Rahel Varnhagen

Rahel Varnhagen (IPA2|ˈʁaːɛl ˈfaʁnhaːgən) née Levin (June 19, 1771 - March 7, 1833) was a German-Jewish writer who hosted one of the most prominent salons in Europe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She is the subject of a celebrated biography, "Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess" (1958) written by Hannah Arendt. [Hannah Arendt (1958): " [http://www.culturaljudaism.org/ccj/bibliography/270 Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess] "] Arendt cherished Varnhagen as her "closest friend, though she ha [d] been dead for some hundred years." The asteroid 100029 Varnhagen is named in her honour.

Life and works

Rahel Levin was born in Berlin. Her father, a wealthy jeweler, was a strong-willed man who ruled his family despotically. She became very intimate with Dorothea and Henriette, the daughters of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Together with them she knew Henriette Herz, with whom she later became most intimately associated, moving in the same intellectual sphere. Her home became the meeting-place of men like Schlegel, Schelling, Steffens, Schack, Schleiermacher, Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, Motte Fouqué, Baron Brückmann, Ludwig Tieck, Jean Paul, and Friedrich Gentz. During a visit to Carlsbad in 1795 she was introduced to Goethe, whom she again saw in 1815, at Frankfurt am Main.

After the death of her father in 1806 she lived in Paris, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Prague, and Dresden. This period was one of misfortune for Germany; Prussia was reduced to a small kingdom and her king was in exile. Secret societies were formed in every part of the country with the object of throwing off the tyranny of Napoleon. Levin herself belonged to one of these societies.

In 1814 she married, in Berlin, the biographer Karl August Varnhagen von Ense, after converting to Christianity. At the time of their marriage, her husband, who had fought in the Austrian army against the French, belonged to the Prussian diplomatic corps, and their house at Vienna became the meeting-place of the Prussian delegates to the Congress of Vienna. She accompanied her husband in 1815 to Vienna, and in 1816 to Karlsruhe, where he was Prussian representative. After 1819 she again lived in Berlin, where Varnhagen had taken up his residence after having been retired from his diplomatic position.

Though not a productive writer herself, she was the center of a circle of eminent writers, scholars, and artists in the Prussian capital. A few of her essays appeared in print in "Das Morgenblatt," "Das Schweizerische Museum," and "Der Gesellschafter," and in 1830 her "Denkblätter einer Berlinerin" was published in Berlin. Her correspondence with David Veit and with Varnhagen von Ense was published in Leipzig, in 1861 and 1874–1875 respectively.

Rahel Varnhagen died in Berlin in 1833. Her grave is located on Trinity Cemetery (Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof I) in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

Relations with Judaism

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), "Rahel always showed the greatest interest in her former coreligionists, endeavoring by word and deed to better their position, especially during the anti-Semitic outburst in Germany in 1819. On the day of her funeral Varnhagen sent a considerable sum of money to the Jewish poor of Berlin."

Amos Elon wrote about Rahel Varnhagen in his 2002 book "The Pity of It All: A History of the Jews in Germany, 1743-1933":

She hated her Jewish background and was convinced it had poisoned her life. For much of her adult life she was what would later be called self-hating. Her overriding desire was to free herself from the shackles of her birth; since, as she thought, she had been "pushed out of the world" by her origins, she was determined to escape them. She never really succeeded. In 1810, she changed her family name to Robert... And in 1814, after her mother died, she converted. But her origins continued to haunt her even on her deathbed. ... She considered her origins "a curse, a slow bleeding to death." ... The idea that as a Jew she was always required to be exceptional - and go on proving it all the time - was repugnant to her. "How wretched it is always to have legitimize myself! That is why it is so disgusting to be a Jew." [Amos Elon: "The Pity of It All: A History of the Jews in Germany, 1743-1933" (Metropolitan Books, 2002) pp.76-81. ISBN 0805059644]

The poet Ludwig Robert was her brother, and with him she corresponded extensively; her sister Rosa was married to Karl Asser, and Ottilie Assing was her niece.

Notes

References

JewishEncyclopedia
url=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=286&letter=L
author=Isidore Singer and Frederick T. Haneman
article=Rahel Levin

External links

* [http://www.varnhagen.info Official website of the Varnhagen Society, Cologne] (in German)
* [http://www.culturaljudaism.org/ccj/bibliography/270 Annotated bibliographic entry for Hannah Arendt's "Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess" from the Center for Cultural Judaism]