Dream and Reality of Helene Druskowitz

Abstract

The article focuses on the writer and scholar Helene Druskowitz, the first female person in 19th century Austria holding a PhD (Dr. phil.). Born to a family of haute bourgeoisie, Druskowitz did her studies in philosophy, classics and modern languages, oriental and German studies, and archeology at the university of Zurich, Switzerland, during a period before Germany or Austria had opened their universities to women. The first part of the article deals with the specific situation of a female student at the university of Zurich in the 1870ies, the second part reflects the outcome of such an experience, the establishing of a social network in which Helene Druskowitz as a philosopher, intellectual, and writer became a part of. The ambiguity and ambivalence between a scholarly type and an artist’s type, which was central for Druskowitz, who later in her life time became a psychiatric patient confined behind the walls of several hospitals, led to aesthetic procedures oriented on irony and satire, enabling her not only to reflect her societal role as a female scholar but also her experiences as a university student in Zurich.