Maria Janitschek

Maria Janitschek in 1907

Maria Janitschek née Tölk (July 22, 1859 in Mödling (near Vienna) - April 28, 1927 in Munich) was a German writer of Austrian origin. She wrote under the pseudonym of Marius Stein.

Life

Born the illegitimate child of a military officer, she was raised by her mother Anna Tölk in impoverished circumstances and educated in a Hungarian convent school. When she was 19, she moved with her mother to Graz where she first published her first articles as a journalist under the pseudonym Marius Stein. The newspapers Moderne Dichtung and Wiener Rundschau numbered among her employers. At age 23 she married Hubert Janitschek, a professor of art history. The couple lived in Strassburg and Leipzig. Her husband died in 1893 and Maria moved to Berlin and later to Munich.

Work

Her first published books were collections of poetry and short stories. These appealed to the interests of the bourgeois women's movement in the topics of their works: the problems of marriage and love for women, treated in a manner that at the time was very liberal. In 1889 she published her first volume of poems Irdische und unirdische Träume (Earthly and Unearthly Dreams), which included the highly criticized poem "Ein modernes Weib" (A Modern Wife). Germany banned her short story collection Die neue Eva in 1909. She considered Émile Zola, Henrik Ibsen, and Leo Tolstoy to be her role models. Her works often have strong female characters who become merciless avengers when wrongs are done to them. In her epic works, she explored the dualism between the sensible and the emotional side of people.

Selected Writings

Bibliography

External links

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