Regina "Rega" Ullmann (14 December 1884 – 6 January 1961) was a Swiss poet and writer.

Life

Ullmann was the second daughter of a Jewish-Austrian embroidery businessman, Richard Ullmann, and his German wife Hedwig. She was born in the Swiss town of

St. Gallen , neighboring_municipalities = Eggersriet, Gaiserwald, Gossau, Herisau (AR), Mörschwil, Speicher (AR), Stein (AR), Teufen (AR), Untereggen, Wittenbach , twintowns = Liberec (Czech Republic) , website ...

, but in 1902, following her father's death in 1887, she and her mother moved to

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

, where she first read such influential poets such

Ina Seidel Ina Seidel (15 September 1885 – 3 October 1974) was a German lyric poet and novelist. Favourite themes included motherhood and the mysteries of race and heredity. Biography Family provenance Johanna Mathilde "Ina" Seidel was born in Halle, to ...

Hans Carossa Hans Carossa (15 December 1878 in Bad Tölz, Kingdom of Bavaria – 12 September 1956 in Rittsteig near Passau) was a German novelist and poet, known mostly for his autobiographical novels, and his "innere Emigration" ( inner emigration) during ...

Ludwig Derleth Ludwig Benjamin Derleth (3 November 1870 – 13 January 1948) was a German writer and poet, known for his highly-stylized and anti-humanistic writings on spirituality and Christianity. Life Derleth was born in 1870 in Gerolzhofen, Lower F ...

and

Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recog ...

. She began a correspondence with Rilke, who became a major supporter and mentor; the two met for the first time in 1912. In January 1906, Ullmann gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Gerta, in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. The father was the economist Hanns Dorn. A second child, Camilla, followed in 1908 following a relationship with psychoanalyst

Otto Gross Otto Hans Adolf Gross (17 March 1877 – 13 February 1920) was an Austrian psychoanalyst. A maverick early disciple of Sigmund Freud, he later became an anarchist and joined the utopian Ascona community. His father Hans Gross was a judge turned ...

. Ullmann left both children to grow up with foster parents, though she visited them regularly and oversaw their education. Ullmann converted to

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in 1911, after which her work was characterised by a more "pious" attention to what she perceived as the religious mystery inherent in everyday life. Unmarried and without work, Ullmann suffered from severe depression, exacerbated by her mother's suicide by

hanging Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary' ...

. With her first collection of short stories, however – ''Die Landstraße'' – she gradually became better known. With Rilke's help, she acquired some financial support for her writing, first from her publisher and later from Swiss patrons and Catholic aid agencies. The Nazis expelled her from the German Writers Association in 1935 because of her Jewish ancestry,Flavorwire
"The Forgotten Novelist"
/ref> and the following year she left Germany, moving to Austria where her mother died in 1938. Following the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the Nazi Germany, German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "Ger ...

, she returned to

, Switzerland, where she remained and worked for some twenty years, until shortly before her death. In the final months of her life, she returned to Germany and stayed in a nursing home under the care of her daughter Camilla. She died on Epiphany 1961 in

Ebersberg Ebersberg is the seat of the similarly named Ebersberg '' Landkreis'' (district) in the Oberbayern '' Regierungsbezirk'' (administrative region) in Bavaria, southern Germany. The ''Ebersberger Forst'' (forest) is one of Germany’s largest co ...

Works

; Lyrics: * ''Von der Erde des Lebens'', 1910 * ''Die Landstrasse'', 1921 ('' The Country Road'', translated by Kurt Beals, New Directions 2015, ) * ''Die Barockkirche'', 1925 * ''Vom Brot der Stillen'', 2 Bände, 1932 * ''Der Apfel in der Kirche'', 1934 * ''Der Engelskranz'', 1942 * ''Madonna auf Glas'', 1944 ; Other works: * ''Erinnerungen an Rilke'', 1947

External links

References

Jewish poets 20th-century Swiss poets Swiss people of Austrian descent Swiss people of German descent Swiss expatriates in Germany Swiss expatriates in Austria Swiss Jews Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Switzerland People from St. Gallen (city) 1884 births 1961 deaths Swiss women poets 20th-century women writers {{Switzerland-poet-stub