Hermynia Zur Mühlen The End and the Beginning The Book of My Life Translated, Annotated and with an Introduction by Lionel Gossman OpenBook Publishers To access digital resources including: blog posts videos online appendices and to purchase copies of this book in: hardback paperback ebook editions Go to: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/65 Open Book Publishers is a non-profit independent initiative. We rely on sales and donations to continue publishing high-quality academic works. Hermynia Zur Mühlen in the garden of the estate at Eigstfer, Estonia, c. 1910. The End and the Beginning The Book of My Life by Hermynia Zur Mühlen with Notes and a Tribute by Lionel Gossman ORIGINALLY TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY FRANK BARNES AS THE RUNAWAY COUNTESS (NEW YORK: JONATHAN CAPE & HARRISON SMITH, 1930). TRANSLATION EXTENSIVELY CORRECTED AND REVISED FOR THIS NEW EDITION BY LIONEL GOSSMAN. Cambridge 2010 Open Book Publishers CIC Ltd., 40 Devonshire Road, Cambridge, CB1 2BL, United Kingdom http://www.openbookpublishers.com @ 2010 Lionel Gossman Some rights are reserved. This book is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. This license allows for copying any part of the work for personal and non-commercial use, providing author attribution is clearly stated. Details of allowances and restrictions are available at: http://www.openbookpublishers.com As with all Open Book Publishers titles, digital material and resources associated with this volume are available from our website: http://www.openbookpublishers.com ISBN Hardback: 978-1-906924-28-7 ISBN Paperback: 978-1-906924-27-0 ISBN Digital (pdf): 978-1-906924-29-4 Acknowledgment is made to the following for generously permitting use of material in their possession: Princeton University Library, Michael Stumpp, Director of the Emil Stumpp Archiv, Gelnausen, Louise Pettus Archives and Special Collections, Winthrop University Germany and Dr. Patrik von Zur Mühlen for images and photographs used to illustrate this edition of Zur Mühlen’s memoir. All paper used by Open Book Publishers is SFI (Sustainable Forestry Initiative), and PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes) Certified. Printed in the United Kingdom and United States by Lightning Source for Open Book Publishers Contents Page Translator’s Introductory Note 7 1. Hermynia Zur Mühlen. The End and the Beginning. 11 2. Hermynia Zur Mühlen. 1950 Supplement to Ende und 157 Anfang 3. Notes on Persons and Events Mentioned in the Memoir 169 4. Lionel Gossman. “Remembering Hermynia Zur Mühlen: 271 A Tribute” Works by Hermynia Zur Mühlen in English Translation 297 An online supplement to this volume (available at http://www. openbookpublishers.com) offers a sampling of Zur Mühlen’s feuilletons and fairy tales, translated into English; a substantial synopsis in English of her anti-Nazi novel Unsere Töchter die Nazinen, first published in 1934; a recollection of Zur Mühlen and her partner Stefan Isidor Klein translated from the Memoirs of the Hungarian novelist Sándor Márai; an article by Patrik von zur Mühlen on ideas of class in the writing of Hermynia Zur Mühlen; essays on Zur Mühlen and the fairy-tale in Germany and on Zur Mühlen as translator of Upton Sinclair; and several portfolios of images, containing illustrations of her books by George Grosz and by Heinrich Vogeler and jacket designs by John Heartfield for the Malik Verlag’s editions of her translations of Sinclair. Acknowledgements The translator and editor wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness for help, counsel, and encouragement to Professor Ritchie Robertson, Dr. Deborah Viëtor-Engländer, Dr. Ailsa Wallace and, not least, Dr. Patrik von zur Mühlen of the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung in Bonn, to whose liberal and generous spirit Hermynia Zur Mühlen would undoubtedly have responded as warmly as she responded, a century ago, to that of his great-grandfather, “Uncle Max.” He also wishes to thank Dr. Alessandra Tosi, his editor at Open Book Publishers, for much valuable advice and infinite patience, and Dr. Corin Throsby, senior editor and design manager at the press, for her contribution to the design of the book. In addition, the publishers join with the translator and editor in thanking the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of the Republic of Austria for facilitating the publication of this new edition, in English, of Zur Mühlen’s memoir. Translator’s Introductory Note This edition of Hermynia Zur Mühlen’s 1929 autobiographical memoir, Ende und Anfang. Ein Lebensbild, is a revised and extensively corrected version of Frank Barnes’ translation of 1930 (New York: Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith), which, though readable enough, contains many errors. A surprisingly large number of words and phrases in the 1930 translation were simply misunderstood (e.g. ochrana [okhrana in the usual English transcription] – the Russian secret police – translated as “the Ukraine”), and on more than one occasion Zur Mühlen was made to say quite the opposite in English of what she wrote in German. In addition, the original title has been restored in the present edition, as has the original lay-out of the text. The title of the 1930 translation, “The Runaway Countess,” was doubtless designed to attract a particular class of readers, probably readers of the popular romances of the time. As the present edition is directed rather toward readers interested in the social and cultural history of the period covered by the narrative and, in particular, in women’s writing and women’s history, it seemed appropriate to restore Zur Mühlen’s own title, which has a political rather than romantic resonance. The original German title was intended to evoke the end of one social and political order and, with the Russian Revolution of 1917, the beginning of another, in the author’s eyes far better one, and at the same time, in her own personal life, the end of dependency and the beginning of a new existence as a free woman, capable of determining her own identity and her own destiny instead of having to submit to those imposed on her by history and tradition. Zur Mühlen also gave titles to the 77 sections of varying length into which she divided her narrative. These were dropped from the 1930 translation, which was divided instead into 24 untitled sections. There seemed to be no reason to prefer this arrangement of the text to the author’s own. The latter has therefore been reinstated. 8 The End and the Beginning A supplementary chapter, written by Zur Mühlen in 1950 for a post-World War II re-publication of the 1929 German text in the Socialist magazine Die Frau, has been translated and placed at the end of Zur Mühlen’s original text, immediately after the final section, “Zdravstvui Revolyutsia.” It was not always possible to reproduce certain characteristic features of Zur Mühlen’s literary style in English translation – notably the effect of impressionistic immediacy achieved by means of punctuation and the elision of co-ordinates like “and” – and it was virtually impossible to convey the Viennese flavor of her language. Translation is inevitably subject in considerable measure to conditions imposed by the target language. Every effort was made, however, to stay as close to the original as possible. The attraction of Zur Mühlen’s memoir lies not only in the charming freshness with which it narrates a young woman’s struggle to be a full, free, and independent human being, in defiance of the conventions and expectations of her time and social class, but in its sharply observed and often humorous portrayal of a bygone world from the unusual angle of the headstrong, rebellious daughter of an Austrian aristocrat and minor diplomat. The numerous individuals and events referred to in the memoir, some quite prominent and well known, many obscure or now forgotten, serve as a reminder that the world that disappeared in the fires of the First World War was full of colourful characters whose often surprising careers can be unexpectedly revealing. In addition, the memoir touches lightly and naively on major issues of the time, such as the interconnected Balkan and Moroccan crises and the climate of revolution in czarist Russia. In the hope of restoring some sense of the author’s world, a fair number of the individuals and events mentioned in the narrative have been identified and described, most often quite briefly, sometimes at considerable length. In a few especially interesting cases, these notices take the form of little essays. As much information as could be accommodated in the book without expanding it unduly has been provided, in particular, about Zur Mühlen’s family members and about figures little known in the English-speaking world, such as the poets Freiligrath and Anastasius Grün. Where information about those figures was hard to come by, the editor has listed some of his sources for the convenience of the reader. Thumbnail images accompany some of the descriptive notices. In order not to disrupt Zur Mühlen’s own text, the notices are not given as footnotes or endnotes but follow the main text and are listed under the page number on which the relevant name or word appears. An asterisk Translator’s Note 9 next to the name or word in the text indicates the existence of such an identifying note. A short essay on Zur Mühlen’s life and literary career by the translator and editor closes the volume. An online-only supplement contains a small sampling of the hundreds of feuilletons or short narratives that Zur Mühlen wrote for the newspapers. These were selected and translated for this edition because of the light they shed on Zur Mühlen’s principles and practice as a politically committed writer, who also earned her living by writing and translating.