Leopold von Sacher-Masoch - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (27 January 1836 – 9 March 1895) was an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n writer and journalist, who gained renown for his romantic stories of Galician life. The term masochism is derived from his name.

During his lifetime, Sacher-Masoch was well known as a man of letters, a utopian thinker who espoused socialist

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,...

and humanist

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

ideals in his fiction and non-fiction. Most of his works remain untranslated into English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

. The novel Venus in Furs
Venus in Furs
Venus in Furs is a novella by Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the best known of his works. The novel was part of an epic series that Sacher-Masoch envisioned called Legacy of Cain. Venus in Furs was part of Love, the first volume of the series...

is his only book commonly available in English.

Galician storyteller

Von Sacher-Masoch was born in the city then known as Lemberg, the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria

Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria

The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria was a crownland of the Habsburg Monarchy, the Austrian Empire, and Austria–Hungary from 1772 to 1918 .This historical region in eastern Central Europe is currently divided between Poland and Ukraine...

, at the time a province of the Austrian Empire

Austrian Empire

The Austrian Empire was a modern era successor empire, which was centered on what is today's Austria and which officially lasted from 1804 to 1867. It was followed by the Empire of Austria-Hungary, whose proclamation was a diplomatic move that elevated Hungary's status within the Austrian Empire...

(now Lviv

Lviv

Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...

, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

), into the Roman Catholic family of an Austria

Austria

n police director of Spanish descent and Charlotte von Masoch, a Ukrainian noblewoman. He began learning German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

at age 12. He studied law, history and mathematics at Graz University, and after graduating moved back to Lemberg where he became a professor. His early, non-fictional publications dealt mostly with Austrian history. At the same time, Masoch turned to the folklore and culture of his homeland, Galicia. Soon he abandoned lecturing and became a free man of letters. Within a decade his short stories and novels prevailed over his historical non-fiction

Non-fiction

Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...

works, though historical themes continued to imbue his fiction.

Panslavist

Pan-Slavism

Pan-Slavism was a movement in the mid-19th century aimed at unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus was in the Balkans where the South Slavs had been ruled for centuries by other empires, Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Venice...

ideas were prevalent in Masoch's literary work, and he found a particular interest in depicting picturesque types among the various ethnicities that inhabited Galicia. From the 1860s to the 1880s he published a number of volumes of Jewish Short Stories, Polish Short Stories, Galician Short Stories, German Court Stories and Russian Court Stories. His works were published in translation in Ukrainian

Ukrainian language

Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....

, Polish

Polish language

Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

, Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

and 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 Ukraine his works were widely read and held in high esteem.

The Legacy of Cain

In 1869 Sacher-Masoch conceived a grandiose series of short stories under the collective title Legacy of Cain
Legacy of Cain
The Legacy of Cain is an unfinished cycle of novellas by the 19th century Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. His original plan was to group various novellas into 6 volumes, each of which was titled according to its central theme; those are "Love", "Property", "State", "War", "Work", and...

that would represent the author's aesthetic Weltanschauung. The cycle opened with the manifesto The Wanderer that brought out misogynist themes that became peculiar to Masoch's writings. Of the six planned volumes, only the first two were ever completed. By the middle of the 1880s, Masoch abandoned the Legacy of Cain. Nevertheless, the published volumes of the series included Masoch's best-known stories, and of them, Venus in Furs
Venus in Furs
Venus in Furs is a novella by Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the best known of his works. The novel was part of an epic series that Sacher-Masoch envisioned called Legacy of Cain. Venus in Furs was part of Love, the first volume of the series...

(1869) is the most famous today. The short novel expressed Sacher-Masoch's fantasies and fetishes (especially for dominant women wearing fur). He did his best to live out his fantasies with his mistresses and wives.

Philosemitism and feminism

Sacher-Masoch edited the Leipzig-based monthly literary magazine Auf der Höhe. Internationale Review (At the Pinnacle. International Review), which was published from October, 1881 to September, 1885. This was a progressive

Progressivism

Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...

magazine aimed at tolerance and integration for Jews in Saxony

Saxony

The Free State of Saxony is a landlocked state of Germany, contingent with Brandenburg, Saxony Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. It is the tenth-largest German state in area, with of Germany's sixteen states....

, as well as for the emancipation of women

Women's rights

Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

with articles on women's education and suffrage.

In his later years, he worked against local antisemitism through an association for adult education called the Oberhessischer Verein für Volksbildung (OVV), founded in 1893 with his second wife, Hulda Meister.

Private life

On 8 December 1869, Sacher-Masoch and his mistress Baroness Fanny Pistor signed a contract making him her slave

Master/slave (BDSM)

In BDSM, Master/slave or M/s is a relationship in which one individual gives to another ultimate authority over them. It is a form of dominance and submission or total power exchange. The participants may be of any gender or sexual orientation...

for a period of six months, with the stipulation that the Baroness wear furs as often as possible, especially when she was in a cruel mood. Sacher-Masoch took the alias of "Gregor," a stereotypical male servant's name, and assumed a disguise as the servant of the Baroness. The two traveled by train to Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

. As in Venus in Furs, he traveled in the third-class compartment, while she had a seat in first-class, arriving in Venice (Florence, in the novel), where they were not known, and would not arouse suspicion.

Sacher-Masoch pressured his first wife, Aurora von Rümelin, whom he married in 1873, to live out the experience of the book, against her preferences. Sacher-Masoch found his family life to be unexciting, and eventually got a divorce

Divorce

Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

and married his assistant.

Later years

In 1875 Masoch wrote The Ideals of Our Time, an attempt to give a portrait of German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

society during its Gründerzeit

Gründerzeit

' refers to the economic phase in 19th century Germany and Austria before the great stock market crash of 1873. At this time in Central Europe the age of industrialisation was taking place, whose beginnings were found in the 1840s...

period.

In his late fifties, his mental health

Mental health

Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...

began to deteriorate, and he spent the last years of his life under psychiatric

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

care. According to official reports, he died in Lindheim, Germany

Germany

in 1895. It is also claimed that he died in an asylum

Psychiatric hospital

Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...

in Mannheim

Mannheim

Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....

in 1905.

Sacher-Masoch is the great-great-uncle to the British

British people

The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...

singer and actress Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....

on her mother's side, the Viennese

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

Baron

Baron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...

ess Eva Erisso

Eva Erisso

Eva von Sacher-Masoch Baroness Erisso was an Austrian aristocrat.Born Eva Hermine von Sacher-Masoch, Freiin Erisso she was the grand-niece of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and the mother of Marianne Faithfull. She was born in Budapest, when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Her parents were...

Masochism

The term masochism
Masochism
The word masochism could refer to:*Sadomasochism*Self-defeating personality disorder...

was invented in 1886 by the Austrian psychiatrist Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902) in his book Psychopathia Sexualis
Psychopathia Sexualis
Psychopathia Sexualis may refer to:* Psychopathia Sexualis, an 1886 book about human sexuality by Richard von Krafft-Ebing* Psychopathia Sexualis , an 1843 moral psychology book about human sexuality by Heinrich Kaan...

:

Sacher-Masoch was not pleased with Kraft-Ebing's assertions. Nevertheless, details of Masoch's private life were obscure until Aurora von Rümelin's memoirs, Meine Lebensbeichte (1906), were published in Berlin under the pseudonym Wanda v. Dunajew. The following year a French translation, Confession de Ma Vie (1907), by "Wanda von Sacher-Masoch" was printed in Paris by Mercure de France. An English translation of the French edition was published as The Confessions of Wanda von Sacher-Masoch (1991) by RE/Search Publications.

Selected bibliography

1858 A Galician Story 1846.
1865 Kaunitz.
1866 Don Juan of Kolomiya.
1867 The Last King of Hungary.
1870 The Divorced Woman.
1870 Legacy of Cain
Legacy of Cain
The Legacy of Cain is an unfinished cycle of novellas by the 19th century Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. His original plan was to group various novellas into 6 volumes, each of which was titled according to its central theme; those are "Love", "Property", "State", "War", "Work", and...

. Vol. 1: Love. (includes his most famous novella Venus in Furs
Venus in Furs
Venus in Furs is a novella by Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the best known of his works. The novel was part of an epic series that Sacher-Masoch envisioned called Legacy of Cain. Venus in Furs was part of Love, the first volume of the series...

)
1872 Faux Ermine.
1873 Female Sultan.
1873 The Messalinas of Vienna.
1873-1874 Russian Court Stories: 4 Vols.
1873-1877 Viennese Court Stories: 2 Vols.
1875 The Ideals of Our Time.
1875 Galician Stories.
1877 The Man Without Prejustice.
1877 Legacy of Cain
Legacy of Cain
The Legacy of Cain is an unfinished cycle of novellas by the 19th century Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. His original plan was to group various novellas into 6 volumes, each of which was titled according to its central theme; those are "Love", "Property", "State", "War", "Work", and...

. Vol. 2: Property.
1878 The New Hiob.
1878 Jewish Stories.
1878 The Republic of Women's Enemies.
1879 Silhouettes.
1881 New Jewish Stories.
1883 The Godmother.
1886 Eternal Youth.
1886 Stories from Polish Ghetto.
1886 Little Mysteries of World History.
1887 Polish Stories.
1890 The Serpent in Paradise.
1891 The Lonesome.
1894 Love Stories.
1898 Entre nous.
1900 Catherina II.
1901 Afrikas Semiramis.
1907 Fierce Women.

External links

- The complete text of Venus in Furs from Project Gutenberg
  Project Gutenberg
  Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
- The Bookbinder of Hort, part of an anthology, Stories by Foreign Authors
The Letawitza
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch article from Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/who-was-a-naughty-ukrainian-then-with-communism-dead-the-town-of-lvov-is-celebrating-all-sorts-of-famous-sons-except-the-leopold-von-sachermasoch-sort-andrew-higgins-reports-1415561.html From The Independent Saturday, 23 July 1994

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.