Hedi Stadlen
Encyclopedia
Hedi Stadlen better known in Sri Lanka
as Hedi Keuneman, was an Austria
n Jewish philosopher, political activist, and musicologist. She was one of the handful of European Radicals in Sri Lanka
.
to Else Reis and Hans Simon, an eminent economist
and banker. She was one of those whose life was deeply affected by the spread of virulent fascism
in Europe
in the 1930s. Both her parents were assimilated
, non-observant Jews; her father had Hedi baptised to make sure that she would have anti-Semitic shopkeepers during the starvation caused by the First World War
.
She was sent to a progressive school in Vienna founded by the Polish-Jewish feminist Eugenia Schwarzwald, at whose home Hedi met such figures as the painter Oskar Kokoschka
and the architect Adolph Loos. When she was 14, as an atheist she elected under the Austrian Constitution to register as Konfessionslos (religionless).
She studied philosophy at the University of Vienna
. One of her lecturers, Professor Moritz Schlick
was shot by a deranged student. The student was later paroled, acclaimed as a 'heroic Aryan
' and, became a member of the Austrian Nazi party after the Anschluss
.
Incidents such as this caused Dr Simon to leave Vienna and take his family to Switzerland
and later to the USA
.
, Dr Simon sent his daughter to Newnham College, Cambridge University
, where she continued her studies, but switched to Moral Sciences (philosophy) under Ludwig Wittgenstein
.
She spent her weekends in London
, working for the cause of India
n freedom in Krishna Menon
's India League, with Indira Gandhi
among others. She later explained that "the racial discrimination suffered by the Jews in Austria made me feel sympathetic to the victims of colonial rule and strengthened my determination to identify with the fight for the freedom and independence of colonial peoples."
The capitalist
crisis, fascism and the Spanish Civil War
attracted her to the Communist Party of Great Britain
. The historian Eric Hobsbawm
fell in love with Hedi Simon, but she, in turn fell in love with another Communist undergraduate, Pieter Keuneman
who was President of the Cambridge Union and editor of the student magazine Granta
. He was the son of a Dutch Burgher
Supreme Court
Justice in Sri Lanka.
Hedi Simon graduated with First Class Honours in 1939, but as a woman, was excluded under university rules from the award of her degree. She married Pieter Keuneman in Switzerland in September 1939. The next year they went to Sri Lanka.
expelled the pro-Moscow
faction, which formed the United Socialist Party (USP). The Keunemans joined the USP, which was fiercely anti-colonial until the invasion by Hitler of the Soviet Union
, thereafter advocating co-operation with the colonial regime against the common enemy, Fascism.
Hedi Keuneman was elected president of one of the co-operative societies were formed to distribute affordable food, following the outbreak of war. She monitored food stocks and prices in central Colombo
, popularising cheaper, local food cereal
s such as bajiri, a locally grown sticky grain, earning herself the nickname bajiri nona (Bajiri Lady').
Between 1940 and 1942, Hedi Keuneman taught at University College, Colombo and at the Modern School initiated by another Communist emigrant and India League veteran, Doreen Young Wickremasinghe
.
She was active in the Friends of the Soviet Union, and, with shoulder-length black hair and sometimes, barefoot in a red sari
, distributed pro-Communist literature, and addressed meetings among English-speaking supporters. She also wrote a pamphlet publicising Hitler's tyranny, Under Nazi Rule.
In 1943 when the USP was dissolved and became the Communist Party of Ceylon, Pieter became its first general secretary. He and Hedi subsisted on boiled breadfruit
and sambol, living modestly near the CP office in Borella.
a distinguished concert pianist who had premiered the Webern
Opus 27 Variations. She chose not to return to Sri Lanka, and divorced Pieter. While Hedi Stadlen never rejoined the Communist Party, she never renounced her socialist convictions.
She subsequently married Stadlen, with whom she lived in Hampstead
. In 1956, a hand injury obliged Stadlen to turn to music criticism chiefly for the Daily Telegraph, and academic study. Hedi collaborated with him, possibly influenced by her musical heritage, as grandniece of Johann Strauss. They produced conclusive evidence that extensive sections of Anton Schindler's Beethoven
conversation books were forgeries. She also played a crucial role in Stadlen's study of Beethoven's intentions with his metronome
markings.
On Stadlen's death on 20 January 1996, Hedi lied about her age and joined the charity Volunteer Reading Help, and for six years helped disadvantaged children in a North London
primary school to strengthen their reading. She also worked with Annette Morreau on a biography of the Viennese cellist Emmanuel Feuermann.
In 2002 she returned to Cambridge to receive the degree denied to her over five decades previously. At the same ceremony her son, Nick picked up his M.A. and her grandson, Matthew, was awarded his B.A.
Hedi Stadlen was survived by her sons Nicholas, a High Court
judge
(who holds the record for the longest speech in British legal history - 119 days), and Godfrey, a senior civil servant in the Home Office
.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
as Hedi Keuneman, was an Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n Jewish philosopher, political activist, and musicologist. She was one of the handful of European Radicals in Sri Lanka
European Radicals in Sri Lanka
The European Radicals in Sri Lanka were Europeans who went against the colonial system prevailing in Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was then known. Their contribution was far greater than their numbers would appear to merit, mainly because of their defiance of the white-supremacist attitude that pervaded...
.
Vienna
She was born Hedwig Magdalena Simon in ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
to Else Reis and Hans Simon, an eminent economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
and banker. She was one of those whose life was deeply affected by the spread of virulent fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
in Europe
Europe
Europe 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...
in the 1930s. Both her parents were assimilated
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
, non-observant Jews; her father had Hedi baptised to make sure that she would have anti-Semitic shopkeepers during the starvation caused by the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
She was sent to a progressive school in Vienna founded by the Polish-Jewish feminist Eugenia Schwarzwald, at whose home Hedi met such figures as the painter Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes.-Biography:...
and the architect Adolph Loos. When she was 14, as an atheist she elected under the Austrian Constitution to register as Konfessionslos (religionless).
She studied philosophy at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
. One of her lecturers, Professor Moritz Schlick
Moritz Schlick
Friedrich Albert Moritz Schlick was a German philosopher, physicist and the founding father of logical positivism and the Vienna Circle.-Early life and works:...
was shot by a deranged student. The student was later paroled, acclaimed as a 'heroic Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
' and, became a member of the Austrian Nazi party after the Anschluss
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
.
Incidents such as this caused Dr Simon to leave Vienna and take his family to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and later to the USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Cambridge
Through contacts in WhitehallWhitehall
Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...
, Dr Simon sent his daughter to Newnham College, Cambridge University
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, where she continued her studies, but switched to Moral Sciences (philosophy) under Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
.
She spent her weekends in 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...
, working for the cause of 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...
n freedom in Krishna Menon
Krishna Menon
Vengalil Krishnan Krishna Menon , commonly referred to as Krishna Menon, was an Indian nationalist, diplomat and statesman, described as the second most powerful man in India by Time Magazine and others, after his ally and intimate friend, Jawaharlal Nehru.Described as "vitriolic,...
's India League, with Indira Gandhi
Indira Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhara was an Indian politician who served as the third Prime Minister of India for three consecutive terms and a fourth term . She was assassinated by Sikh extremists...
among others. She later explained that "the racial discrimination suffered by the Jews in Austria made me feel sympathetic to the victims of colonial rule and strengthened my determination to identify with the fight for the freedom and independence of colonial peoples."
The capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
crisis, fascism and the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
attracted her to the Communist Party of Great Britain
Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain was the largest communist party in Great Britain, although it never became a mass party like those in France and Italy. It existed from 1920 to 1991.-Formation:...
. The historian Eric Hobsbawm
Eric Hobsbawm
Eric John Ernest Hobsbawm , CH, FBA, is a British Marxist historian, public intellectual, and author...
fell in love with Hedi Simon, but she, in turn fell in love with another Communist undergraduate, Pieter Keuneman
Pieter Keuneman
Pieter Gerald Bartholomeusz Keuneman was a Sri Lankan politician and a Marxist. He was the Cabinet Minister of Housing and Local Government and prominent Member of Parliament and a leading figure in the Lanka Sama Samaja Party .-Early life and education:Pieter Keuneman came from a Dutch Burgher...
who was President of the Cambridge Union and editor of the student magazine Granta
Granta
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
. He was the son of a Dutch Burgher
Burgher people
The Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group, historically from Sri Lanka, consisting for the most part of male-line descendants of European colonists from the 16th to 20th centuries and local women, with some minorities of Swedish, Norwegian, French and Irish.Today the mother tongue of the Burghers...
Supreme Court
Supreme court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of many legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, instance court, judgment court, high court, or apex court...
Justice in Sri Lanka.
Hedi Simon graduated with First Class Honours in 1939, but as a woman, was excluded under university rules from the award of her degree. She married Pieter Keuneman in Switzerland in September 1939. The next year they went to Sri Lanka.
Colombo
In Sri Lanka, the Left had split in 1940, when the Trotskyists in the Lanka Sama Samaja PartyLanka Sama Samaja Party
The Lanka Sama Samaja Party is a Trotskyist political party in Sri Lanka....
expelled the pro-Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
faction, which formed the United Socialist Party (USP). The Keunemans joined the USP, which was fiercely anti-colonial until the invasion by Hitler of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, thereafter advocating co-operation with the colonial regime against the common enemy, Fascism.
Hedi Keuneman was elected president of one of the co-operative societies were formed to distribute affordable food, following the outbreak of war. She monitored food stocks and prices in central Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
, popularising cheaper, local food cereal
Cereal
Cereals are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain , composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran...
s such as bajiri, a locally grown sticky grain, earning herself the nickname bajiri nona (Bajiri Lady').
Between 1940 and 1942, Hedi Keuneman taught at University College, Colombo and at the Modern School initiated by another Communist emigrant and India League veteran, Doreen Young Wickremasinghe
Doreen Young Wickremasinghe
Doreen Wickremasinghe was a British leftist who became a prominent Communist politician in Sri Lanka and a Member of Parliament . She was one of the handful of European Radicals in Sri Lanka....
.
She was active in the Friends of the Soviet Union, and, with shoulder-length black hair and sometimes, barefoot in a red sari
Sari
A sari or sareeThe name of the garment in various regional languages include: , , , , , , , , , , , , , is a strip of unstitched cloth, worn by females, ranging from four to nine metres in length that is draped over the body in various styles. It is popular in India, Bangladesh, Nepal,...
, distributed pro-Communist literature, and addressed meetings among English-speaking supporters. She also wrote a pamphlet publicising Hitler's tyranny, Under Nazi Rule.
In 1943 when the USP was dissolved and became the Communist Party of Ceylon, Pieter became its first general secretary. He and Hedi subsisted on boiled breadfruit
Breadfruit
Breadfruit is a species of flowering tree in the mulberry family, Moraceae, growing throughout Southeast Asia and most Pacific Ocean islands...
and sambol, living modestly near the CP office in Borella.
London
Following end of the war in 1945, Hedi Keuneman returned to Europe to meet her mother – as a Communist, she was barred from entering the United States (where her father had died in 1942). In London in 1946 she met an old friend from Vienna, Peter StadlenPeter Stadlen
Peter Stadlen was a composer, pianist, and musicologist, specializing in the study and interpretation of Beethoven....
a distinguished concert pianist who had premiered the Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
Opus 27 Variations. She chose not to return to Sri Lanka, and divorced Pieter. While Hedi Stadlen never rejoined the Communist Party, she never renounced her socialist convictions.
She subsequently married Stadlen, with whom she lived in Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
. In 1956, a hand injury obliged Stadlen to turn to music criticism chiefly for the Daily Telegraph, and academic study. Hedi collaborated with him, possibly influenced by her musical heritage, as grandniece of Johann Strauss. They produced conclusive evidence that extensive sections of Anton Schindler's Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
conversation books were forgeries. She also played a crucial role in Stadlen's study of Beethoven's intentions with his metronome
Metronome
A metronome is any device that produces regular, metrical ticks — settable in beats per minute. These ticks represent a fixed, regular aural pulse; some metronomes also include synchronized visual motion...
markings.
On Stadlen's death on 20 January 1996, Hedi lied about her age and joined the charity Volunteer Reading Help, and for six years helped disadvantaged children in a North London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...
primary school to strengthen their reading. She also worked with Annette Morreau on a biography of the Viennese cellist Emmanuel Feuermann.
In 2002 she returned to Cambridge to receive the degree denied to her over five decades previously. At the same ceremony her son, Nick picked up his M.A. and her grandson, Matthew, was awarded his B.A.
Hedi Stadlen was survived by her sons Nicholas, a High Court
High Court
The term High Court usually refers to the superior court of a country or state. In some countries, it is the highest court . In others, it is positioned lower in the hierarchy of courts The term High Court usually refers to the superior court (or supreme court) of a country or state. In some...
judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
(who holds the record for the longest speech in British legal history - 119 days), and Godfrey, a senior civil servant in the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
.