Dagny Juel
Encyclopedia
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
writer, famous for her liaisons with various prominent artists, and for the dramatic circumstances of her death. She was the model
Model (art)
Art models are models who pose for photographers, painters, sculptors, and other artists as part of their work of art. Art models who pose in the nude for life drawing are usually called life models...
for some of Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.- Childhood :Edvard Munch...
's paintings. She had relationships with Munch and briefly with August Strindberg
August Strindberg
Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg's career spanned four decades, during which time he wrote over 60 plays and more than 30 works of fiction, autobiography,...
. In 1893, she married the Polish writer Stanisław Przybyszewski. Together they had two children. She was shot by a young lover in a hotel room in Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
in 1901, three days before her thirty-fourth birthday.
Family background
Dagny was born in KongsvingerKongsvinger
is a town and is a municipality in Hedmark county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Glåmdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Kongsvinger....
, Norway, the second of four daughters of Doctor Hans Lemmich Juell and his wife Mindy (née Blehr). As a young woman Dagny changed the spelling of her name from 'Juell' to 'Juel'. The oldest sister, Gudrun, was beautiful and self-confident; Dagny was second born; third-born was a son, Hans Lemmich, who only lived one year; then came Astrid who was something of an invalid, who remained unmarried and stayed with her mother; and finally there was Ragnhild, who was closest to Dagny, and in time became a well-known opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
singer.
Early education
Dagny's early education was taken in hand by Anna Stang, who established a private school for girls in Kongsvinger, and was one of the first advocates for women's rightsWomen's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
in Norway, and was an active force in early Feminism
History of feminism
The history of feminism involves the story of feminist movements and of feminist thinkers. Depending on time, culture and country, feminists around the world have sometimes had different causes and goals...
. Dagny started studies in 1875, and six years later completed exams for entry into middle school. For several years she studied subjects such as Nature, History, Geography, Mathematics, English, German, and Norwegian language. Her results show that she was a diligent student.
Erfurt and Oslo
On 3 November 1882, two days after her confirmation, she left for Europe, to study music in ErfurtErfurt
Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...
. In January 1890 Dagny and her sister Ragnhild moved to Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
(then named Christiana) to continue their studies. There Dagny became involved with the bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
life of the city. She had a brief relationship with Hjalmar Christensen
Hjalmar Christensen
Hjalmar Christensen was a Norwegian writer. In February and March 1890 he was romantically attached to Dagny Juel.Kjende personar i Førde:...
in February and March. It was probably in Christiana that she started a close relationship with the painter Edvard Munch. Later, in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, the two were often seen together, and judging from the nature of many of Munch's paintings picturing female figures resembling Dagny, it seems likely that the relationship was sexual; although Munch himself never made any remarks about the nature of their friendship, and there is no conclusive evidence on the matter.
Berlin
Dagny chose to continue her studies in Berlin, possibly for the reason that she could be with Munch, who had travelled there in the autumn of 1892, after the Union of Berlin Artists had invited him to stage a November exhibition of his work. The scandal that resulted from the exhibition made Munch a notable figure in Berlin, and he decided to stay there.Dagny first attended the Berlin bar Zum schwarzen Ferkel on 8 March 1893. It was there she met August Strindberg. Strindberg and his friends gave her the nickname 'Aspasia
Aspasia
Aspasia was a Milesian woman who was famous for her involvement with the Athenian statesman Pericles. Very little is known about the details of her life. She spent most of her adult life in Athens, and she may have influenced Pericles and Athenian politics...
'. She had a brief relationship (about 3 weeks) with Strindberg. Adolf Paul
Adolf Paul
Adolf Paul was a writer in the German, Swedish, and Finnish languages...
was also taken with her beauty. She modelled for various Scandinavian artists, and was Munch's impresario for a period. She is almost certainly the model for Munch's painting Jealousy.
Marriage
Dagny refused to raise Martha's three motherless children. In fact, Dagny, though a loving mother, was in the habit of leaving her own two children (Zenon born on 28 September 1895, and Ivi (Iwa) born on 2 or 5 October 1897, probably by cesarian section) with her parents in Kongsvinger for periods of time. The decadent and financially precarious life with the increasingly alcohol-dependent Przybyszewski in Berlin was far from a suitable environment to raise children.
Abandonment and Death
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
where he became a key figure in the Young Poland
Young Poland
Young Poland is a modernist period in Polish visual arts, literature and music, covering roughly the years between 1890 and 1918. It was a result of strong aesthetic opposition to the ideas of Positivism...
movement, and editor of the journal Życie
Zycie
Życie was an illustrated weekly established in 1897 and published in Kraków and Lwów in Poland. Founded by Ludwik Szczepański, with time it became one of the most popular Polish literary and artistic journals...
. While travelling in Galicia, Przybyszewski became involved with the wife of his friend Jan Kasprowicz
Jan Kasprowicz
Jan Kasprowicz was a poet, playwright, critic and translator; a foremost representative of Young Poland.-Life:...
, and abandoned Dagny for this woman.
Stanisław Przybyszewski may have encouraged Dagny's relationships with Henryk Sienkiewicz
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz was a Polish journalist and Nobel Prize-winning novelist. A Polish szlachcic of the Oszyk coat of arms, he was one of the most popular Polish writers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905 for his...
(who arranged a grant of 3200 Austrian Kronen from the Polish Academy of Talent for Przybyszewski) and with Władysław Emeryk, the son of a mine-owner. There is some evidence that Przybyszewski and Emeryk may have plotted her murder. At the time of Dagny's death, Przybyszewksi was involved with two other women in Poland — Kasprowiczowa and Aniela Pająkówna, one of whose two daughters was Przybyszewski's, while Dagny had romantic relationships with at least three men in Paris, including Emeryk. Emeryk invited Przybyszewski and Dagny on a trip to visit his family in the Caucasus; at the last minute Przybyszewski backed out, saying he would join them later. On 5 June 1901, in a room of the small 'Grand Hotel' in Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
, Emeryk shot her in the head; the next day he attempted to shoot himself. Her five year old son, Zenon, witnessed the murder of his mother.
Works
- short story 'Rediviva' (1893, published posthumously in 1977)
- drama Den sterkere (The Stronger) submitted to the Christiania Theater, 1895; accepted for publication in the periodical SamtidenSamtidenSamtiden is a Norwegian political and literary magazine. It was founded by Jørgen Brunchorst and Gerhard Gran in 1890. The magazine's first publisher was John Griegs forlag , and from 1900 Aschehoug . Gran was the magazine's editor from 1892 to 1925. Cathrine Sandnes has been editor-in-chief from...
1896.
Films based on her life
In 1977 there was a Polish/Norwegian film based on Dagny Juel's life, called DagnyDagny (film)
Dagny is a 1977 Norwegian-Polish documentary film directed by Haakon Sandøy. It is narrated by, among others, Lise Fjeldstad, Daniel Olbrychski, Per Oscarsson and Nils Ole Oftebro...
.
Zenon appears along with his daughter Ann, in Ingeranna Krohn-Nydal
Ingeranna Krohn-Nydal
Ingeranna Krohn-Nydal is a Norwegian film director. Her film Amindas verden won the 1993 International Federation of Film Critics award at the International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film. Krohn-Nydal's other work includes the 51 minute documentary on the life of Dagny Juel...
's 2005 Norwegian documentary film — Død Madonna (Dead Madonna: Dagny Juel Przybyszewska).
Sources
- Eivor Martinus, Strindberg and Love Amber Lane Press, 2001. ISBN 1-872868-33-9; pages 146 – 149.
Further reading
Ewa K. Kossak, Dagny Przybyszewska: Zbłąkana gwiazda, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1973. Aleksandra Sawicka, Dagny Juel Przybyszewska: Fakty i legendy, wydawnictwo słowo/obraz terytoria, Gdańsk, 2006- Mary Kay Norseng, Dagny Juel Przybyszewska: The Woman and the Myth. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1991.
External links
- Polish site including brief overview in English
- Building up to a scream – from The Daily TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...