Literatura obscura 3: Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

The eponym of masochism, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was only one of Central European writers in the second half of the 19^th century, who had a moderate success, and whose works mostly fell in oblivion after his time. But in the ironic twist of fate, it was his sexual preferences that saved him for history and book readers.

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was born in 1836 into the family of an Austrian low-rank nobleman in Lemberg (now Lvov), the capital of Galicia. It was a region of rich ethnic cultures and complex history that would be a source of constant inspiration for Masoch throughout his life. Picturing the lives of local Poles, Jews and Ukrainians gained him a European renown. He was also prolific in historical fiction and often set his whimsical miniatures in the 18^th century, his favorite epoch.

In 1869 Masoch conceived a grandiose literary project tentatively titled The Testament of Cain, which would encompass the author’s aesthetics embodied in the six evils unleashed into this world by Cain: love, property, state, war, work and death. Ill and uninspired, Masoch abandoned the idea by the early 1880s, having completed two volumes out of six. It was the first volume that included Venus in Furs, a short novel that would ensure Masoch’s peculiar fame.

Venus in Furs delineates the courtship of a young gentleman, who grows so obsessed with his passion that he wants to become a property of his sex object, a beautiful and affluent widow, in order to be with her unconditionally. First, she did not understand him and thought of it playfully. But when he became more aggressive in his pursue, she agreed to become his literal mistress only to show him that it would not be a sweet deal.

"AGREEMENT BETWEEN SEVERIN VON KUSIEMSKI AND WANDA VON DUNAJEW

Severin von Kusiemski ceases with the present day being the affianced of Mme. Wanda von Dunajew, and renounces all rights appertaining thereunto; he on the contrary binds himself on his word of honor as a man and nobleman, that hereafter he will be her slave until such time that she herself sets him at liberty again.

As the slave of Mme. von Dunajew he is to bear the name Gregor and he is unconditionally to comply with every one of her wishes…

Mme. von Dunajew is entitled not only to punish her slave as she deems best, even for the slightest inadvertence or fault, but also is herewith given the right to torture him as the mood may seize her. Should she so desire, she may kill him whenever she wishes…"

And in the last sentence is a nod to the character’s obvious fur fetishism:

"Mme. von Dunajew on her behalf agrees as his mistress to appear as often as possible in her furs, especially when she purposes some cruelty towards her slave."

What is most astounding is that Sacher-Masoch attempted to live out his fantasies. When he married in 1873, he and his wife had a similar written agreement. It was like developing the plot for a novel, only vice versa!

Sacher-Masoch’s writing style is beautifully and classically elaborate, despite the blend of gutter press techniques. He manages to bring everything in the mix: love, politics of his day, social issues, art critique, philosophy, mini-anecdotes from forgotten pages of history and literature... His constant name-checking may seem overwhelming for some, but may be pleasant for others. Despite his somewhat misogynist nature, he had an undying interest in women of power: be it Messalina, Catherine the Great or contemporary girls of demimonde.

It was the Austrian psychiatrist Kraft-Ebbing who noticed morbid inclinations in Masoch’s novels that clicked with what he was studying at the time, namely sexual deviations; not only that, Kraft-Ebbing also obtained some private information, confirming long-circulated rumors about Masoch’s personality.

“I feel justified in calling this sexual anomaly "Masochism,"—wrote Kraft-Ebbing in 1886,—because the author Sacher-Masoch frequently made this perversion, which up to his time was quite unknown to the scientific world as such, the substratum of his writings.”

In 1906, 11 years after Masoch’s death, his former wife Aurora von Rümelin published spicy memoirs, where she presented herself as a victim of Masoch’s relentless fantasies. The account drew on sensationalism, with her penname chosen to be—of all!—Wanda von Dunajew; and with lines like “He said he absolutely wanted to be beaten with the greatest possible force…” that sound like a National Enquirer headline.

Despite von Sacher-Masoch's prolific legacy, only Venus in Furs is readily available in English.