Henriette Roland Holst
Encyclopedia
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and socialist.
The poet Adriaan Roland Holst
Adriaan Roland Holst
Adriaan Roland Holst was a Dutch writer, nicknamed the "Prince of Dutch Poets". He was the second winner, in 1948, of the Constantijn Huygens Prize...
(1888-1976), nicknamed "the Dutch Prince of Poets", was the nephew of her husband.
Early life
Roland Holst was brought up in the affluent, liberalLiberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
family of the notary Theodore Willem van der Schalk and Anna Ida van der Schalk-van der Hoeven. Roland Holst attended four years of boarding school in Velp
Velp
Velp may also refer to either:* Velp, Gelderland - a town in the Netherlands part of Rheden* Velp, North Brabant - a town in the Netherlands part of Grave * The Velp or Velpe, a tributuary of the River Demer, in the Flemish Region of Belgium...
and studied French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
in Liege
Liege
Liège is a municipality and a city of Belgium. The term Liège or Liege may also refer to:* Liege, a party to the oath of allegiance in feudalism .* Liège Island, in the Antarctic...
.
Roland Holst soon came to develop a talent as a poet. She married the artist Richard Roland Holst (Rik) in 1896 and befriended the poet Herman Gorter
Herman Gorter
Herman Gorter was a Dutch poet and socialist. He was a leading member of the Tachtigers, a highly influential group of Dutch writers who worked together in Amsterdam in the 1880s, centered around De Nieuwe Gids .Gorter's first book, a 4,000 verse epic poem called "Mei" , sealed his reputation...
, who prompted her to read Das Kapital
Das Kapital
Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...
by Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
. Around this time she became politically
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
active and began her career as a writer on political, historical and philosophical
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
fields.
Poetry
Around 1890, Henriette met Albert VerweyAlbert Verwey
Albert Verwey was a Dutch poet associated with the "Movement of Eighty".Albert Verweywas born May 15, 1865, Amsterdam, Neth.Died March 8, 1937, Noordwijk aan Zee....
, who with William Kloos was among the leaders of the Tachtigers and the founders of De Nieuwe Gids
De Nieuwe Gids
De Nieuwe Gids was a Dutch illustrated literary periodical which was published from 1885 to 1943. It played an important role in promoting the literary movement of 1880s...
. In 1892 she met the painter Jan Toorop
Jan Toorop
Jean Theodoor Toorop , better known as Jan Toorop, was an Indo painter, whose works straddle the space between the Symbolist painters and Art Nouveau.-Biography:...
. She wrote about Toorop and Verwey in her first sonnets. In these poems she showcased her intense needs as an artist, more precisely: as a poet(ess).
Socialism
At the age of 27 became Roland Holst member of the SDAPSocial Democratic Workers' Party (Netherlands)
The Social Democratic Workers' Party was a Dutch socialist political party and a predecessor of the social-democratic PvdA.-1893-1904:...
. She was then working night after night in smoky halls calling for workers' struggle to improve their miserable fate. She became part of the party leadership and, in 1900, was delegated to the Second International
Second International
The Second International , the original Socialist International, was an organization of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on July 14, 1889. At the Paris meeting delegations from 20 countries participated...
. At the conferences of the International, she came into contact with prominent Marxists such as Karl Liebknecht
Karl Liebknecht
was a German socialist and a co-founder with Rosa Luxemburg of the Spartacist League and the Communist Party of Germany. He is best known for his opposition to World War I in the Reichstag and his role in the Spartacist uprising of 1919...
, Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
and Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
. Later, she become disappointed in the political direction of the revolution and focused on socialism more on religious premises.
In 1911, Roland Holst had joined as an orthodox Marxist in the SDAP. Unlike most other orthodox Marxists, she did not not immediately move over to the Social-Democratic Party (SDP, later known as the Communist Party of the Netherlands
Communist Party of the Netherlands
The Communist Party of the Netherlands was a Dutch communist political party. The CPN is one of the predecessors of the GreenLeft.- Foundation :...
(KPN)). Against the advice of Rosa Luxemburg in some years she remained non-partisan. She founded in 1915, along with a number of SDAP and SDP members, the Revolutionair Socialistische Vereeniging. It was one year after the formation of the SDP when Roland Holst switched parties to the SDP. While in the KPN, she sided with Herman Gorter
Herman Gorter
Herman Gorter was a Dutch poet and socialist. He was a leading member of the Tachtigers, a highly influential group of Dutch writers who worked together in Amsterdam in the 1880s, centered around De Nieuwe Gids .Gorter's first book, a 4,000 verse epic poem called "Mei" , sealed his reputation...
, Anton Pannekoek and the left communist fraction of the party. She later joined the Communist Workers' Party of the Netherlands, a council communist party.
"Rode Jet" (meaning "Red Jet", a nickname of Roland Holst) also played a role during the revolutionary turmoil of November 1918. On November 13 she went with David Wijnkoop at the head of a procession on the Orange-Nassau barracks in Amsterdam, to be "to fraternize with the hussars". Intervention by the security forces resulted in two dead, the only victims of the "revolution that did not happen".
In 1927 she broke with the CPN
Communist Party of the Netherlands
The Communist Party of the Netherlands was a Dutch communist political party. The CPN is one of the predecessors of the GreenLeft.- Foundation :...
.
1928-1952: religious-socialist
Henriette had deep slumps. She suffered from depressionDepression (mood)
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
, bouts of anorexia
Anorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Although commonly called "anorexia", that term on its own denotes any symptomatic loss of appetite and is not strictly accurate...
, anemia
Anemia
Anemia is a decrease in number of red blood cells or less than the normal quantity of hemoglobin in the blood. However, it can include decreased oxygen-binding ability of each hemoglobin molecule due to deformity or lack in numerical development as in some other types of hemoglobin...
and heart disease but she was fine she struggled with an unrelenting zeal to improve the position of workers, youth and women.
Her first poems were passionately for socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. She wrote among other things, the Dutch text for the anthem The Internationale
The Internationale
The Internationale is a famous socialist, communist, social-democratic and anarchist anthem.The Internationale became the anthem of international socialism, and gained particular fame under the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1944, when it was that communist state's de facto central anthem...
. Later, her work took a more religious character. Among her writings were plays, biographies (of Rousseau, Gandhi and Tolstoy), journalism and radio plays.
During World War II she was active in the resistance
Dutch resistance
Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized by its prominent non-violence, summitting in over 300,000 people in hiding in the autumn of 1944, tended to by some 60,000 to 200,000 illegal landlords and caretakers and tolerated knowingly...
, as editor of the Resistance magazine De Vonk, then De Vlam. Though of a well to do background, she was certainly not a "salon socialist". Her wealth was, however, in stark contrast to orthodox Marxism propagated by her.
At the end of her life she wrote the autobiography Het vuur brandde voort. She died at the age of 82. A bust was placed in her memory in her birthplace of Noordwijk in 1969.
Works
Poetry collections:- het Jeugdwerk (1884 – 1892) (was published in 1969 by Garmt Stuiveling).
- Sonnetten en Verzen in Terzinen geschreven; original edition (graphical treatment by Richard Roland Holst) and Scheltema Holkema's Bookshop, Amsterdam, 1896.
Reprinted in simpler form of being. WL and J. Brusse, Rotterdam in 1913 and 1922 and out. BZZTôH, The Hague 1983.
Political work:
- De groote spoorwegstaking, de vakbeweging en de SDAP, Den Haag 1903.
- the Dutch railroad strikes of 1903, and the role of unions and of the SDAP therein.
- Algemeene werkstaking en sociaaldemocratie, Rotterdam 1906.
- this work appeared in German in 1905, with a preface by Karl KautskyKarl KautskyKarl Johann Kautsky was a Czech-German philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician. Kautsky was recognized as among the most authoritative promulgators of Orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895 until the coming of World War I in 1914 and was called by some the "Pope of...
.- De opstandelingen, Een lyrisch treurspel in drie bedrijven, Amsterdam 1910.
- a lyrical work on the 1905 Russian Revolution.
- De philosophie van Dietzgen en hare beteekenis voor het proletariaat, Rotterdam 1910.
- First published in German, translated by Sam de Wolff.
- Revisionistische en Marxistische tactiek in de kiesrecht-beweging, Rotterdam 1910.
- polemicPolemicA polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
against revisionist socialism of TroelstraPieter Jelles TroelstraPieter Jelles Troelstra was a Dutch politician active in the socialist workers' movement. He is most remembered for his fight for universal suffrage and his failed call for revolution at the end of World War I...
with regard to voting rights.- De strijdmiddelen der sociale revolutie, Amsterdam 1918.
- De revolutionaire massa-aktie. Een studie, Rotterdam 1918.
- De daden der Bolschewiki, Amsterdam 1919.
- written in defense of the BolshevikBolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s.- Verslag van het Derde Internationale Communistische Congres, 1921.
- the third congress of the CominternCominternThe Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
.- Uit Sowjet-Rusland, 1921.
- description of her trip to the Third International
- Communisme en moraal, Arnhem 1925.
- Kapitaal en Arbeid in Nederland, Rotterdam 1932.
- Herman Gorter, Amsterdam 1933.
- biography of Tachtiger Herman Gorter.
- Rosa Luxemburg. Haar leven en werk, Rotterdam 1935.
- biography of Rosa LuxemburgRosa LuxemburgRosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
.
Further reading
- Jaap van PraagJaap van PraagJacob Philip van Praag was a Dutch humanist who played a prominent role in establishing the Dutch Humanist League. He was its Chairman from 1946 to 1969. And, from 1954 to 1974, he was a member of a provincial Executive.Van Praag was one of the first professors in Humanist studies in University...
(1911-1981) wrote the first biography of Henriette Roland Holst. - Het leed der mensheid laat mij vaak niet slapen (1984) is an anthology by Herman Schaap from the prose of Henriette Roland Holst, with introduction and notes.
- Elsbeth Etty - Liefde is heel het leven niet (1996). A biography of Roland Holst.
External links
- The Communist Left and the resolutions of the second congress of the Communist International - Henriette Roland-Holst, a left communist text by Roland Holst
- Schalk, Henriette Goverdine Anna van der (1869-1952), Biografisch Woordenboek van NederlandBiografisch Woordenboek van NederlandThe Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland is a Dutch biographical dictionary, in which short biographies of well-known and less well-known but still notable Dutch people are listed....
- Biographies, works and texts in the Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren
- Schalk, Henriette Goverdine Anna van der, Biografisch Woordenboek van het Socialisme en de Arbeidersbeweging in Nederland
- Tussen droom en werkelijkheid. De betekenis van het 'Russische communisme' voor het 'Utopia' van Henriette Roland Holst, website of Emma Binnendijk (including her doctoral thesis of 1996 and a review by Paul Arnold)
Poems by Henriette Roland Holst Online
- De zachte krachten zullen zeker winnen (met een uitvoerige bespreking door Pim Heuvel), Klassiekegedichten.net
- Ook ik ben omstreeks ’t midden mijner dagen (besproken door Elly Woltjes), Klassiekegedichten.net
- Enkele gedichten, Spiritualiteit.net
- Gedenk mij in uw gebeden! (ook te beluisteren in een gezongen versie) en Over het ontwaken mijner ziel Poëtisch Liedgenootschap