Clara Nordström, maiden name and pseudonym for Clara Elisabet von Vegesack, (January 18, 1886 in
Karlskrona,
Sweden – February 7, 1962 in
Mindelheim
Mindelheim (; Swabian: ''Mindelhoi'') is a town in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany. The town is the capital of the Unterallgäu district. At various points in history it was the chief settlement of an eponymous state.
Geography
Mindelheim is loc ...
,
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
) was a German writer and translator of Swedish descent. With the themes of her writing and her Swedish maiden name she profited from the German interest for Scandinavian writers.
Biography
Born the daughter of a physician
and a peasant woman in Karlskrona and brought up in
Växjö
Växjö ( ) is a city and the seat of Växjö Municipality, Kronoberg County, Sweden. It had 70,489 inhabitants (2019) out of a municipal population of 95,995 (2021). It is the administrative, cultural, and industrial centre of Kronoberg County ...
(Sweden), she was bed-ridden owing to illness up to her twelfth year. It was only after that, from about 1897, that she started to frequent various private schools in Växjö. In 1903, she went to
Hildesheim
Hildesheim (; nds, Hilmessen, Hilmssen; la, Hildesia) is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany with 101,693 inhabitants. It is in the district of Hildesheim, about southeast of Hanover on the banks of the Innerste River, a small tributary of the ...
(Germany) and shortly afterwards to
Braunschweig
Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...
(Germany) in order to learn the German language. On April 17, 1905 she married, in Växjö, the son of her teacher, 15 years her senior, and in 1906 gave birth to their son Gustav Adolf. She got divorced in 1909 after she had been left by her husband. Nordström returned to Växjö for a short time and in the same year moved to
Berlin
Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...
to become a photographer. After three years of instruction and practical training, she had to give up her profession for health reasons. In 1912 she went to
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
to become a writer. It was there that in 1914 she met Siegfried von Vegesack, whom she married on February 16 in
Stockholm.
In 1916, she moved with her husband to Berlin, where in April 1917 her daughter Isabel was born (who died in 2005). Because of an ailment of Siegfried von Vegesack's, the family in 1917 moved to a farm near
Dingolfing
Dingolfing is a town in southern Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the Landkreis (district) Dingolfing-Landau. Dingolfing is home of a BMW assembly plant.
History
The area now called Dingolfing was first mentioned in ''Tinguluinga'' in the ...
and later to Großwalding near
Deggendorf
Deggendorf () is a town in Bavaria, Germany, capital of the Deggendorf district.
It is located on the left bank approximately in the middle between the Danube cities of Regensburg and Passau. The Danube forms the town's natural border towards t ...
. In 1918 they acquired a corn tower near
Regen
Regen (Northern Bavarian: ''Reng'') is a town in Bavaria, Germany, and the district town of the district of Regen.
Geography
Regen is situated on the great Regen River, located in the Bavarian Forest.
Divisions
Originally the town consisted ...
, which they refurbished into a residential tower. In 1920 Karin their second daughter was born but died only a few days later. In 1923 their son Gotthard was born, to be killed in action in the Second World War in 1944. In the same year Nordström published her first novel ''Tomtelilla'' both in Germany and in Sweden. With her mother's death an important source of income had run dry. Therefore, Nordström opened up, in the tower, a place for artists and writers to live. In these years the couple started gradually to grow apart. In 1929 the family moved to Switzerland. Shortly afterwards Clara Nordström moved with her children to
Stuttgart and got a divorce in 1935 at Vegesack's wish. In that year she started to read from her works all over Germany. Her 1933 novel ''Kajsa Lejondahl'' was successful.
From her German base, she also wrote articles in the Swedish
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
press. In 1936 she returned for a short period to the residential tower in Weißenstein near Regen and in 1938/39 she built a house in Baiersbronn in the
Black Forest
The Black Forest (german: Schwarzwald ) is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is ...
. In 1944 she was called to
Königsberg
Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was na ...
to read from her texts for the radio station run by the German
Propagandaministerium
The Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (; RMVP), also known simply as the Ministry of Propaganda (), controlled the content of the press, literature, visual arts, film, theater, music and radio in Nazi Germany.
The ministry ...
transmitting in Swedish, but in 1944 had to flee to
Hamburg
Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...
.
Throughout her life, she again and again had to struggle with severe ailments and therefore intensely questioned her faith, which is what the characters in her books do. In 1948 she converted from Protestantism to Catholicism. Round about 1950 she again moved to Stuttgart and took orders (
"Oblatin" of St. Benedict) in the convent of
Neresheim
Neresheim is a town in the Ostalbkreis district, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated northeast of Heidenheim an der Brenz, Heidenheim, and southeast of Aalen.
It's the home of the Neresheim Abbey, which still hosts monks, was ''Reich ...
. In 1952 she settled in Dießen on Lake Ammersee to be able to read from her works in Bavaria. She died in 1962 and was buried in Mindelheim.
Publications
* ''Tomtelilla'', 1923 (enlarged edition 1953)
* ''Kajsa Lejondahl'', 1933
* ''Frau Kajsa'', 1934
[J. A. B. (1935). Review: ''Frau Kajsa'' by Clara Nordström. '']Books Abroad
''World Literature Today'' is an American magazine of international literature and culture, published at the University of Oklahoma. The stated goal of the magazine is to publish international essays, poetry, fiction, interviews, and book review ...
'' 9(2): 194
* ''Roger Björn'', 1935
* ''Lillemor'', 1936
* ''Der Ruf der Heimat'', 1938
* ''Bengta, die Bäuerin aus Skane'', 1941
* ''Sternenreiter'', 1946 (from 1951 published by a different publisher under the name Engelbrecht Engelbrechtsson)
* ''Die letzte der Svenske'', 1952
* ''Licht zwischen den Wolken'', 1952
* ''Kristof'', 1955
* ''Der Weg in das große Leuchten'', 1955
* ''Mein Leben'', 1957
* ''Der Findling vom Sankt Erikshof'', 1961
* ''Die Flucht nach Schweden'', 1960
* ''Die höhere Liebe'', 1963 (published after her death)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nordstrom, Clara
1886 births
1962 deaths
People from Karlskrona
German women writers
20th-century German translators
20th-century German women
Swedish emigrants to Germany