Berta Fanta

Background

Berta was born in 1866 to a well-off Jewish family in the small town of Libochovice (Libochowitz).

Career

She was at the centre of the Prague intelligensia with a "salon" meeting at her house. Her birthplace is located near Prague, and while it was located in the Austrian Empire at the time of her birth, it is currently located in the Czechoslovakian Republic. In Prague, Berta Fanta was the hostess of a prominent and famous literary and philosophic salon. was called Cafe Louvre, the name of its first venue.

Later, the salon was hosted at the Fanta"s house.

In the two decades before World War I, many prominent individuals attended Fanta"s salon, including theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels, writers Franz Kafka and Max Brod, anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner, and philosopher Hugo Bergmann (who became Berta"s son-in-law. He was the husband of Berta"s daughter Else).

But the meetings weren"t limited only to intellectual or spiritual pursuits. Some social evenings were based around art and music

There were themed masquerades and parodies of literary works were also performed.

Albert Einstein would play his violin in duets with the pianist Ottilie Nagel. She was a large fan of German culture, especially the music of the antisemitic Richard Wagner and the writings of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Fanta was said to have much preferred German culture to Czechoslovakian culture, however she was a fan of Czechoslovakian music including Dvořák

Fanta did not routinely publish her literary works.

Although a small number of her poems and her diary were published.

However, she died before she was able to emigrate.

Connections

son-in-law:

Hugo Bergmann