Enrica von Handel-Mazzetti

Enrica von Handel-Mazzetti (10 January 1871 – 8 April 1955) was an Austrian poet and writer, known for writing historical romances, notably Die Hochzeit von Quedlinburg.

Enrica von Handel-Mazzetti
c 1889
Born10 January 1871
Vienna
Died8 April 1955 (1955-04-09) (aged 84)
Linz
NationalityAustrian
Known forHistorical novelist

Life
A plaque to her memory

Enrica Freifrau von Handel-Mazzetti was born in Vienna in 1871 and her father, Baron Heinrich Hypolith of Handel-Mazzetti, died young before her birth. She was educated well, studying history and languages. After her mother died, she went to live with a bachelor uncle, Baron Anton von Handel-Mazzetti, in Steyr in 1901. Her cousin was the botanist Heinrich von Handel-Mazzetti.[1] She moved with her uncle to Linz when he was promoted in 1911. This was in the middle of her most productive period when her books were being serialised in magazines as well as being published and enthusiastically received.[2]

She stayed in Linz for the rest of her life, notably joining a protest against book burning in 1933. The following year she nearly died from an untreatable eye condition.

When 25 members of the PEN Club passed a resolution to protest the Nazi book burnings, Enrica von Handel-Mazzetti and other nationalist, racist and catholic authors did not agree and quit the Club.[3]

Enrica von Handel-Mazzetti was a member of the Reich Chamber of Literature (part of the Reich Chamber of Culture).[4]

Her work was not encouraged by the Nazi regime, although she stayed in Linz, apart from when the bombing was really bad when she briefly moved to Elisabethinen in 1944.

von Handel-Mazzetti died in Linz in 1955.[2]

Legacy

Apart from her published novels and poetry there is a street that was named for her in 1931 in Steyr and another street was named after her in Vienna in 1981. There was also an Austrian postage stamp that celebrated her life.

References
  1. Heinrich Handel-Mazzetti: A Botanical Pioneer In South West China, Paeo.de, retrieved 16 August 2014
  2. Enrica Handel-Mazzetti, Petra-Maria Dallinger, Austrian Virtual Museum, retrieved 16 August 2014
  3. Ulrike Oedl, in: Ueberblicke; UNI-Salzburg; 2002 –- Das Exilland Österreich zwischen 1933 und 1938, retrieved 10/09/2008.
  4. Kürschners Literaturkalender 1943. Walter de Gruyter & Co. Berlin, 1943. P. 387.
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