Helene von Engelhardt


Helene von Engelhardt was a Baltic German poet, writer and translator.

Life and work

Helene von Engelhardt was a member of the Baltic aristocratic family Engelhardt. She was born in :lt:Vileikiai|Vileikiai, East Prussia and moved to Courland with her family when she was five. She had a happy childhood and was at first educated in her home, and then in Jelgava. Here she began her literary career with translations from Russian, Latvian folk poetry as well as French and English poetry into German. She also took private lessons in Latin. In 1869–1870 she was in Stuttgart, and became acquainted with writers Wolfgang Menzel, Ferdinand Freiligrath and Friedrich von Bodenstedt. In 1870 she moved with her family to Riga, where she began to study Greek. In the city she also met and married pianist and music teacher Louis Pabst in 1876. From 1878 the couple travelled widely, playing the piano together at concerts, and spent time in Vienna, Budapest, Leipzig, Stuttgart, London, Saint Petersburg and Moscow, and spent three years in Melbourne. She had two sons, author Arthur von Engelhardt and journalist Alexis von Engelhardt.

Selected writings