Introduction

Summary

Elsa Asenijeff (1867–1941), a well-known and respected writer at the turn of the twentieth century in Germany, is now mostly, if at all, remembered as painter and sculptor Max Klinger’s (1857–1920) muse. Her omission from literary history is by no means an exception, but rather a fate that Asenijeff shares with many women writers who published during the first half of the twentieth century—and beyond. While this “unjust neglect” is certainly due to the fact that the literary canon was mostly shaped by the masculine bourgeoisie, the decline in public recognition that Asenijeff experienced during the last two decades of her lifetime further complicates her case.

Born in Vienna, Asenijeff lived and published in Leipzig for most of her life, where she was engaged in an intellectual, creative, and romantic partnership with Klinger. When he left her shortly before his death in 1920, Asenijeff lost most of her social and financial security. Eventually, she was admitted to a mental institution, where she spent the last decade of her life shunned by critics and forgotten by both her friends and the public. Her work has been rediscovered in the German-speaking world only within the last fifteen years, with the small press Turmhut publishing some of her texts, and the Museum of Leipzig, under the auspice of Rita Jorek, organizing public talks and events on her life and work.

As one of the first women to attend the University of Leipzig, Asenijeff was a strong defender of women’s rights to education and financial and creative independence. In her personal correspondence and literary work she openly advocates for equity in education and professional opportunities—sometimes in line with the moderate women’s movement’s rationale, such as when arguing for women’s rights to education because a woman’s education improved the quality of marriage; other times, however, Asenijeff discards the institution of marriage altogether, which she harshly criticizes as detrimental to women’s creativity and professional opportunities. These and other jarring contradictions in Asenijeff’s texts continue to puzzle her readers as well as the few scholars who critically engage with her work.