Anna, Comtesse Mathieu de Noailles (Anna Elisabeth Bibesco-Bassaraba de Brancovan; French pronunciation: [ana d(ə) nɔaj]; 15 November 1876 – 30 April 1933) was a French writer of Romanian and Greek descent, a poet and a socialist feminist. She was the only female poet of her time in France to receive the highest public recognition, the Grand Prix of the Académie Française.
Personal life
Born Princess Anna Elisabeth Bibesco-Bassaraba de Brancovan in Paris, she was a descendant of the Bibescu, Craioveşti and Mavrocordato families of Romanian boyars. Her father was Prince Grégoire Bibesco-Bassaraba, a son of Wallachian Prince Gheorghe Bibesco and Zoe Mavrocordato-Bassaraba de Brancovan.
Her Greek mother was Ralouka (Rachel) Mussurus, daughter of Konstantinos Mousouros and a member of the Mousouros family. She was a musician and pianist, who studied with Camille O'Meara (Dubois), Frédéric Chopin's last student. The Polish composer Ignacy Paderewski had also dedicated several of his compositions to her.
Noailles was extremely proud of her Greek ancestry. According to historian Catherine Perry, her Greek ancestry:
contains the essence of an entire history and produces the narrative movement of the dedication, for the mythical figure of Noailles is shown to advance from Greece to Asia Minor, before arriving in France as the ultimate goal of her journey. Through a combination of her origins with her French writings, she may stand for a synthesis, or a continuity, between the worlds of Greek antiquity and of contemporary France.
