Alma Karlin
Encyclopedia
Alma Vilibalda Maximiliana Karlin (12 October 1889 – 15 January 1950), was a Slovene-Austrian
traveler
, writer
, poet
, collector
, polyglot
and theosophist
.
She was born in the Styrian
town of Celje
(now part of Slovenia
) in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire as the daughter of Jakob Karlin, a major
in the Austro-Hungarian Army
, and Vilibalda Miheljak, a teacher. Her father died when she was eight years old. Alma grew in a predominately German
-speaking milieu, and regarded herself chiefly as Austrian
rather than ethnic German or Slovene.
After completing her secondary education in Graz
, she traveled to London
, where she studied languages. She learned English
, French
, Latin
, Italian
, Norwegian
, Danish
, Finnish
, Russian
, and Spanish
. In the later years, she also studied Persian
, Chinese
, and Japanese
. She also spent six months in Paris
, where she attended various languages courses at the Sorbonne
.
It was at this time when she started work on her (unpublished) dictionary of ten languages, including Slovene.
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Karlin had to move to Sweden and Norway, since she was considered a persona non grata
in the United Kingdom
for being an Austrian-Hungarian citizen. It was in Scandinavia
that she met the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf
, who was so impressed by Karlin and her writing that she proposed her for a Nobel Prize
.
In 1919, she returned home, to Celje, then already part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
. Almost immediately thereafter, however, she started raising money for another journey. To this purpose, she opened a language school
in Celje, where she taught up to ten hours a day, while her spare time was spent in painting and writing. On 24 November 1919, she took off again, this time on a nine-year long journey around the world. She visited South
and North America
, the Pacific Islands
, Australia
, and various Asia
n countries. The last leg of her journey around the world was India
.
In January 1928, at the request of her dying mother, Alma Karlin returned home, herself exhausted by physical illness and deep depression. She never traveled again. She devoted most of her time to writing. Around 1934, she started developing a keen interest in the and study of theosophy
. In the later years, especially during World War II, she became close to Roman Catholicism
.
Karlin had chronicled her journey in hundreds of reports published in various magazines and newspapers, including the gazette of the Germans in Celje, the Cillier Zeitung, and the German newspapers Neue Illustrierte Zeitung and Der Deutschen Bergknappe. After her return home, she wrote numerous works of fiction and non-fiction. She wrote in German until the rise of the Nazi German
regime, when she abandoned German as an act of protest. In Germany, her books were burned by the regime. She also wrote in English for the English-speaking areas. In 1937–38, the Franco-German journalist and writer anti-Nazi writer Hans Joachim Bonsack found refuge in her home.
Soon after the Axis
invasion of Yugoslavia
in April 1941 and the German occupation of Lower Styria
, she was arrested and sent to Maribor
where she waited for the extradition in Serbia
, along with thousands Slovenes. She was released thanks to the vigorous intervention of her lifetime friend Thea Gamelin. She could return to Celje, where she lived in house arrest
. In spring 1944, she decided to escape to the southern Slovenia
n region of White Carniola
, which was controlled by the Slovene partisan resistance and to fly to the Allied-occupied town of Bari
in Southern Italy
. She did however not manage to reach White Carniola and stayed with the Partisans units active in the Province of Ljubljana
. From there, she was transported to Dalmatia
where she lived until the end of the war, when she moved back to Celje. She died on 14 January 1950, in the village of Pečovnik
near Celje.
Almost inevitably, Karlin also became a collector
and ethnologist
. Most of the objects she acquired on her journeys she sent home, where she later set up a small private museum. Some of the exhibits are now housed in the Celje Regional Museum. Many of her writings have not yet been published; most of them are kept in the National and University Library of Slovenia
and in the Berlin State Library
.
Austrians
Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....
traveler
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, collector
Collecting
The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever items are of interest to the individual collector. Some collectors are generalists, accumulating merchandise, or stamps from all countries of the world...
, polyglot
Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...
and theosophist
Theosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
.
She was born in the Styrian
Duchy of Styria
The history of Styria concerns the region roughly corresponding to the modern Austrian state of Styria and the Slovene region of Styria from its settlement by Germans and Slavs in the Dark Ages until the present...
town of Celje
Celje
Celje is a typical Central European town and the third largest town in Slovenia. It is a regional center of Lower Styria and the administrative seat of the Urban Municipality of Celje . The town of Celje is located under Upper Celje Castle at the confluence of the Savinja, Ložnica, and Voglajna...
(now part of Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
) in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire as the daughter of Jakob Karlin, a major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
in the Austro-Hungarian Army
Austro-Hungarian Army
The Austro-Hungarian Army was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was composed of three parts: the joint army , the Austrian Landwehr , and the Hungarian Honvédség .In the wake of fighting between the...
, and Vilibalda Miheljak, a teacher. Her father died when she was eight years old. Alma grew in a predominately German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
-speaking milieu, and regarded herself chiefly as Austrian
Austrians
Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....
rather than ethnic German or Slovene.
After completing her secondary education in Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
, she traveled to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where she studied languages. She learned English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
, Danish
Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
, Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, and Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
. In the later years, she also studied Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
, Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, and Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
. She also spent six months in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where she attended various languages courses at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
.
It was at this time when she started work on her (unpublished) dictionary of ten languages, including Slovene.
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Karlin had to move to Sweden and Norway, since she was considered a persona non grata
Persona non grata
Persona non grata , literally meaning "an unwelcome person", is a legal term used in diplomacy that indicates a proscription against a person entering the country...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
for being an Austrian-Hungarian citizen. It was in Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...
that she met the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf
Selma Lagerlöf
Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf was a Swedish author. She was the first female writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and most widely known for her children's book Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige ....
, who was so impressed by Karlin and her writing that she proposed her for a Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
.
In 1919, she returned home, to Celje, then already part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
. Almost immediately thereafter, however, she started raising money for another journey. To this purpose, she opened a language school
Language school
A language school is a school where one studies a foreign language. Classes at a language school are usually geared towards, but not limited to, communicative competence in a foreign language...
in Celje, where she taught up to ten hours a day, while her spare time was spent in painting and writing. On 24 November 1919, she took off again, this time on a nine-year long journey around the world. She visited South
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
and North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, the Pacific Islands
Pacific Islands
The Pacific Islands comprise 20,000 to 30,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands are also sometimes collectively called Oceania, although Oceania is sometimes defined as also including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago....
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, and various Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
n countries. The last leg of her journey around the world was India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
.
In January 1928, at the request of her dying mother, Alma Karlin returned home, herself exhausted by physical illness and deep depression. She never traveled again. She devoted most of her time to writing. Around 1934, she started developing a keen interest in the and study of theosophy
Theosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
. In the later years, especially during World War II, she became close to Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
.
Karlin had chronicled her journey in hundreds of reports published in various magazines and newspapers, including the gazette of the Germans in Celje, the Cillier Zeitung, and the German newspapers Neue Illustrierte Zeitung and Der Deutschen Bergknappe. After her return home, she wrote numerous works of fiction and non-fiction. She wrote in German until the rise of the Nazi German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
regime, when she abandoned German as an act of protest. In Germany, her books were burned by the regime. She also wrote in English for the English-speaking areas. In 1937–38, the Franco-German journalist and writer anti-Nazi writer Hans Joachim Bonsack found refuge in her home.
Soon after the Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
invasion of Yugoslavia
Invasion of Yugoslavia
The Invasion of Yugoslavia , also known as the April War , was the Axis Powers' attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia which began on 6 April 1941 during World War II...
in April 1941 and the German occupation of Lower Styria
Lower Styria
Lower Styria or Slovenian Styria is a traditional region in northeastern Slovenia, comprising the southern third of the former Duchy of Styria. The population of Lower Styria in its historical boundaries amounts to around 705,000 inhabitants, or 34.5% of the population of Slovenia...
, she was arrested and sent to Maribor
Maribor
Maribor is the second largest city in Slovenia with 157,947 inhabitants . Maribor is also the largest and the capital city of Slovenian region Lower Styria and the seat of the Municipality of Maribor....
where she waited for the extradition in Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, along with thousands Slovenes. She was released thanks to the vigorous intervention of her lifetime friend Thea Gamelin. She could return to Celje, where she lived in house arrest
House arrest
In justice and law, house arrest is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to his or her residence. Travel is usually restricted, if allowed at all...
. In spring 1944, she decided to escape to the southern Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
n region of White Carniola
White Carniola
White Carniola is a traditional region in southeastern Slovenia on the border with Croatia and is the most southern part of the historical and traditional region of Lower Carniola. Its major towns are Metlika, Črnomelj, and Semič, and the principal river is the Kolpa, which also forms part of the...
, which was controlled by the Slovene partisan resistance and to fly to the Allied-occupied town of Bari
Bari
Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...
in Southern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. She did however not manage to reach White Carniola and stayed with the Partisans units active in the Province of Ljubljana
Province of Ljubljana
The Province of Ljubljana was a province of the Kingdom of Italy and of the Nazi German Adriatic Littoral during World War II. It was created on May 3, 1941 from territory occupied and annexed to Italy after the Axis invasion and dissolution of Yugoslavia, and it was abolished on May 9, 1945, when...
. From there, she was transported to Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
where she lived until the end of the war, when she moved back to Celje. She died on 14 January 1950, in the village of Pečovnik
Pecovnik
Pečovnik is a settlement on the left bank of the river Savinja in the Celje municipality in eastern Slovenia. The area was traditionally part of the Lower Styria region. It is now included with the rest of the municipality into the Savinja statistical region....
near Celje.
Almost inevitably, Karlin also became a collector
Collecting
The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever items are of interest to the individual collector. Some collectors are generalists, accumulating merchandise, or stamps from all countries of the world...
and ethnologist
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
. Most of the objects she acquired on her journeys she sent home, where she later set up a small private museum. Some of the exhibits are now housed in the Celje Regional Museum. Many of her writings have not yet been published; most of them are kept in the National and University Library of Slovenia
National and University Library of Slovenia
The National and University Library is one of the most important national educational and cultural institutions of Slovenia. It was established in 1774 by a decree released by the Empress Maria Theresa. It is located in the centre of Ljubljana, in a building designed by the architect Jože Plečnik...
and in the Berlin State Library
Berlin State Library
The Berlin State Library is a library in Berlin, Germany and a property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.-Buildings:The State Library runs several premises, three of which are open for users, namely House 1 in Unter den Linden 8, House 2 in Potsdamer Straße 33 and the newspaper archive...
.
Quotes
- "Alone and abandoned walks through life he who thinks only of himself; but he who knows how to lovingly adapt and turn everything for the better, who always knows where to offer a helping hand and gives himself to others, his life is a blossoming meadow, and traces of his work remain even after his death."