Rahel Levin Varnhagen Research Articles

German-Jewish Identity in the Correspondence Between Rahel Levin Varnhagen and Her Brother, Ludwig Robert Hopes and Realities of Emancipation 1780-1830

German-Jewish Identity in the Correspondence Between Rahel Levin Varnhagen and Her Brother, Ludwig Robert Hopes and Realities of Emancipation 1780–1830 Get access Heidi Thomann Tewarson Heidi Thomann Tewarson Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, Volume 39, Issue 1, January 1994, Pages 3–29, https://doi.org/10.1093/leobaeck/39.1.3 Published: 01 January 1994

Caroline Schlegel and Rahel Varnhagen: The Response of Two German Women to the French Revolution and its Aftermath

Caroline Michaelis-Bohmer-Schlegel-Schelling and Rahel Levin Varnhagen are two remarkable German women who, at the end of the eighteenth century, achieved a degree of personal autonomy and renown unthinkable for most other women. Even more notable are their interest in contemporary political developments and their concerns for social justice in the larger sense. Their progressive views positively influenced the Early German Romantic movement with which they were associated. This article will examine the ideas and attitudes of Caroline and Rahel 2 as revealed in the letters and diaries they wrote during a period that witnessed the momentous changes resulting from the French Revolution, the Napoleonic reign, and the period of Reaction. In order to assess the significance of these women in the German and the larger European context, it will be helpful to sketch briefly the situation in France and the role French women played in the revolutionary events of the 1790s.