Hedvig Charlotta Raa-Winterhjelm, née Forssman (20 November 1838 – 7 March 1907), was a Swedish actress active in
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
and
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
. She played a pioneer role in Finland by introducing
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
as a stage language, becoming the first actor in Finland to speak her lines in the Finnish tongue.
Early career
Charlotta Raa-Winterhjelm was born as the daughter of a goldsmith in Stockholm in Sweden under the name Charlotte Forssman. She studied at the
Royal Dramatic Training Academy
The Royal Dramatic Training Academy ( sv, Kungliga Dramatiska Teaterns Elevskola, also known as ''Dramatens elevskola''), was the acting school of Sweden's national stage, the Royal Dramatic Theatre, and for many years (1787–1964) seen as the f ...
in
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
in 1854–56, after which she toured in travelling theater companies in Sweden and Finland.
In 1860, she was employed at the ''
Mindre teatern
Mindre teatern (''The Smaller Theatre''), Nya teatern (''The New Theatre''), Lindeberska teatern (''The Lindeberg Theatre''), was a Swedish theatre at Kungsgatan in Stockholm, active 1842–1863. The building was used as localities for the Royal D ...
'' in Stockholm. In 1863, Mindre teatern was taken over by the
Royal Dramatic Theatre
The Royal Dramatic Theatre ( sv, Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern, colloquially ''Dramaten'') is Sweden's national stage for "spoken drama", founded in 1788. Around one thousand shows are put on annually on the theatre's five running stages.
The the ...
. Many of the actors was given a contract in the new theatre. The competition with Sweden's leading lady
Elise Hwasser
Ebba Charlotta Elise Hwasser née ''Jakobsson'' (16 March 1831 – 28 January 1894) was a Swedish stage actress. She was an elite actor and has been referred to as the leading lady of the Royal Dramatic Theatre in the mid 19th-century.Nordensva ...
made her leave for a position at the theater in Gothenburg, where she was engaged until she left Sweden for a position at the
Swedish Theatre
The Swedish Theatre ( sv, Svenska Teatern) is a Swedish-language theatre in Helsinki, Finland, and is located at the Erottaja ( sv, Skillnaden) square, at the end of Esplanadi ( sv, Esplanaden). It was the first national stage of Finland.
His ...
in
Helsinki
Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...
in 1866.
The
Swedish Theatre
The Swedish Theatre ( sv, Svenska Teatern) is a Swedish-language theatre in Helsinki, Finland, and is located at the Erottaja ( sv, Skillnaden) square, at the end of Esplanadi ( sv, Esplanaden). It was the first national stage of Finland.
His ...
in
Helsinki
Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...
was the first permanent theater in the city: inaugurated in 1860, it had burned down in 1863 and was reopened in 1866, when Raa-Winterhjelm was employed there. The theater became the first national stage in Finland, and Charlotta Raa-Winterhjelm became its lead actress within romantic tragedy between 1866 and 1872.
In 1866, she married her colleague, the actor Fritiof Raa (1840-1872).
Reforms
In parallel, Charlotta Raa-Winterhjelm also founded her own Swedish language theater company in 1866. In 1868, the first theater dramatic school in Finland was founded in connection to the theater, and Charlotta Raa-Winterhjelm was made its instructor. As a drama teacher, she worked to introduce the
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
language on stage. Finland, at that time a Russian province, had been a Swedish province until 1809, and the language spoken on the theater stages in Finland was not Finnish but the
Swedish language
Swedish ( ) is a North Germanic language spoken predominantly in Sweden and in parts of Finland. It has at least 10 million native speakers, the fourth most spoken Germanic language and the first among any other of its type in the Nordic countr ...
, which was the second language in Finland and the language of the upper classes: most actors in Finland at the time were from Sweden, or from the Swedish speaking minority in Finland.
During this time, Finland was a part of Russia. Under Russian rule, a wave of nationalism swept over Finland to preserve the Finnish cultural identity and independence and escape a complete incorporation with Russia, and her initiative was a part of this cultural wave. Despite being a Swede herself, she felt that Finland should have a theater stage in the Finnish language. The Russian authorities reacted to her initiative by closing down the drama school in 1869. As a response of protest, Raa-Winterhjelm pronounced her lines in the Finnish language in the next play she participated; ''Lea'' by
Aleksis Kivi
Aleksis Kivi (; born Alexis Stenvall; 10 October 1834 – 31 December 1872) was a Finnish author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, ''Seitsemän veljestä'' ("Seven Brothers") in 1870. He is also known for his 1864 p ...
, which made her historical as the first actor to have pronounced her lines in the Finnish language on a public theater in Finland.
[Österberg, Carin et al., Svenska kvinnor: föregångare, nyskapare (Swedish women:Predecessors, pioneers) Lund: Signum 1990. ()] She repeated her act by being the first actress to play
Ofelia
Ophelia () is a character in William Shakespeare's drama ''Hamlet'' (1599–1601). She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes and potential wife of Prince Hamlet, who, due to Hamlet's actions, ends up in ...
and
lady Macbeth
Lady Macbeth is a leading character in William Shakespeare's tragedy '' Macbeth'' (). As the wife of the play's tragic hero, Macbeth (a Scottish nobleman), Lady Macbeth goads her husband into committing regicide, after which she becomes quee ...
in the Finnish language.
In 1872, Charlotta Raa-Winterhjelm formed the Finnish language theater company. This was however opposed by the Russian authorities, who banned her from accepting assignments in the Finnish language, and the same year, she left with a travelling theater company to perform in Oslo in Norway.
Later career
In 1874, she married the Norwegian writer and journalist
Kristian Winterhjelm
Kristian is a name in several languages, and is a form of Christian.
Meaning in different languages
The name is used in several languages, among them Albanian, Slovak, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Bosnian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and C ...
. At this point, she took a new first name, Hedvig, thereby becoming known as Hedvig Raa-Winterhjelm. Her second spouse was an alcoholic who forbade her to accept long-term assignments, and she continued her career as a
guest artist
In show business, a guest appearance is the participation of an outsider performer (such as a musician or actor) in an event such as a music record or concert, show, etc., when the performer does not belong to the regular band, cast, or other ...
. Under that title, she toured Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark.
She came to be particularly famed as an
Ibsen
Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playw ...
-interpreter. She toured Norway in 1876–1878, and in 1883, she toured as Mrs Alving in Ibsens ''
Ghosts (play)
''Ghosts'' ( no, Gengangere) is a play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882 in Chicago, Illinois, in a production by a Danish company on tour. Like many of Ibsen's plays, ''Ghosts'' is a sc ...
'' in
Helsingborg
Helsingborg (, , , ) is a city and the seat of Helsingborg Municipality, Scania (Skåne), Sweden. It is the second-largest city in Scania (after Malmö) and ninth-largest in Sweden, with a population of 113,816 (2020). Helsingborg is the cent ...
,
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
, Stockholm and Oslo.
Hedvig Raa-Winterhjelm was also active as a translator of plays. She also tutored as a drama teacher, both as a private teacher and at schools. She was engaged as a drama teacher at the ''
Högre lärarinneseminariet
The Royal Seminary, fully the Royal Advanced Female Teachers' Seminary ( sv, Kungliga Högre Lärarinneseminariet, abbreviated KHLS), was a normal school (teachers' college) in Stockholm, Sweden. It was active from 1861 until 1943. It was the fi ...
'' in Stockholm, where she tutored until 1906.
References
Sources
* Österberg, Carin et al., ''Svenska kvinnor: föregångare, nyskapare'' (Swedish women:Predecessors, pioneers) Lund: Signum 1990. ()
301-302 (Nordisk familjebok / Uggleupplagan. 8. Feiss - Fruktmögel)at runeberg.org
* Georg Nordensvan : Svensk teater och svenska skådespelare från Gustav III till våra dagar. Andra bandet 1842-1918 ("Swedish Theatre and Swedish actors from the days of Gustav III to our days. Second book 1842-1918")
{{DEFAULTSORT:Raa-Winterhjelm, Charlotta
19th-century Swedish actresses
Swedish stage actresses
1838 births
1907 deaths
19th-century Finnish actresses
19th-century Norwegian actresses
Norwegian stage actresses
Swedish expatriates in Finland
Swedish expatriates in Norway