Marianne Beskiba

Marianne Beskiba (2 April 1869 – 16 April 1934)^[1] was a portrait painter who was the long-time mistress of Karl Lueger, the mayor of Vienna from 1897 to 1910. Her book about him, published after his death, created a sensation and is an important source of information on his political tactics.

Beskiba was the niece of the illustrator Franz Kollarz, and like him trained at the Vienna Academy of Arts; she was a student of Christian Griepenkerl. In 1894, shortly after the deaths of her widowed mother and her own fiancé, her uncle and his three surviving sisters committed suicide in their hotel at the pilgrimage site of Maria Lanzendorf; she had accompanied them there from Vienna but had to return early because of work.^[2][3][4]

Beskiba was a society painter. In 1895 she was commissioned to paint the portrait of Karl Lueger, 25 years her senior and at that time a candidate for mayor of Vienna; they fell in love.^[5][6] She was his mistress until 1909, when he ended the relationship. Beskiba claimed that he had once promised to marry her.^[4][7] However, a significant political strategy of Lueger's was to appeal to women; his female followers were known as his "Amazon corps", "the Lueger Garde" or "Lueger Gretls". He calculated that even though women did not have the right to vote, they had considerable influence on their husbands. To sustain his appeal to them, he maintained the fiction that he was too busy for a private life since he belonged so totally to the people of Vienna.^[8][9] According to Beskiba, he made her burn his letters and doused the ashes with champagne.^[10]

After Lueger's death in 1910, Beskiba attempted suicide,^[11] and self-published a tell-all account of her time with him, Aus meinen Erinnerungen an Dr. Karl Lueger.^[12] With its facsimiles of love letters from Lueger to her, it caused an uproar.^[9] Although it has been described by one historian as "often spiteful, morose, and occasionally hysterical", it is a valuable source of information on his political tactics and decisions;^[7][13] she was an intelligent and insightful observer.^[14]

In January 1912, Beskiba was turned down for financial support by the Austrian Artists' Society on grounds of insufficient artistic merit.^[15] She died in poverty in 1934 and was buried in a pauper's grave.^[4]

References

1. "Beskiba, Marianne", Verzeichnis der künstlerischen, wissenschaftlichen und kulturpolitischen Nachlässe in Österreich, Austrian National Library, retrieved 16 September 2014 (German).
2. "Neuigkeiten aus allen Ländern", Liechtensteiner Volksblatt, 25 May 1894, p. 2 (pdf) (German)
3. Johannes Hawlik, Der Bürgerkaiser: Karl Lueger und seine Zeit, Vienna: Herold, 1985, p. 181 (German).
4. "Zentralfriedhof: Dr. Karl Lueger. Politiker, Wiener Bürgermeister, 1844 - 1910", Vienna Tourist Office, retrieved 16 September 2014 (German).
5. Walter Fritz, Der Wiener Film im Dritten Reich, Schriftenreihe des Österreichischen Filmarchivs 17, Vienna: Austrian Film Archive, 1988, OCLC 33390057, pp. 17–18 (German).
6. Georg Markus, Adressen mit Geschichte: wo berühmte Menschen lebten, Vienna: Amalthea, 2005, ISBN 9783850025423, p. 235 (German).
7. Richard S. Geehr, Karl Lueger: Mayor of Fin de Siècle Vienna, Detroit: Wayne State University, 1990, ISBN 9780814320778, p. 220.
8. Geehr, pp. 209–10, 223.
9. Brigitte Hamann, Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship, New York: Oxford University, 1999, ISBN 9780195125375, pp. 376–77.
10. Geehr, p. 222, citing Beskiba, Erinnerungen, p. 100.
11. Geehr, p. 223.
12. Marianne Beskiba, Aus meinen Erinnerungen an Dr. Karl Lueger, Vienna: self-published, [1911], OCLC 11385072 (German).
13. John W. Boyer, "Catholic Priests in Lower Austria: Anti-Liberalism, Occupational Anxiety, and Radical Political Action in Late Nineteenth-Century Vienna", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 118.4 (September 13, 1974) 337–69, note 202, p. 359.
14. Hawlik, p. 182.
15. Wladimir Aichelburg, "Die Künstlerin", Das Künstlerhaus, retrieved 17 September 2014 (German).