Marie Bashkirtseff was a
UkrainianUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
-born diarist, painter and sculptor.
Born Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva in Gavrontsi near
PoltavaPoltava is a city in located on the Vorskla River in central Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Poltava Oblast , as well as the surrounding Poltava Raion of the oblast. Poltava's estimated population is 298,652 ....
, to a wealthy noble family, she grew up abroad, traveling with her mother across most of
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. Educated privately, she studied painting in
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
at the
Académie JulianThe Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...
, one of the few establishments that accepted female students. The Académie attracted young women from all over Europe and the United States. One fellow student was
Louise BreslauLouise Catherine Breslau was a German/Swiss artist.-Early years:Born Maria Luise Katharina Breslau in Munich, Germany, she spent her childhood in Zurich, Switzerland and as an adult made Paris, France her home. Suffering from asthma all her life, Breslau turned to drawing as a child to help pass...
, who Bashkirtseff viewed as her only rival. Bashkirtseff would go on to produce a remarkable body of work in her short lifetime, the most famous being the portrait of
ParisParis 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...
slum children titled
The Meeting and
In the Studio, (shown here) a portrait of her fellow artists at work. Unfortunately, a large number of Bashkirtseff's works were destroyed by the Nazi's during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
From the age of 13, Bashkirtseff began keeping a journal, and it is for this that she is most famous. Her personal account of the struggles of women artists is documented in her published journals, which are a revealing story of the bourgeoisie. Titled,
I Am the Most Interesting Book of All, her popular diary is still in print today. The diary was cited by an American contemporary,
Mary MacLaneMary MacLane was a controversial Canadian-born American writer whose frank memoirs helped usher in the confessional style of autobiographical writing...
, whose own shockingly confessional diary drew inspiration from Bashkirtseff's. Her letters, consisting of her correspondence with the writer
Guy de MaupassantHenri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents....
, were published in 1891.
Dying of
tuberculosisTuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
at the age of 25, Bashkirtseff lived just long enough to become an intellectual powerhouse in Paris in the 1880s. A feminist, in 1881, using the nom de plume "Pauline Orrel," she wrote several articles for
Hubertine AuclertHubertine Auclert was a leading French feminist and a campaigner for women's suffrage.Born in the Allier département in the Auvergne area of France into a middle-class family, Hubertine Auclert's father died when she was thirteen years old and her mother sent her to live and study in a Roman...
's feminist newspaper,
La CitoyenneLa Citoyenne was a French feminist newspaper published in Paris from 1881 through 1891 by Hubertine Auclert. It was first published on February 13, 1881, and appeared bi-monthly. The newspaper was a forceful and unrelenting advocate for women's enfranchisement, demanding changes to the...
. One of her famous quotes is:
Let us love dogs, let us love only dogs! Men and cats are unworthy creatures.
She is buried in Cimetière de Passy,
ParisParis 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...
,
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. Her monument is a full-sized artist studio that has been declared a historic monument by the government of France.
Discovery of the original diary
Until recently the accepted date of Bashkirtseff's birth was November 11 [Nov. 23,
New StyleOld Style and New Style are used in English language historical studies either to indicate that the start of the Julian year has been adjusted to start on 1 January even though documents written at the time use a different start of year ; or to indicate that a date conforms to the Julian...
], 1860. However, after the discovery of the original manuscript of Bashkirtseff‘s diary in the
Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...
, it was found that her diary had been abridged and censored by her family. Her date of birth (1858 not 1860) was also falsified by her mother. The unabridged edition of the diary, based on the original manuscript, was published in France in 16 volumes, and excerpts (years 1873-1876) translated into English (see Reference).
I was born the 11th [elsewhere given as the 12th of November, 1859. Actually born November 12, 1858, by the Russian calendar; November 24, 1858, by the Gregorian calendar, which is twelve days ahead of the Russian. The family celebrated her birthday each year on the day they claimed she would have been born if she had been a full-term baby— January 12 by the Russian calendar, January 24 by the western calendar. She learns later—in Book 83, December 29, 1878—from her father (but does not apparently accept his statement, as she ignores it here in her preface) that she was a full-term baby, suggesting that she was conceived before her parents had married and that all the mystification about her date of birth was intended to cover up that embarrassment.] It's horrifying just to write it, but I console myself by thinking that I certainly will not have any age when you read me.
--I Am the Most Interesting Book of All: The Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff , Author's preface with comment of translator, p. 1
Further reading
- Bashkirtseff, Marie. Mon journal. Texte intégral., volumes I-XVI (complete text of the journal transcribed by Ginette Apostolescu). Paris: Montesson (5 rue Jean-Claude-Bézanier, 78360 ). Cercle des amis de Marie Bashkirtseff, 2005. ISBN 2-9518398-5-5.
- "I Am the Most Interesting Book of All: The Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff" (English translation by Phyllis Howard Kernberger, Katherine Kernberger) ISBN 0811802248, ISBN 978-0811802246, Publisher: Chronicle Books (June 1, 1997)
- Cronin, Vincent
Vincent Archibald Patrick Cronin, FRSL was a British historical, cultural, and biographical writer, best-known for his biographies of Louis XIV, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great, and Napoleon, as well as for his books on the Renaissance.Cronin was born in Tredegar, Monmouthshire...
. Four Women in Pursuit of an Ideal. London: Collins, 1965; also published as The Romantic Way. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966.
- Hubbard, Tom
Tom Hubbard was the first librarian of the Scottish Poetry Library and is the author, editor or co-editor of over thirty academic and literary works...
, Marie B.: A Biographical Novel, KirkcaldyKirkcaldy is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. The town lies on a shallow bay on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth; SSE of Glenrothes, ENE of Dunfermline, WSW of Dundee and NNE of Edinburgh...
: Ravenscraig Press, 2008
External links