Auguste Hauschner

Auguste Hauschner (née Sobotka; February 12, 1850 — April 10, 1924) was a German writer. She also published under the pseudonym of Auguste Montag. She is considered as an important representative of German-speaking authors in Prague. In her work, she repeatedly pointed out socially critical issues.

Life

Auguste Sobotka was born on February 12, 1850, in Prague, Bohemia, Austria and grew up there. She was the daughter of a merchant with Jewish roots. At the age of 14, Sobotka moved to Berlin, Prussia, Germany, and attended the Jesenius boarding school for four years. In 1871, she returned to Prague and married painter and manufacturer Benno Hauschner. In the mid-1870s, she moved back to Berlin with her husband. Benno Hauschner died in 1890. Their apartment in the Tiergarten district developed in the following years into a salon for Berlin artists. In addition to her cousin Fritz Mauthner, with whom she was in close correspondence, Gustav Landauer, Maximilian Harden, Max Liebermann and Max Brod also frequented her Berlin salon.

Auguste Hauschner began her literary work in the 1880s. She penned numerous short stories and novels in which she was one of the first women writers to deal with the questions of the social position of women, and deal with questions of Jewish identity. Her most important work is the novel Die Familie Lowositz (1908, two volumes), which was followed by Rudolf and Camilla in 1910. In it she draws an (autobiographical) study of the milieu of the German-Jewish upper middle class in Prague and Berlin. She also was a promoter of socialist, anarchist and feminist actors and projects.