Background
Rahel Levin was born in Berlin to a Jewish family. Her father, a wealthy jeweler, was a strong-willed man who ruled his family despotically.
(She was, Hannah Arendt wrote, "my closest friend, though ...)
She was, Hannah Arendt wrote, "my closest friend, though she has been dead for some hundred years." Born in Berlin in 1771 as the daughter of a Jewish merchant, Rahel Varnhagen would come to host one of the most prominent salons of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Arendt discovered her writings some time in the mid-1920s, and soon began to reimagine Rahel's inner life and write her biography. Long unavailable and never before published as Arendt intended, Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess returns to print in an extraordinary new edition. Arendt draws a lively and complex portrait of a woman during the period of the Napoleonic wars and the early emancipation of the Jews, a figure who met and corresponded with some of the most celebrated authors, artists, and politicians of her time. She documents Rahel's attempts to earn legitimacy as a writer and gain access to the highest aristocratic circles, to assert for herself a position in German culture in spite of her gender and religion. Arendt had almost completed a first draft of her book on Rahel by 1933 when she was forced into exile by the National Socialists. She continued her work on the manuscript in Paris and New York, but would not publish the book until 1958. Rahel Varnhagen became not just a study of a historical Jewish figure, but a poignant reflection on Arendt's own life and times, her first exploration of German-Jewish identity and the possibility of Jewish life in the face of unimaginable adversity. For this first complete critical edition of the book in any language, Liliane Weissberg reconstructs the notes Arendt planned for Rahel Varnhagen but never fully executed. She reveals the extent to which Arendt wove the biography largely from the words of Rahel and her contemporaries. In her extended introduction, Weissberg reflects on Rahel's writings and on the importance of this text in the development of Arendt's political theory. Weissberg also reveals the hidden story of how Arendt manipulated documents relating to Rahel Varnhagen to claim for herself a university position and reparation payments from the postwar German state.
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(Rahel Levin Varnhagen (1771–1833) occupied a unique place...)
Rahel Levin Varnhagen (1771–1833) occupied a unique place in German intellectual history. She is known for the salon she initiated in Berlin, which became a center for intellectuals and artists of various social classes—especially for writers of the Romantic and the Young Germany schools. Based on research at the rediscovered Varnhagen Collection, Heidi Thomann Tewarson provides a new and comprehensive portrait of this remarkable woman. No longer primarily the sparkling salonnière, Varhagen is recognized as the author of a unique epistolary oeuvre. Tewarson gives a rich account of Varnhagen’s intellectual community, made up of such figures as Friedrich and Dorothea Schlegel, Clemens Brentano, Goethe, Hegel, Leopold Ranke, Heine, and the assimilated Jewish community in Berlin. Tewarson also discusses Varnhagen’s writings on women, philosophy, literature, Jews, and a host of other topics. In particular, she highlights Varnhagen’s insights into—and vehement protests against —discrimination against women and Jews. These writings led to Varnhagen’s reputation as a leading intellectual of her era—a champion of literary figures and movements, of human rights, and of Enlightenment values. Rahel Levin Varnhagen (1771–1833) occupied a unique place in German intellectual history. She is known for the salon she initiated in Berlin, which became a center for intellectuals and artists of various social classes—especially for writers of the Romantic and the Young Germany schools. Based on research at the rediscovered Varnhagen Collection, Heidi Thomann Tewarson provides a new and comprehensive portrait of this remarkable woman. No longer primarily the sparkling salonnière, Varhagen is recognized as the author of a unique epistolary oeuvre. Tewarson gives a rich account of Varnhagen’s intellectual community, made up of such figures as Friedrich and Dorothea Schlegel, Clemens Brentano, Goethe, Hegel, Leopold Ranke, Heine, and the assimilated Jewish community in Berlin. Tewarson also discusses Varnhagen’s writings on women, philosophy, literature, Jews, and a host of other topics. In particular, she highlights Varnhagen’s insights into—and vehement protests against —discrimination against women and Jews. These writings led to Varnhagen’s reputation as a leading intellectual of her era—a champion of literary figures and movements, of human rights, and of Enlightenment values.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0803294360/?tag=2022091-20
Rahel Levin was born in Berlin to a Jewish family. Her father, a wealthy jeweler, was a strong-willed man who ruled his family despotically.
She became very intimate with Dorothea and Henriette, the daughters of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Together with them she knew Henriette Herz, with whom she later became most intimately associated, moving in the same intellectual sphere. She, Henriette Herz, and Levin's cousin Sara Grotthuis née Meyer hosted the most noted Berlin salons around 1800. Her home became the meeting-place of men like Schlegel, Schelling, Steffens, Schack, Schleiermacher, Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt, Motte Fouqué, Baron Brückmann, Ludwig Tieck, Jean Paul, and Friedrich Gentz. During a visit to Carlsbad in 1795 she was introduced to Goethe, whom she again saw in 1815, at Frankfurt am Main.
After 1806 she lived in Paris, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Prague, and Dresden. This period was one of misfortune for Germany; Prussia was reduced to a small kingdom and its king was in exile. Secret societies were formed in every part of the country with the object of throwing off the tyranny of Napoleon. Levin herself belonged to one of these societies.
In 1814 she married, in Berlin, the biographer Karl August Varnhagen von Ense, after converting to Christianity this also made her sister-in-law to the poet Rosa Maria Assing. At the time of their marriage, her husband, who had fought in the Austrian army against the French, belonged to the Prussian diplomatic corps, and their house at Vienna became the meeting-place of the Prussian delegates to the Congress of Vienna. She accompanied her husband in 1815 to Vienna, and in 1816 to Karlsruhe, where he was Prussian representative. After 1819 she again lived in Berlin, where Varnhagen had taken up his residence after having been retired from his diplomatic position.
Though never the author of a major book, Rahel Varnhagen is remembered both for the intensity and variety of her correspondence. Six thousand letters have survived, out of an estimated ten thousand letters written by her in the course of her lifetime. A few of her essays were published in Das Morgenblatt, Das Schweizerische Museum, and Der Gesellschafter; in 1830, her Denkblätter einer Berlinerin was published in Berlin. Her husband, Karl August, edited and published her correspondence in the twenty years following her death. Her correspondence with David Veit and with Karl August was published in Leipzig, in 1861 and 1874–1875 respectively.
Rahel Varnhagen died in Berlin in 1833. Her grave is located in the Dreifaltigkeitsfriedhof I Berlin-Kreuzberg. Her husband published two memorial volumes after her death containing selections from her work: Rahel, ein Buch des Andenkens für ihre Freunde (Rahel, a memorial book for her friends; 3 vols., 1834; new ed., 1903) and Galerie von Bildnissen aus Rahels Umgang (Gallery of portraits from Rahel's circle; 2 vols., 1836).
(Rahel Varnhagen (1777-1833) lived during the crucial peri...)
(She was, Hannah Arendt wrote, "my closest friend, though ...)
(Rahel Levin Varnhagen (1771–1833) occupied a unique place...)
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), "Rahel always showed the greatest interest in her former coreligionists, endeavoring by word and deed to better their position, especially during the anti-Semitic outburst in Germany in 1819. On the day of her funeral Varnhagen sent a considerable sum of money to the Jewish poor of Berlin."
In 1814 she married, in Berlin, the biographer Karl August Varnhagen von Ense, after converting to Christianity this also made her sister-in-law to the poet Rosa Maria Assing.