Troll-Borostyani, Irma von (1847–1912)

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Troll-Borostyani, Irma von (1847–1912)

Austrian writer and women's rights activist. Name variations: Irma von Troll-Borostyáni; (pseudonym) Veritas Leo Bergen. Born Marie von Troll on March 31, 1847, in Salzburg, Austria; died after a stroke on February 10, 1912, in Salzburg; educated at monastery school and at home; married a man named Borostyani.

Selected writings:

Die Mission unseres Jahrhunderts: Eine Studie über die Frauenfrage (The Mission of Our Century: A Study on the Woman Question, 1878); Die Gleichstellung der Geschlechter und die Reform der Jugenderziehung (The Equality of the Sexes and Reform in Education, 1887); Katechismus der Frauenbewegung (The Catechism of the Women's Movement, 1903).

Born Marie von Troll in 1847 in Salzburg, Austria, Irma von Troll-Borostyani was the fourth and last of her parents' children. Her mother and father enrolled her in a local monastery school, but her health was fragile, and she was eventually removed from classes there and educated at home.

Unhappy with the provincialism of her hometown, she moved in 1870 to the cosmopolitan Austrian capital of Vienna, where she hoped to become a concert pianist. Instead she began to write and became involved with women's rights. In 1878, she captured widespread attention with an essay published under the pseudonym Veritas Leo Bergen, Die Mission unseres Jahrhunderts: Eine Studie über die Frauenfrage (The Mission of Our Century: A Study on the Woman Question). By the time she returned to Salzburg four years later to care for her dying mother, she had established herself as a writer and a champion of women's rights. She had also changed her first name from Marie to Irma and married a man with the Hungarian surname of Borostyani.

Troll-Borostyani found Salzburg much more receptive upon her return, and she and her sister Wilhelmina von Troll soon gathered about them a large coterie of similarly minded intellectuals. Irma continued to work aggressively for equal rights for women in Salzburg. Among the many essays she published were the pseudonymous collections Die Gleichstellung der Geschlechter und die Reform der Jugenderziehung (The Equality of the Sexes and Reform in Education, 1887) and Katechismus der Frauenbewegung (The Catechism of the Women's Movement, 1903).

Less than two months before her 65th birthday, Troll-Borostyani suffered a stroke in her Salzburg home and died shortly thereafter, on February 10, 1912. She was buried in Salzburg, where her headstone carries an inscription saluting her as "the courageous champion of the women's movement."