Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

The only woman among many men

Outstanding personalities are honoured by the University of Vienna in over 160 monuments in the arcaded courtyard; until 2016 this included only one commemorative panel for a woman: Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach.

This fact was the reason behind the art project “The muse has had enough” in the centre of the arcaded courtyard.

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach is seen as one of the most important writers of Late Realism as well as a gifted aphorist.

“The wiser gives in! Immortal words. It justified the world being dominated by idiots.”

Eschenbach was born in Moravia in 1830. After marrying her cousin, she lived in Vienna from 1856. Inspired by her visits to the Burgtheater, she began to write dramas. But it was her psychologising and sociocritical tales that made her successful.

“There would be no social issues if the rich had always been philanthropists.” Ebner-Eschenbach, who came from a wealthy family herself, put these words at the beginning of her sociocritical novel “Das Gemeindekind” (“Child of the Neighbourhood”) in 1887. She objected to the popular class and inheritance theories of the late 19th century, believing that everyone can find his or her place in society when given the chance to.

In 1898, Ebner-Eschenbach was the first woman to receive the Order of Merit for Art and Science, the highest non-military order in Austria. In 1900 she was again the first woman to be awarded an honorary doctorate in philosophy by the University of Vienna, three years after women had first been admitted there. Over a hundred years later Vienna University organised an art competition to address the lack of tributes to women.