Lou Andreas-Salomé: biography of this Russian psychoanalyst and writer

The birth of psychoanalysis was accompanied by a generation of intellectuals, among which Lou Andreas-Salomé is a part.

We are going to take a journey through the life of this Russian author through a biography of Lou Andreas-Salomé, to know the great vital events as well as the most notable contributions that he materialized throughout an extensive career. With all this, we will contribute to make visible the importance of this figure.

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Brief biography of Lou Andreas-Salomé

Lou Andreas-Salomé was born in 1861 in the city of Saint Petersburg, which at that time belonged to the Russian Empire.. The full name she received at birth was Luiza Gustavovna, Salomé. His family was of German and French descent. The couple had five other children, apart from Lou, she being the youngest of them all.

They were from a wealthy family, who received a high-level education. All the children had the opportunity to learn, not only Russian, but also German and French, which would later allow Lou Andreas-Salomé to be able to travel throughout Europe and learn in different fields, something that at that time was within the reach of some few.

The von Salomé marriage was of a Protestant Christian court. However, Lou was only attracted to the more intellectual part of everything related to religion, so she gave up being confirmed when she was old enough to do so. Still, she continued to attend to hear the homily of Hendrik Gillot, a local pastor who took her on as a pupil, given her fascination.

Gillot acted as her mentor and brought Lou Andreas-Salomé closer to theological and philosophical topics of study., and even different European writers. They both shared a taste for intellectual issues, and the relationship provided a boost for Lou's growth. However, the pastor ended up falling in love with his ward.

But Lou Andreas-Salomé was not interested in him in that sense. Besides, Gillot had a wife and children and was even twenty-five years her senior. Therefore, their intentions did not go further, but although they maintained their relationship as teacher and student, it was not the same for Lou again.

Exit from Russia and training

In 1879 there was the death of his father, Gustav Ludwig. This fact motivated Lou Andreas-Salomé's family to decide to leave Russia behind to move to Zurich, Switzerland. At that time, many academic institutions admitted only male students to their classrooms, however, succeeded in getting Lou admitted to the University of Zurich as a guest.

This is how she began her training in the fields of philosophy and theology. However, this stage was eventful, as a lung condition became apparent. Doctors recommended that he stay away from cold and humid climates, due to which both Lou Andreas-Salomé and his mother moved to Rome, the Italian capital.

This new stage in Rome, by chance, would have a great relevance for the life of this author. And it is here that she met Paul Ludwig Carl Heinrich Rée, philosopher and physician. This meeting took place in a literary room. Rée fell in love with Lou Andreas-Salomé and soon asked her to marry him. Lou rejected his proposal, but proposed another plan.

What he suggested is that they just hang out together while studying, creating a kind of academic group. Not only that, but He proposed that they be joined by a third person, none other than the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who was a friend of Paul Rée. Just like she had happened to him and her pastor, she fell in love with Lou as soon as he met her, and asked her to marry him, which she rejected, once again.

However, the three remained united and maintained their idea of ​​creating an academic commune, for which they undertook a series of trips, in the company of Lou Andreas-Salomé's own mother, through different parts of Italy and Switzerland until she found the ideal location for Winterplan, which would be the name of the draft.

Unfortunately, they did not find the place they were looking for, which should have been a disused monastery in one of those places. Therefore, they had no choice but to abandon the idea. They returned together to Leipzig, Germany, where they lived together for a time, before Lou and Paul left., which seriously affected Nietzsche's mood, as reflected in some of his works.

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Stage in Berlin and marriage

The destination of Lou Andreas-Salomé and Paul Rée was Berlin. There they lived together for a time, until Lou she met Friedrich Carl Andreas, whom she would eventually marry, in 1887. She would be his partner until the end of her life, even though Lou did not contemplate relationships. marriages in a traditional way, so she related to other people in a way intimate.

In fact, she is related to some of the great personalities of the time. Although it is not known to what extent the friendship reached, the truth is that Lou Andreas-Salomé dealt with the Austrian poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, with the politician Georg Ledebour, with the psychoanalyst Victor Tausk and even with the father of the psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.

Lou herself later wrote a play called Lebensrückblick autobiographical, in which he recounts this stage of his life and provides data, for example, about his relationship with Freud, which he calls merely intellectual. Among the correspondence that the two exchanged, Freud attributes to Lou the ability to understand individuals better than themselves.

Through this relationship, Lou Andreas-Salomé was also trained in psychoanalysis, a matter that he came to dominate deeply, as Freud himself recognized in that letter. At this point in Lou's life, Paul Rée had completely disappeared, since since she married Andreas, their relationship was no longer the same.

With the aforementioned Rainer Maria Rilke, the friendship was especially close, despite their age difference, as she was just over fifteen years older than him. The two connected strongly by sharing feelings about the loss of faith, which the two had experienced early in their lives.

Lou Andreas-Salomé returned to her native Russia. She made a first trip in the company of her husband, but the following year, in 1900, He returned to Rilke himself, and acted as his representative, putting him in contact with intellectuals and artists of more renown of the time, like the own writer Leo Tolstoy. Although Lou and Rilke were lovers for three years, their friendship lasted a lifetime.

Last stage and death

Lou Andreas-Salomé she continued to carry out her work as one of the most renowned psychoanalysts in all of Europe. However, when he reached a certain age, her health began to suffer. He experienced heart ailments for which he had to spend long periods in the hospital. To this was added that her husband, of advanced age, also suffered from different ailments.

Perhaps that was what contributed to the two experiencing a closer relationship at this stage, which contributed to their marriage lasted and reached four decades, ending with the death of Andreas, in the year 1930, because of a Cancer. This disease also affected Lou later, that she had to undergo surgery to overcome it.

Finally, it was in the year 1937 when, reaching the age of 76, Lou Andreas-Salomé died, because of a kidney complication that caused an excess of urea in the blood, from which she could not recover, given her delicate Health. Her death took place in the German city of Göttingen.

In the last days of her life, she had to live the misfortune of seeing how the Gestapo, the secret police of the Nazi regime, which already controlled Germany, broke into her home to requisition her books, accusing it of promoting what they called "Jewish science", due to the fact that it had volumes of authors who belonged to this ethnic group, as was the case with Sigmund Freud.

The figure of Lou Andreas-Salomé endures to this day, among other things for having been a pioneer in terms of the liberation of the woman, a phenomenon that would continue to develop throughout the twentieth century, but that she had already experienced in the first person for several decades before.

Her mortal remains lie next to those of her husband, in the Groner Landstrasse cemetery, in the city of Göttingen, where they both died.