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Florika Remetier

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Florika Remetier
Florika Remetier in 1968
Florika Remetier at the Halloween "hex" of Wall Street by W.I.T.C.H., 1968
Born(1946-02-28)February 28, 1946
Kingdom of Romania
DiedAugust 30, 1979(1979-08-30) (aged 33)
United States
Alma mater
  • Hartt School of Music
  • Conservatoire de Paris
  • Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
OccupationMusician
Organizations
  • New York Radical Women
  • W.I.T.C.H.
Works
  • The Politics of Day Care (1969)
  • Towards Strategy (1968)
MovementSocialist feminism[1]

Florika Remetier[a] (February 28, 1946 – August 30, 1979) was a Romanian-American musician and socialist feminist political activist. A child prodigy violinist, she would later join the New York Radical Women (NYRW) and co-founded the feminist guerrilla theater group W.I.T.C.H.

Biography

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Early life and music career

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Florika was born on February 28, 1946, to a Jewish family in a displaced persons camp in Romania. Her father Marcel Remetier, a musician and linguist, met Florika's mother Theodora Feiga in Soviet Ukraine, where they had both been deported in 1940. After returning to Romania in 1946, they moved between several refugee camps in Germany and Italy.[2][3] In 1951 they moved to a refugee camp in Italy, where Florika began playing the violin and piano at the age of 4, and later studied music at Rome's Santa Cecelia Academy after her musical talent was noticed by Maestro Giulio Bignani.[2][4] By the age of 6, she had performed in five concerts in Germany and Italy and was highly praised by Italian music authorities.[5][6][7]

Through the efforts of the United Service for New Americans and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Remetier family left Bremerhaven, Germany on January 29, 1952, to be resettled in the United States. In March 1952 they arrived in New York City aboard the General W. G. Haan transport ship on the last journey organized by the International Refugee Organization before its dissolution.[5][6][8] They eventually settled in Hartford, Connecticut after Florika was offered a full scholarship by the Hartt College of Music, where she studied the violin under Raphael Bronstein.[2][4] She was given special permission by the Hartford Board of Education to attend elementary school in the morning only, so that she could take classes at Hartt College in the afternoon, and in 1954 she would perform with the Hartt Symphony Orchestra at the age of 8.[2][9][10]

She returned to Europe in 1958 to study the violin at the Paris Conservatoire with Nadia Boulanger, and made her London debut with the BBC Orchestra in 1959, playing a number of her own compositions. In 1960 she also began to study with Ricardo Odnoposoff in Vienna while continuing to study with Boulanger. She played widely in concerts in England and the United States, and toured with the Baltimore Symphony[4] and Boston Symphony[11] Orchestras.

Florika appeared on several radio and television shows during her early years, usually as a violinist, for instance playing a duet with Sam Levenson on Two for the Money.[2] She also appeared on television in the United Kingdom, including on Val Parnell's Startime in 1959.[12] On February 27, 1960, 14-year-old Florika appeared as a violinist on ATV's Saturday Night Spectacular with Jack Parnell, Petula Clark and Guy Mitchell.[13][14]

In her early 20s she was a bass player in the New Haven Women's Liberation Rock Band, alongside fellow bassist Pat Ouellette, guitarist Harriet Cohen, and drummer Judy Miller, acting as a tutor to the other less experienced band members.[15]

Political activism

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As a member of the New York Radical Women (NYRW), Florika participated in the 1968 Miss America protest alongside Florynce Kennedy.[16] Florika and Bonnie Allen were symbolically chained to a large "Miss America" puppet in a red, white and blue bathing suit designed by Mike Dobbins, the chains representing those "that tie us to these beauty standards against our will".[17] The NYRW also participated in protests against the Vietnam War, in which Florika and her male partner created and distributed anti-war leaflets that featured parody advertisements, including superimposing an injured Vietnamese girl onto an advertisement for female beauty products.[18]

In October 1968 - inspired by the outrageous acts of the Yippies - Florika and other members of the NYRW co-founded the feminist guerrilla theater group known as the "Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell", abbreviated as "W.I.T.C.H.", in New York City. The founders included Robin Morgan, Peggy Dobbins, Judy Duffett, Cynthia Funk, Naomi Jaffe.[1] W.I.T.C.H. made its most notable appearance on Halloween 1968 when Florika, Peggy Dobbins, Susan Silverman, Judith Duffett, Ros Baxandall and Cynthia Funk marched down Wall Street dressed as witches in order to place a "hex" on New York City's financial district. They were also joined by W.I.T.C.H. member Bev Grant who photographed the protest.[19]

Florika and the other members of W.I.T.C.H. split from the NYRM by arguing that feminism must be anti-capitalist in order to avoid being co-opted. Florika did not believe feminism to be "intrinsically revolutionary" because "the existing system with its technological sophistication might be able to absorb and accommodate" the demands of women. Without an anti-capitalist analysis, the feminist movement would be unable to resist co-option, and would merely advance the interests of white, middle-class women. Writing in a 1968 article entitled "Towards Strategy" for the feminist magazine Voice of the Women's Liberation Movement, Florika outlined the issues she believed to be of importance in organizing a socialist feminist movement. In this article she argued that male chauvinism and white racism are counterparts to one another, and that while men are exploited by the capitalist system, women are also additionally exploited by men. She also argued that "Woman is directly oppressed and subjugated by the corporation wherever she functions as a consumer", and that women are "not only projected by the mass media as an object and a commodity for consumption" but have also "emulated and reinforced that image by becoming a self-conscious, self-acting commodity". Florika therefore advocated that the capitalist system "should be attacked directly"[20][21][22]

In 1969, Florika and Gilda wrote "The Politics of Day Care", published in Women: A Journal of Liberation in 1970.[23] It provides an economic critique of day care as a function of the tension between the needs of the family and the demand for women's labor in a capitalist economy, and argues that for-profit day care is an attempt to regulate children's behavior in preparation for their future employer's discipline.[24][25]

Later life and death

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Florika suffered a significant mental breakdown during adolescence which ended her prosperous musical career. In the early 1970s she moved to San Francisco, California. After many years combatting depression and suicidal thoughts, Florika died from a drug overdose on August 30, 1979, at the age of 33.[22][26] She is buried alongside her mother (d. 1976[27][28]) and father (d. 1988[29]) at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, Queens in New York City.[30][31] Fellow W.I.T.C.H. co-founder Robin Morgan later dedicated a poem to Florika's life.[32]

Notes

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  1. ^ In later life she went simply by "Florika" (sometimes spelled "Florica" by others).

Notable works

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References

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  1. ^ a b Freeman, Jo (October 31, 2022). "WITCHY/BITCHY". versobooks.com. Verso Books. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d e Schiff, Bennett (August 31, 1956). "Out of the Crowded DP Camps..." (PDF). The Jewish Herald. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  3. ^ Cobble, Dorothy Sue (May 11, 2021). For the Many: American Feminists and the Global Fight for Democratic Equality. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691220598. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
  4. ^ a b c "57th Annual Haage Concert Series Opens Oct. 12 With Spanish Ballet". Reading Eagle. September 20, 1964. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  5. ^ a b "I.R.O. Council Meets Today to Plan Agency's Liquidation". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Vol. 29, no. 29. February 11, 1952. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  6. ^ a b "DP Prodigy Arrives in U.S." St. Petersburg Times. March 28, 1952. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  7. ^ "Jewish Child Prodigy Here with U.S.N.A. Aid". Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.). Vol. 6, no. 10 (1 ed.). March 6, 1952. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  8. ^ "Tiny Rumanian Prodigy Sails for US". Information Bulletin: Monthly Magazine of the Office of US High Commissioner for Germany. No. 76. March 1952. Retrieved June 22, 2024.
  9. ^ "Festival Stars Young Violinist". Sunday Herald. April 1, 1956. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  10. ^ "10-Year-Old Violin Prodigy To Give High School Concert". The Newton Graphic. February 14, 1957. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  11. ^ "10 Patchogue Pupils Will Play in String Festival on Sunday". The Patchogue Advance. February 20, 1958. Retrieved June 22, 2024.
  12. ^ "Foreign Television Reviews". Variety. July 22, 1959. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  13. ^ "ATV Variety Shows: The Guy Mitchell Show (Sat Feb 27th 1960)". 78rpm.co.uk. Retrieved June 22, 2024.
  14. ^ "British Television Appearances: The Sixties". petulaclark.net. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  15. ^ Liu, Sophia (November 27, 2023). "Front Women". thenewjournalatyale.com. The New Journal. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  16. ^ "The Miss America Protest: 1968". redstockings.org. Redstockings. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  17. ^ Dismore, David M. (July 9, 2020). "Today in Feminist History: "Welcome To The Miss America Cattle Auction" (September 7, 1968)". msmagazine.com. Ms. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  18. ^ Waxman, Judy (December 2021). "Interview with Chude Pam Allen". veteranfeministsofamerica.org. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  19. ^ Gingeras, Alison; Rabinowitz, Cay-Sophie (September 2018). "1968 from the Bev Grant Archive" (Press Release). Osmos.
  20. ^ Florika (October 1968). "Towards Strategy". Voice of the Women's Liberation Movement. 1 (4). Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  21. ^ Echols, Alice (1989). Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-1786-4. Retrieved June 21, 2024.
  22. ^ a b Love, Barbara J. (September 22, 2006). Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252031892. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
  23. ^ Florika and Gilda (Winter 1970). "The Politics of Day Care". Women: A Journal of Liberation. 1 (2): 30. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  24. ^ Florika & Gilda (1969). "The Politics of Day Care". Roz Payne Sixties Archive. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  25. ^ Dinner, Deborah (July 28, 2010). "The Universal Childcare Debate: Rights Mobilization, Social Policy, and the Dynamics of Feminist Activism, 1966–1974". Law and History Review. 28 (3): 602. doi:10.1017/S0738248010000581. Retrieved June 24, 2024.
  26. ^ "Florika Remetier". thepopulationproject.org. Retrieved June 22, 2024.
  27. ^ "Deaths". The New York Times. March 6, 1976. Retrieved June 22, 2024.
  28. ^ "Obituary 6 -- No Title". The New York Times. March 7, 1976. Retrieved June 22, 2024.
  29. ^ "Marcel Remetier". thepopulationproject.org. Retrieved June 22, 2024.
  30. ^ "Remetier Family History". sortedbyname.com. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  31. ^ "Florika Remetier". mounthebroncemetery.com. Retrieved June 19, 2024.
  32. ^ Morgan, Robin (November 11, 2014). Upstairs in the Garden: Poems Selected and New, 1968–1988. Open Road Media. ISBN 9781497678064. Retrieved June 22, 2024.
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