Hermynia Zur Mühlen (12 December 1883 – 20 March 1951), or Folliot de Crenneville-Poutet, was an

Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ** Austria-Hungary ** Austria ...

writer and translator. She translated over seventy books into German from English, Russian and French, including work by

Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American author, muckraker journalist, and political activist, and the 1934 California gubernatorial election, 1934 Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party ...

John Galsworthy John Galsworthy (; 14 August 1867 – 31 January 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. He is best known for his trilogy of novels collectively called '' The Forsyte Saga'', and two later trilogies, ''A Modern Comedy'' and ''End of th ...

Jerome K. Jerome Jerome Klapka Jerome (2 May 1859 – 14 June 1927) was an English writer and humorist, best known for the comic travelogue ''Three Men in a Boat'' (1889). Other works include the essay collections '' Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow'' (1886) an ...

Harold Nicolson Sir Harold George Nicolson (21 November 1886 – 1 May 1968) was a British politician, writer, broadcaster and gardener. His wife was Vita Sackville-West. Early life and education Nicolson was born in Tehran, Persia, the youngest son of dipl ...

Max Eastman Max Forrester Eastman (January 4, 1883 – March 25, 1969) was an American writer on literature, philosophy, and society, a poet, and a prominent political activist. Moving to New York City for graduate school, Eastman became involved with radica ...

and

Edna Ferber Edna Ferber (August 15, 1885 – April 16, 1968) was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright. Her novels include the Pulitzer Prize-winning '' So Big'' (1924), '' Show Boat'' (1926; made into the celebrated 1927 musical), '' Cima ...

.Lionel Grossman, 'Remembering Hermynia Zur Mühlen: A Tribute', in Hermynia Zur Mühlen,
The End and the Beginning: a Memoir
', Open Book Publishers, 2010, pp.271-295 She has been characterised as "one of the best known women writers of the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

." A committed

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

from a Viennese aristocratic

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

family, she was sometimes called the Red Countess.

Life

The Countess Folliot de Crenneville, born as Hermine Isabelle Maria Gräfin Folliot de Crenneville in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, was the great granddaughter of Louis Charles Folliot de Crenneville, a French-born general who fought for the

Habsburg monarchy The Habsburg monarchy, also known as Habsburg Empire, or Habsburg Realm (), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities (composite monarchy) that were ruled by the House of Habsburg. From the 18th century it is ...

in the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

. Her paternal grandfather was Franz Folliot de Crenneville, Knight in the

Order of the Golden Fleece The Distinguished Order of the Golden Fleece (, ) is a Catholic order of chivalry founded in 1430 in Brugge by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, to celebrate his marriage to Isabella of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy, Isabella of Portugal. T ...

. Her maternal grandfather was the diplomat Ferdinand, Count von Wydenbruck, who had married a politically liberal woman from the Anglo-Irish gentry. Growing up in the

Governorate of Estonia The Governorate of Estonia, also known as the Esthonia (Estland) Governorate, was a province (''guberniya'') and one of the Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire. It was located in the northern Estonia with some islands in the West Estoni ...

, where her father was a diplomat, she was sent aged 30 to a pulmonary sanatorium in

Davos Davos (, ; or ; ; Old ) is an Alpine resort town and municipality in the Prättigau/Davos Region in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. It has a permanent population of (). Davos is located on the river Landwasser, in the Rhaetian ...

. Here she began a career of translation into German, translating an anti-war novel by

Leonid Andreyev Leonid Nikolaievich Andreyev (, – 12 September 1919) was a Russian playwright, novelist and short-story writer, who is considered to be a father of Expressionism in Russian literature. He is regarded as one of the most talented and prolific ...

, and in 1918 ''King Coal'' by

. An unhappy marriage to Viktor von zur Mühlen, a conservative German landowner, was officially ended in 1923. By this time she had met Stefan Klein, a German Jew and fellow translator who would be her partner for the rest of her life. Zur Mühlen wrote six

detective novels Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an criminal investigation, investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around ...

under the name Lawrence H. Desberry, and collections of

fairy tales A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, household tale, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the Folklore, folklore genre. Such stories typically feature Magic (supernatural), magic, Incantation, e ...

interpreted from a radical perspective. She also wrote anecdotes, sketches and feuilletons for periodical publication. She published an autobiographical memoir, ''End und Anfang'', in 1929, in which the new beginning is that of the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

. Though she quietly left the Communist Party around 1931 or 1932, she remained committed to socialism. Zur Mühlen and Klein left

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

for Vienna in 1933. Zur Mühlen refused to agree to

S. Fischer Verlag S. Fischer Verlag is a major German publishing house, which has operated as a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group since 1962. The publishing house was founded in 1881 by Samuel Fischer in Berlin, but is currently based in Frankfurt am Mai ...

's appeal that she follow

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...

Alfred Döblin Bruno Alfred Döblin (; 10 August 1878 – 26 June 1957) was a German novelist, essayist, and doctor, best known for his novel '' Berlin Alexanderplatz'' (1929). A prolific writer whose œuvre spans more than half a century and a wide variety of ...

René Schickele René Schickele (4 August 1883 – 31 January 1940) was a German-French writer, essayist and translator. Schickele's most famous work is the novel trilogy ''Das Erbe am Rhein'' (1925–31): ''Maria Capponi'' (1925), ''Blick auf die Vogesen'' (1 ...

and Stefan Klein in undertaking not to write in ''émigré'' magazines: ''Unsere Töchter die Nazinen'' was a directly anti-Nazi satire: serialized in the

Territory of the Saar Basin The Territory of the Saar Basin (, ; ) was a region occupied and governed by the United Kingdom and France from 1920 to 1935 under a League of Nations mandate. It had its own flag (adopted on 28 July 1920): a blue, white, and black horizontal t ...

in a leftwing newspaper in 1934, it was banned after eventually finding a publisher in 1936. With the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...

of 1938, Zur Mühlen and Klein left for

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

, where they married. After the

German occupation of Bohemia German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ger ...

in March 1939, they had to escape again; via Budapest, Yugoslavia, Italy, Switzerland and France, they reached London on 19 June 1939. Wilhelm Kuehs (2002)
''Hermynia Zur Mühlen (1883-1952)''
p. 2 (pdf). In London, Zur Mühlen scraped a precarious living from journalism. The two novels she wrote in England - ''Ewiges Schattenspiel'' and ''Als der Fremde kam'' - seem to have been part of an intended trilogy. She died in obscurity in

Radlett Radlett is a large village in Hertfordshire, England, between Elstree and St Albans on Watling Street, with a population of 10,060. It is in the council district of Hertsmere in the south of the county, and forms part of the civil parish of A ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

Works

* ''Schupomann Karl Müller'' (1924) * ''Fairy tales for workers' children'' Chicago, Ill., Daily Worker Pub. Co. 1925 * ''Unsere Töchter, die Nazinnen'' Our Daughters, the Nazis (1935)
"Unsere Töchter die Nazinen."
A Synopsis in English, With an Introduction. By Lionel Gossman, Princeton University. * ''We Poor Shadows'' (1943) * ''Came the Stranger'' (1946) * ''The Castle of Truth and Other Revolutionary Tales'' (Princeton, 2020), ed. and trans. by

Jack Zipes Jack David Zipes (born June 7, 1937) is a literary scholar and author. He is a professor emeritus in the Department of German, Nordic, Slavic and Dutch at the University of Minnesota. Zipes is known for his work on fairy tales, folklore, crit ...

References

Sources

* ''Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature'' *

Lionel Gossman Lionel Gossman (31 May 1929 – 11 January 2021) was a Scottish-American scholar of French literature. He taught Romance Languages at Johns Hopkins University and Princeton University, and wrote extensively on the history, theory and practice of ...

, "The Red Countess: Four Stories," ''Common Knowledge'', vol. 15 (2009), 59-91. * Ailsa Wallace, ''Hermynia Zur Muhlen: The Guises of Socialist Fiction'' (

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2009) * Manfred Altner, ''Hermynia Zur Muhlen; Eine Biographie,'' (Bern: Peter Lang, 1997) *Barbara McCloskey, "Teach Your Children Well: Hermynia Zur Mühlen, George Grosz, and the Art of Radical Pedagogy in Germany between the World Wars." In ''Art and Resistance in Germany'', edited by Deborah Ascher Barnstone and Elizabeth Otto. (New York:

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...

Visual Arts, 2018), p. 77-95.

External links

* * * *
''Liebe Genossin: Hermynia Zur Mühlen: a Writer of Courage and Conviction''
by

* Lionel Grossman,
The End and the Beginning: a Memoir
'' Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2010
DOI: https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0007
{{DEFAULTSORT:ZurMuehlen, Hermynia 1883 births 1951 deaths Political writers Austrian women novelists 20th-century Austrian translators Translators from Russian English–German translators Austrian socialists Nobility from the Austrian Empire Austrian people of French descent Austrian expatriates in Germany Austrian fantasy writers Austrian expatriates in England Writers from Vienna Pseudonymous women writers 20th-century Austrian novelists 20th-century Austrian women writers Women political writers 20th-century pseudonymous writers