in Paris) or Marietta Federn, also published as Etta Kirmsse and Esperanza, was a writer, translator and educator and important woman of letters in Germany.[1]. She was active in the Anarcho-Syndicalism movement[2]. Raised in Vienna in a Jewish family, she moved in 1905 to Berlin, where she became a literary critic, translator, novelist and biographer. In 1932, she moved to Barcelona, Spain, where she joined the anarchist-feminist group Mujeres Libres, (Free Women)[3], becoming a writer and educator for the movement. In 1938, she fled to France, where she survived World War II in hiding.

In Germany, she published 23 books, among them translations from the Danish, Russian, Bengali, Ancient Greek, Yiddish and English. She also published two books while living in Spain.

The story of Etta Federn and her two sons inspired the 1948 play Skuggan av Mart (Marty's Shadow) by Swedish writer Stig Dagerman. In 2015, the play had a staged reading in English translation in New York City.[4]

Personal life

Raised in a successful and assimilated Jewish family in Vienna, Etta Federn was the daughter of suffragist Ernestine (Spitzer)[5] and Dr. Salomon Federn, a pioneer in the use of blood pressure monitoring[6][7]. Her brother Paul Federn, a psychoanalyst, was an early follower and associate of Sigmund Freud. Her brother Walther Federn was an important economic journalist in Austria before Hitler came to power,[8] and her brother Karl Federn was a lawyer who, after fleeing to the UK, became known for his anti-Marxist writings.[9] Her sister Else Federn was a social worker in Vienna, active in the Settlement Movement; a park in Vienna was named for her in 2013.[10]

Etta Federn's first husband was Max Bruno Kirmsse, a German teacher of children with mental disabilities[11]. Her second husband was Peter Paul Kohlhaas, an illustrator.[12] She had two sons, Hans and Michael. Her older son, a member of the French Resistance, was murdered by French collaborators in 1944.[13][14]

Career

In Vienna and Berlin, Etta Federn studied literary history, German philology and Greek.[15] She worked in many genres, publishing articles, biographies, literary studies, poems, and a novel. As a journalist, she was a literary critic for the Berliner Tageblatt. She wrote biographies of Dante Alighieri and Christiane Vulpius (the wife of Goethe).[15] In 1927, she published a biography of Walther Rathenau, the liberal Jewish Foreign Minister of Germany, who had been assassinated in 1922 by anti-Semitic right-wing terrorists. This book made her the target of Nazi death threats.[3]

During the 1920s, Federn became part of a circle of anarchists, including Rudolf Rocker, Mollie Steimer, Senya Fleshin, Emma Goldman, and Milly Witkop Rocker, who would become her close friend.[16][17] She contributed to various anarchist newspapers and journals related to the Free Workers' Union of Germany.[18]

In Berlin, Federn also encountered several Polish-born Jewish poets who wrote in Yiddish. In 1931, her translation of the poetry collection Fischerdorf (Fishing Village) by Abraham Nahum Stencl was reviewed favorably by Thomas Mann, who admired Stencl's "passionate poetic emotion."[19]

In 1932, she left Berlin, realizing that under the Nazis she would no longer be able to publish her writings. She moved with her sons to Barcelona, Spain, where she joined the anarchist movement Mujeres Libres (Free Women). She learned Spanish and became director of four progressive schools in the city of Blanes, educating both teachers and children in secular values and antimilitarism.[3] Starting in 1936, she also published a number of articles in the movement's women-run magazine, Mujeres Libres.[20] Like many anarchist women, she believed in the importance of literacy for women, in birth control and sexual freedom,[21] and in the power of educated women to be good mothers. She wrote: “Educated mothers relate their own experiences and sufferings to their children; they intuitively understand their feelings and expressions. They are good educators, as they are also friends of the children they educate.”[22]

In 1938, as Francisco Franco's fascists bombed Barcelona and defeated the left, Federn fled to France, where she spent time in internment camps as a foreign refugee. She spent the war in hiding in Lyon, at times in a monastery, and did translation work for the French Resistance.[14] She spent her final years in Paris, supported in part by her relatives in the USA. She was awarded French nationality, since her son had been killed as a Resistance fighter. [17]

Further reading

  • Marianne Kröger: Etta Federn (1883–1951): Befreiende Dichtung und libertäre Pädagogik, in: Renate Heuer ; Ludger Heid (Ed.): Deutsche Kultur - jüdische Ethik : abgebrochene Lebenswege deutsch-jüdischer Schriftsteller nach 1933. Frankfurt : Campus, 2011, pp. 115–140.
  • Marianne Kröger: "Jüdische Ethik" und Anarchismus im Spanischen Bürgerkrieg: Simone Weil - Carl Einstein - Etta Federn, Peter Lang, 2009.
  • Martha Ackelsberg: Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women, AK Press, 2005.
  • Rosita Anna Ernst: Die Familie Federn im Wandel der Zeit - Eine biographische und werksgeschichtliche Analyse einer psychoanalytisch orientierten Familie, GRIN Verlag, 2008.

Biographies

  • Christiane von Goethe: ein Beitrag zur Psychologie Goethes (Christiane von Goethe: A Contribution to Goethe's Psychology), 1916.
  • Dante. Ein Erlebnis für werdende Menschen (Dante: An Experience for the Expectant), 1923.
  • Walther Rathenau: Sein Leben und Wirken (Walter Rathenau, His Life and Work), 1928.
  • Mujeres de la Revoluciones (Revolutionary Women), 1937. Reissued in German as Etta Federn: Revolutionär auf ihre Art, edited and translated by Marianne Kröger, 1997.

Translations

  • H.C. Andersens Märchen, Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, translated from the Danish, 1923. Reissued 1952.
  • Shakespeare-Lieder, Sonnets of William Shakespeare, translated from the English, 1925.
  • Wege der liebe : drei Erzählungen (The Ways of Love: Three Stories), by Alexandra Kollontai, translated from the Russian, 1925. Reissued 1982.
  • Gesichte, Poems of Samuel Lewin, translated from the Yiddish, 1928.
  • Fischerdorf (Fishing Village), Poems of A. N. Stencl, translated from the Yiddish, 1931.
  • Sturm der Revolution (The Storm of Revolution), Poems of Soumyendranath Tagore, translated from the Bengali, 1931.
  • Anakreon, Poems of Anacreon, translated from the Ancient Greek, 1935.

References

  1. ^ "ARIADNE - Projekt "Frauen in Bewegung" - Etta Federn, the online bib quotes as well an entry in Salomon Wininger: Große jüdische National-Biographie. II. Nachtrag in Bd. 7. 1935, p.494". www.onb.ac.at. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
  2. ^ "Etta Federn-Kohlhaas". Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  3. ^ a b c Heath, Nick. "Federn, Marietta aka Etta 1883- 1951". Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  4. ^ "'Marty's Shadow'". Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  5. ^ "Ernestine Spitzer". Wien Geschichte Wiki. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  6. ^ "Federn, Joseph Salomon". Austria-Forum. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  7. ^ Ernst, Rosita Anna (2008). Die Familie Federn im Wandel der Zeit - Eine biographische und werksgeschichtliche Analyse einer psychoanalytisch orientierten Familie. GRIN. pp. 33–35. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  8. ^ "Walther Federn". Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  9. ^ "Karl Federn". Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  10. ^ Rastl, Charlotte. "Else Federn". Unlearned Lessons. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  11. ^ "Max Bruno Kirmsse". Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  12. ^ Kröger, Marianne (2009). "Jüdische Ethik" und Anarchismus im Spanischen Bürgerkrieg. Peter Lang. p. 166. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  13. ^ "The Shadow of Mart". Stig Dagerman, Swedish Writer and Journalist (1923-1954). Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  14. ^ a b "Allemagne, Espagne, France… le long combat pour la liberté d'Etta Federn". La Feuille Charbinoise. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  15. ^ a b Wininger, Salomon (1935). "Federn-Kohlhaas, Etta". Grosse Jüdische National-Biographie. p. 494. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  16. ^ "Etta Federn". Anarcopedia. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  17. ^ a b "Etta Federn — eine jüdisch-libertäre Pionierin « Bücher – nicht nur zum Judentum". buecher.hagalil.com. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
  18. ^ "etta federn (1883-1951) und die mujeres libres | gwr 225 | januar 1998". www.graswurzel.net. Retrieved 2015-12-03.
  19. ^ Valencia, Heather. "Stencl's Berlin Period". Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  20. ^ Ackelsberg, Martha (2005). Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women. AK Press. pp. 266–268. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  21. ^ Herzog, Dagmar (2011). Sexuality in Europe: A Twentieth-Century History. Cambridge University Press. p. 51. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  22. ^ Kaymakçioglu, Göksu. ""STRONG WE MAKE EACH OTHER": EMMA GOLDMAN, THE AMERICAN AIDE TO MUJERES LIBRES DURING THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR, 1936-1939" (PDF). Retrieved 3 December 2015.

Entry on Ariadne, online Biography (in German)

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