Coldness and Cruelty
By Gilles Deleure
Venus in Furs
A, By Leopald von Sacher-Masoch
Pete ne eeColdness and Cruelty
GILLES DELEUZE
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mao
PaoForeword
Most of che information on the life of Sacher-Masoch comes ta
us from his secretary, Schlichtegroll (Secher-Masoch und der
Masochismus) and from his first wile, who took the name of the
heroine of Venus in Fue, Wanda (Wanda von Sacher-Masoth, Car
fessions af My Life). Wanda’s book is excellent, but it was severely
judged by subsequent biographers, wha olten merely present us
with subjective impressions of the work. In their opinion, the
image she offers of herself is too innocent, and they assumed her
to be a sadist, since Masoch was a masochist. But this may well
be a misstatement of the problem.
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was born in 1635 in Lemberg,
Galicia, He was of Slav, Spanish and Bohemian descent. His ances-
tors held official positions in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Fs
father was Chief of Police of Lemberg, and as a child he witnessed
prison scenes and riots which were to have a profound effect
on him. His work is deeply influenced by the problems of nation-
alities, minority groups and revolutionary movements in the
Empire, hence his Galician, Jewish, Hungarian, Prussian tales, etc.
He often describes the organization of agricultural communes and
the strugele of the peasants against the Austrian administration
and especially against the landowners. He became invalved in
the Panslavic movement. The men he admired, besides Goethe,COLOGNES S AO CRUERLT ¥
were Pushkin and Lermantoy, and he was known himself as the
Turgeniey of Little Russia.
He was appointed Professor of History at Grav and began his
literary carcer by writing historical novels. He met with rapid suc-
cress: ane of his first genre novels, The Divorced Woman (Le 70)
aroused interest even in America: in France, Hachette, 7 a
Levy and Flammarion published translations of his novels and