(c) 2017 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Hans Coudenhove

Austrian, 1863 - 1925

BiographyJohann (Hans) Dominik Maria Graf Coudenhove-Kalergi was born 7 January 1863 in Vienna and died 12 September 1925 in what was known as German East Africa and what is now known as Malawi. He was part of the Coudenohove-Kalergi family, a Bohemian noble family of mixed Flemish and Cretan Greek descent, which was formed after Count Franz Karl von Coudenhove (1825-1893) married Marie Kalergi (1840-1877). The Coudenhoves were counts of the Holy Roman Empire since 1790 and were prominent in the Habsburg Netherlands. After the upheaval of the French Revolution, they moved to Austria. The Kallergis family had enjoyed high status in Crete, having been sent there by Byzantine emperor Alexios II Komnenos in the mid-12th century. They remained there during the Venetian occupation (1204–1669) and subsequently moved to the Venetian-held Ionian Islands. Their palazzo in Venice is still standing. (Wikipedia, accessed 11/14/2022) Coudenhove moved to the Zomba, Nyasaland region in 1896 at the age of 36 to study wildlife, eschewing the lifestyle of a European nobleman, which included his eventual renouncement of his title of Count around 1919, and would stay there until his death. He tells Isabella this in a letter dated 19 November 1919 when he signs it “Hans Coudenhove (a Count no more!).” He returned only once to Europe in 1898 for a few months.

It was in Venice that Count Hans Coudenove and Isabella met in the summer of 1888. They began a correspondence via letter writing later that year, though there was a prolonged interruption, and continued through the end of her life with the last letter to Isabella from Coudenhove dated 27 July 1924, thirteen days after her death. They largely wrote about art, literature, their lives (he asking her to provide more information), and animals. Coudenhove was greatly concerned about animal welfare and urged Isabella in some letters to stop eating meat. He also occasionally wrote about the native people of Africa, whom he claimed to be largely fond of, but whom he wrote about in his letters in, at best, paternalistic and colonialist terms and, at worst, used incredibly offensive racial slurs. Isabella was seemingly pivotal in getting his essays published in The Atlantic Monthly, in which he described his life and wildlife in eastern Africa, by writing to the editor Ellery Sedgwick about her interest in seeing Coudenhove’s accounts in their publication. Coudenhove’s essays were eventually published together posthumously in a book, My African Neighbors, by Little, Brown, and Company in 1926. Adrienne Chaparro, 11/23/2022

An nobleman of the Coudenhove family and the third son of Karl Graf von Coudenhove. At the age of 36 (1899) he moved to Africa (modern day Malawi) where he spent the rest of his life and renounced his title of Count in 1919. He wrote several essays published by The Atlantic that were then made into a book, My African Neighbors, published by Little, Brown, and Company. He he and Isabella corresponded via letters from approx. 1899 until her death, where they wrote about literature, animals, art, and their own lives.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Karl_Coudenhove
https://www.theatlantic.com/author/hans-coudenhove/
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1926/01/the-contributors-column/648210/
letters to ISG from 1888-1924
I.S. 12/8/2017

JOURNAL ARTICLE
Review
Reviewed Work: My African Neighbours by Hans Coudenhove
Review by: H. R. T.
Journal of the Royal African Society
Vol. 26, No. 101 (Oct., 1926), pp. 77-79
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/716812
Page Count: 3

Person TypeIndividual

Last Updated8/7/24

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