Talvj
Talvj, born Therese Albertine Louise von Jakob, was a prominent 19th-century translator and writer whose contributions to literature and cultural studies are notable. Initially raised in a German family, she faced a tumultuous childhood due to the Napoleonic Wars, leading her family to relocate to Russia and later St. Petersburg. There, Talvj developed a passion for writing and literature, producing poetry and stories that reflected her experiences and longing for Germany. In 1824, she returned to Germany, where she gained recognition for translating Serbo-Croatian folk songs into German and published various literary works.
Marrying American theologian Edward Robinson, Talvj moved to the United States, where she engaged with American Indian languages and wrote about German folk songs for American audiences. Throughout her life, she produced numerous acclaimed novels and essays, focusing on themes of history and cultural identity. Noteworthy works include her book on the folk songs of Germanic nations and the novel "Heloise," which achieved considerable success. After her husband's death, Talvj continued to write and edit his unfinished manuscript, showcasing her dedication to literary pursuits until her passing in 1870. Her legacy highlights the intersection of German and American literary traditions, as well as her role in the cultural dialogue of her time.
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Talvj
Writer
- Born: January 26, 1797
- Birthplace: Halle, Germany
- Died: April 13, 1870
Biography
The nineteenth century translator and writer known as Talvj, long assumed to be a man because of the ambiguity of her pseudonym, was born Therese Albertine Louise von Jakob into the German family of Auguste (Dreissig) von Jakob and esteemed philosophy and government professor Ludwig Heinrich von Jakob. Her intelligence was apparent early on, with the colleagues and students of her father nicknaming the girl kleines Orakel, meaning “little oracle.” However, the pleasant childhoods of Talvj and her brother and two sisters were interrupted during the Napoleonic Wars, when the university in her hometown of Halle was closed. Ludwig von Jakob decided to take his family away from the French occupation and accepted a position at the University of Kharkov in present-day Ukraine.
Talvj spent her subsequent childhood in Russia and the Ukraine. She and her sisters initially refused to learn the Russian language, but after overhearing some Russian folk songs, Talvj developed an interest and began exploring the language. Though her parents spent a small fortune each year for art and piano lessons for their daughters, Talvj was disinterested in these studies and preferred to spend her time writing poems and reading. The books available to her were in the university library, so she read widely about history and the fine arts, though her schooling during childhood was sporadic.
In 1809, when Talvj was twelve years old, the family moved to St. Petersburg, where her father took an advisory position on state reforms, and where the family took on the “von” in “von Jakob” after Czar Alexander I honored her father as Ludwig von Jakob. While also spending significant time reading various novels and nonfiction texts, Talvj began privately writing substantial poetry as a teenager, much of which revealed her longing to return to Germany. She returned in 1824, at the age of twenty-seven, having first gone back to visit in 1816.
In 1820, Talvj wrote her first story, “Die Rache,” and throughout her twenties she published fiction and literary criticism. Once in Germany in 1824, while grieving the 1823 death of a sister, she translated a collection of Serbo-Croatian folk songs into German, and she was praised for this achievement. In 1828 she married American theologian Edward Robinson, who had been studying languages in Halle. Talvj moved with Robinson to Andover, Massachusetts, where Robinson taught in a seminary and Talvj studied American Indian languages. Talvj wrote about German folk songs for American audiences in the North American Review and published an article on Slavic languages in the Biblical Repository. She and her husband had four children between 1829 and 1836, two of whom survived to adulthood: Mary Augusta, who became a musician, and Edward, who became a lawyer and Union soldier.
The family moved to Boston in 1833 and then to New York in 1837, where Edward Robinson was offered a professorial position at the Union Theological Seminary. In this capacity, Robinson traveled and conducted research in Palestine and Egypt, while Talvj traveled through Hamburg, Leipzig, and Dresden. Talvj published her Versuch einer geschichtlichen Charakteristik der Volkslieder germanischer Nationen, a book about the historical characterization of the folk songs of Germanic nations, in 1840. Back in New York, she established a popular salon, and in the mid-1840’s she began focusing on American history in her writings, including in Raumers historisches Taschenbuch, a pocketbook history published in 1845. She also produced novels in the 1850’s and 1860’s which were widely praised by both critics and the public and which were printed in German as well as English. Heloise (1850; Heloise: Or, The Unrevealed Secret, 1850) sped through three editions in just its first year of publication in 1850.
After Edward Robinson died in 1863, leaving behind an incomplete manuscript about the geography of the Holy Land, Talvj, though suffering from cataracts, took over the project, editing the manuscript and translating it into German in 1865. She soon settled near Strasbourg, France, and wrote the novel Funfzehn Jahre in 1868. Her last published work, an essay about the historical songs of the Cossacks, appeared the next year. She died on April 13, 1870.