“Elvira Madigan”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Elvira Madigan, artist name for Hedvig Antoinette Isabella Eleonore Jensen (December 4, 1867 in Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein in the then Kingdom of Prussia {{snd}}July 19, 1889 in Nørreskov on Tåsinge, Denmark), was a circus performer (slack rope dancer, artistic rider, juggler and dancer).

Elvira Madigan is today known for her relationship with the Swedish nobleman and cavalry officer Sixten Sparre. Their joint death caused great sensation and the event was described in song by among others the author {{ill|Johan Lindström Saxon|sv}} in a song beginning "Sad things happen", which gained great popularity.^[1]

Biography

Growth

Elvira Madigan is often said to be Danish, but uncertainty still prevails over which should be considered her home country and about her citizenship. ^[2]^[3] Her mother was a circus artist born in Finland but of Norwegian ancestry, Eleonora Cecilie Christine Marie Olsen. She was later known as Laura Madigan (1849–1918) but during Elvira's childhood she mostly used the stage name Miss Ulbinska. The father was circus artist Frederik Peter Jensen, born in 1845 in Copenhagen. His later destiny is unknown. At the time of Elvira Madigan's birth, her parents were not married to each other, and they toured with the French circus director Didier Gautier's "Cirque du Nord" in Germany and Denmark. During the years 1869–1872 Elvira's mother toured with Circus Renz in Germany and Austria, where she in 1871 gave birth to Elvira's half-brother Richard Heinrich Olsen in Berlin. He later toured with the stage name Oscar Madigan. The father of this child is unknown. ^[4] In 1875, Elvira's mother worked at Circus Myers in Austria, ^[5] where she got to know the American circus artist John Madigan, whom she subsequently lived together with. The following year Elvira Madigan, then still Hedvig Jensen, made her debut in the circus, when she rode a pas-de-deux with John Madigan during a performance with the circus Loisset in Tivoli in Copenhagen . After the death of Loisset in Norrköping the following year, his circus was dissolved, and the Madigan family moved to Circus Ciniselli in Russia. There Elvira Madigan trained to be a slack line dancer. ^[4]

Artist career

In the summer of 1879 the Madigan family tried to run their own small circus company in Finland and at the same time Elvira Madigan began using her artist name instead of her birth name Hedvig Jensen. ^[6] The following year, when the family appeared in circus Cremes in Vienna, Gisela Brož became a foster child in the family, she was two years older than Elvira. Gisela was trained up to tight rope dancer, and together with Elvira on slack line they practiced a unique number, where they appeared simultaneously on each line, hung above each other. Elvira used to juggle at the same time as she went on the line. The number became a sensation, and in the following years the girls appeared as "daughters of the air" in circuses and in variety rooms across much of Europe, including in Berlin, Paris, London, Brussels and Moscow. ^[7] After an appearance at Tivoli in Copenhagen in 1886 before the Danish royal family, the girls were each awarded a gold cross by king Kristian IX. ^[8] The following year, John Madigan again started his own circus company, this time in Denmark. Gisela left the family in the autumn of the same year, after which Elvira had to appear alone when the tour continued to Sweden.

Relationship with Sixten Sparre

In January 1888 circus Madigan appeared in Kristianstad, where Elvira was seen by the dragoon lieutenant Sixten Sparre. ^[9]

Letter exchange

Sixten Sparre, who was married and had two children, fell madly in love with Elvira, who was considered an extraordinary beauty, with excellent figure and almost meter-long, blond hair. Sparre sought contact, and the two started correspondence. Elvira gradually learns to get tired of his writing, and several times tried to finish the correspondence. Sparre, however, stood by and tried to persuade her to leave both the family and the circus to marry him instead. According to a letter that Elvira's mother later wrote to the Danish newspaper Politiken, Sparre should have threatened to shoot himself if Elvira did not do as he wanted. He also lied about being divorced from his wife and given Elvira to believe that he was well-off, when in fact he had wasted his entire fortune and was heavily indebted. After a nervous breakdown, Elvira finally gave in, and on May 28, 1889, she secretly left the family under the circus's stop in Sundsvall. The family did not know about Elvira's correspondence with Sparre. ^[10]

Relationship development

Sparre, who was granted two months leave from May 27, met Elvira in Bollnäs. The two went on to Stockholm, where Elvira's mother made a failed attempt to catch the couple by taking a steamboat from Sundsvall. After a few weeks in unknown place they arrived at Svendborg on Funen on June 18. They lived almost a month at the city hotel, but when the hotel director presented a bill, the couple fled. The already heavily indebted Sparre had been completely broke at this point, and he and Elvira had obviously lived on credit for several weeks. The two lived a few days in a guest house in Troense on Tåsinge. On July 18, they went to the forest area Nørreskov, where Sixten first shot Elvira and then himself on the morning of July 19, 1889. The bodies was only found three days later. In Elvira's dress pocket was found a paper with a poem, which she had written herself just before Sparre killed her with his service revolver. ^[11] The poem was written in a mixture of Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and German. Interpreted to modern English, it reads:

Funeral

The couple were buried at Landet's cemetery in the middle of Tåsinge on July 27 in the presence of a large number of locals and summer guests. The hotel bills, funeral costs and tombstones were paid by Sparre's brother Edvard, who traveled down from Stockholm. Elvira's grandmother had also traveled down to oversee the funeral, but she did not arrive in time. ^[12] The original tombstones are of two different materials, Elvira's are of white marble and Sixten's of dark gray granite. The difference was to mark that the two were not a "genuine" couple.

The original burial ground is located a few meters south of the great oak in the middle of the cemetery, but during a reorganization of the cemetery walkways in 1943, the gravestones were moved a few meters to the southeast and turned to the west. The original gravestones were replaced by new ones on the 75th anniversary in 1964. At Elvira's new gravestone, her artist name was also mentioned. In 1999, the original tombstones were restored and re-used, but now turned east, while the stones were moved a few meters eastwards. In 2013, the memorial site was redesigned again and the tombstones were placed close to each other in the middle of a circular pavement, located near the 1999 memorial site. ^[13] ^[14]

Remembrance, re-evaluation of love story

The interpretation of the murder drama that was told was a love story and became to many a symbol of romantic love. It was about a circus princess who was courted by a nobleman, in a combination of morality and entertainment. The event, in its turn, brought a tremendous look, and promptly gave rise to poetry and poems. Saxon's broadside ballad was heard throughout the Nordic countries from the autumn of 1889 and for many decades to come. Everyone knew the story, and everyone could sing the song. But it was not just Barrel organists that conveyed the story, also the newspapers were full of up-to-date descriptions, even with terrible details. ^[15]

The couple's relationship also gave rise to an intense press debate. In the conservative press, the couple's actions were condemned by Sparre's adultery, while the left press was more understanding. The event was interpreted as saying that the couple had to take this step because of the class society of the time and the prevailing sexual morality. Among other things, the Danish author Holger Drachmann wrote the tribute poem "Til de to" (To the two) under these premises. The event was seen as a repetition of Mayerling incident, but the extent to which the two were influenced by this event is unclear. Already in the first press releases on the drama, this connection to the event in Austria was made six months earlier, and other newspapers continued to spin on this thread, perhaps mostly because this version was what the readers wanted: the all-consuming love, stronger than death, in addition, between a man of childbirth and a woman of very simple lineage (circus performers stood very low on the social scale). This romanticized view of the drama has survived to our day through movies, novels, musicals and much more. ^[16]

However, recent years of research give a different picture. It has emerged that Sparre the last few years of his life lived very extravagantly. ^[17] He had wasted his fortune and systematically withdrew debts in a way that gave rise to questions about his mental health. According to Grönqvist, he may have suffered from bipolar disorder, and his systematic waste, his renunciation of the family and the values his social class traditionally represented (Sparre posed far left politically in the last few years), and finally the love affair with a circus girl should then be seen as the rash of his illness. ^[18] Lindhe is also condemning in his biography of Sparre's wife Luitgard, but rather sees Sixten as just spoiled, wasteful and narcissistic.

In light of these findings, Sparre's deal with Elvira Madigan appears rather as a classic example of seduction of a basically unwilling girl, whose feelings for Sparre in that case were very ambivalent. If Laura Madigan's letter to Politiken ^[19] ^[20] is considered a reliable source (it is in and of itself a party statement), Sparre forced himself on Elvira via daily love letters, filled with lies about his financial position and his non-existent divorce. Elvira also reacted with a nervous breakdown. When she finally left her family for Sparre, it seems that it was in the hope of getting married to him and thereby dispelling his suicidal thoughts. There are no evidence of Elvira being suicidal; that rather Sparre was driving the suicide decision might be indicated by the content of that poem, "The bridal bouquet", he dedicated to Elvira. Elvira's innermost feelings for Sixten, for obvious reasons, are unknown, but that she would have been deeply in love with him and wanted to die with her Sixten belongs to the romanticized image and has hardly any support in the primary sources.

Elvira Madigan seems to have been shy and withdrawn privately, not the least seductive, despite her favorable appearance and despite her strong radiance in the wayside. She was perceived by the time as a dispassionate and a hard flirt (as opposed to the extrovert Gisela), which certainly contributed to her affair with Sixten Sparre raising such a commotion. ^[21] Elvira supposedly was interested in poetry and literature, and had supposedly been a good amateur pianist. ^[22] Her mother is alleged to have been overprotective and did not even let her daughter speak to foreign men, but if this had any significance for the course of events is questionable.

Elvira Madigan in culture

In 1943 Åke Ohberg directed the first Swedish film version of Elvira Madigan with Henning and himself in the lead roles. After pressure from relatives of Sixten Sparre, he changed his name to Christian. ^[23]

In 1967, Widerberg made his film adaptation, Elvira Madigan, with Pia Degermark and Thommy Berggren in the lead roles. The film music used throughout was the second movement from Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major (K. 467) which has since been known as "Elvira Madigan". The same year, Poul Erik Møller Pedersen also directed a Danish film, with Anne Mette Michaelsen in the title role as Elvira Madigan.

In 1990, the "Circus Elvira Madigan" by Jan Wirén and Lars-Åke von Vultée premiered in connection with that year's edition of the Kristianstad Days. Dircted by Hasse Alfredson and among others Johan Ulveson was in the cast.

In 1992, the musical Elvira Madigan premiered at Malmö City Theater, the music was by Nick Bicât and the lead role was played by Kirsti Torhaug.

The drama has also been portrayed in several theater plays, ballets, student speaks, songs and much more. A Swedish metal band has also taken the name Elvira Madigan. For descriptions in fiction, see the literature list in the corresponding Wikipedia article in swedish.

The road on which the country church is located was named Elvira Madigans Vej in 1970, ^[24] and she has also been given the name of a ship, a series of ornaments and much more. Sixten has got a street named after him in the regiment area of Ystad, Sixten Sparre's street.