Leopoldine Kulka (31 March 1872 – 2 January 1920) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n writer and editor. As editor of ''Neues Frauenleben'' she controversially met women from combatant countries at the 1915 Women's conference at the Hague.

Life

Kulka was born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in 1872. She joined the radical General Austrian Women's Association (GAWA) before she was thirty. She also became interested in peace issues at the start of the century. She was writing regularly for political magazines for women. In 1902

Auguste Fickert Auguste Fickert (born 25 May 1855, Vienna - died 9 June 1910, Maria Enzersdorf, Austria) was a pioneering Austrian feminist and social reformer. Her politics were on the left wing of Austrian feminism and she allied with proletarian organization ...

started an Austrian magazine which she called ''

Neues Frauenleben ''Neues Frauenleben'' (German: ''New Women's Life'') was a socialist feminist magazine which was published in Vienna, Austria, in the period 1902–1917. It was the official organ of the General Austrian Women’s Organization. History and pro ...

'', and after her death (1910) Kulka became its editor together with Christine Touallion and Emil Fickert. In 1904 she and Adele Gerber went to Berlin to help found the International Women's Suffrage Alliance. International Congress of Women1915 (22785230005)

International Congress of Women1915 (22785230005)

In 1911, she became vice-president of the GAWA. In 1914, she had helped translate ''Women and Labour'' by

Olive Schreiner Olive Schreiner (24 March 1855 – 11 December 1920) was a South African author, anti-war campaigner and intellectual. She is best remembered today for her novel ''The Story of an African Farm'' (1883), which has been highly acclaimed. It deal ...

into German. The South African Schreiner argued that women understood the value of life more than men. Despite a lot of debate about the value of a women's peace conference, she was the delegate chosen in 1915. She traveled to

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

where she represented Austria at the

Women at the Hague Women at the Hague was an International Congress of Women conference held at The Hague, Netherlands in April 1915. It had over 1,100 delegates and it established an International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace (ICWPP) with Jane Addams as pr ...

conference. This was during the first World War but even then she raised 1,000 signatures of support. She and Olga Meser were supported by the magazine ''Neues Frauenleben''. On their return they both made reports to the magazine about the conference noting the difficulties that some delegates had in attending the conference. The delegation from Britain was trimmed by the Foreign Office to 24 delegates and actually only two made it to the Hague. Italy only managed one delegate, Rosa Genoni, and she was keen to note that she did not represent her country. Laura Hughes came from Canada to represent what was called at the time "the Colonies". In 1917, she led the peace section of the GAWA. In 1919 the war had finished and Kulka horrified

Jane Addams Laura Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 May 21, 1935) was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, and author. She was an important leader in the history of social work and women's suffrage ...

and other delegates as she described the demoralising effects of starvation. Kulka died in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in 1920.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kulka, Leopoldine 1872 births 1920 deaths Writers from Vienna Austrian pacifists Pacifist feminists 20th-century Austrian women writers Austrian translators Academics of the University of Vienna 20th-century translators