Barbara Margaretha "Meta" von Salis (3 January 1855 – 15 March 1929) was a Swiss

suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...

and historian, as well as a regular correspondent of

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philology, classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche bec ...

Early life and education

Meta von Salis was born in 1855 on her family's estate, Marschlins Castle, in Igis, Graubünden. Her parents were Ursula Margaretha and Ulysses Adalbert von Salis, a

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

. She attended a girls' school in

Friedrichshafen Friedrichshafen ( or ; Low Alemannic: ''Hafe'' or ''Fridrichshafe'') is a city on the northern shoreline of Lake Constance (the ''Bodensee'') in Southern Germany, near the borders of both Switzerland and Austria. It is the district capital (''K ...

, Germany from 1863 to 1868, and then attended another girls' school in Rorschach, Switzerland until 1871. After leaving school, she worked as a

governess A governess is a woman employed as a private tutor, who teaches and trains a child or children in their home. A governess often lives in the same residence as the children she is teaching; depending on terms of their employment, they may or ma ...

for numerous wealthy families in Germany, England and Ireland before enrolling at the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

in 1883 to study history and philosophy. She received a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1887 for a thesis about

Agnes of Poitou Agnes of Poitou ( – 14 December 1077) was the queen of Germany from 1043 and empress of the Holy Roman Empire from 1046 until 1056 as the wife of Emperor Henry III. From 1056 to 1061, she ruled the Holy Roman Empire as regent during the ...

, making her the first Swiss woman to receive a doctorate degree. She said she was not interested in completing the degree for its own sake but rather "in the interests of the women's question".

Career

After university, von Salis worked as a freelance journalist and speaker for the

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

movement in Switzerland. In 1887 she wrote an article published in the '' Zurich Post'' that was one of the first to argue for universal suffrage for Swiss citizens. She met the philosopher and writer

in Zurich in 1884. Despite Nietzsche's disregard for feminists and the women's movement, their encounter "cast a 'golden shimmer' over the rest of her life", and they formed a long-lasting friendship. GravePaulaAndMetaVonSalisMarschlins-CemeteryDaleuChur RomanDeckert22072023

GravePaulaAndMetaVonSalisMarschlins-CemeteryDaleuChur RomanDeckert22072023

After their first encounter, von Salis spent several weeks in 1886 and 1887 at his summer house in Sils Maria. Although they were close friends, von Salis was horrified when someone suggested that she and Nietzsche should marry. In 1894, she helped Nietzsche's sister

Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche Therese Elisabeth Alexandra Förster-Nietzsche (10 July 1846 – 8 November 1935) was the sister of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the creator of the Nietzsche Archive in 1894. Förster-Nietzsche was two years younger than her brother ...

to found the Nietzsche-Archiv, but von Salis ceased her involvement in the cause after a quarrel with Förster-Nietzsche. Despite this, it was von Salis who purchased the Villa Silberblick in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

, where Nietzsche and his sister lived for the final years of his life before it became the permanent home of the Nietzsche-Archiv collection. Von Salis was briefly imprisoned in 1904 for

contempt of court Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the co ...

after she tried to defend two wrongly charged women in an

embezzlement Embezzlement (from Anglo-Norman, from Old French ''besillier'' ("to torment, etc."), of unknown origin) is a type of financial crime, usually involving theft of money from a business or employer. It often involves a trusted individual taking ...

case. Disillusioned with the Swiss democratic process, she then moved to the Italian island of

Capri Capri ( , ; ) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. A popular resort destination since the time of the Roman Republic, its natural beauty ...

with her longtime friend Hedwig Kym. Following Kym's marriage to Ernst Feigenwinter, von Salis continued to live with the couple in their

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

home from 1910 until her death in 1929. In her later life, she mostly retreated from the feminist movement and instead most of her writings focused on

German nationalism German nationalism () is an ideological notion that promotes the unity of Germans and of the Germanosphere into one unified nation-state. German nationalism also emphasizes and takes pride in the patriotism and national identity of Germans as ...

and conservative race theory.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Salis, Meta von 19th-century Swiss historians 1855 births 1929 deaths People from Landquart District Swiss suffragists Swiss feminists 19th-century Swiss nobility Friedrich Nietzsche University of Zurich alumni Swiss women historians 19th-century Swiss women writers 19th-century Swiss writers 19th-century Swiss journalists 20th-century Swiss journalists Swiss writers in German Meta 19th-century Swiss women journalists 20th-century Swiss women journalists