Marie-Elisabeth Belpaire


Marie-Elisabeth Belpaire was a Belgian writer and activist. She was known as the "mother of the Flemish Movement".

Life

The daughter of Alphonse Belpaire and Betsy Teichmann, she was born in Antwerp and grew up in the home of her maternal grandfather Jan Teichmann, who served as governor of Antwerp province. Taught by private teachers, she learned several languages and read Romantic literature written in French, German and English but soon became interested in Flemish literature.
She supported higher education for women, founding the, a Catholic school for young professional women, and the Extension universitaire pour les femmes, university education for women. She also supported young musicians and writers in their work. She lobbied in support of equality for Dutch-speaking Belgians and official bilingualism.
During World War I, she co-founded De Belgische Standaard, a Flemish newspaper at the Yser Front. She also defended the rights of Flemish soldiers, who served under French-speaking officers who did not speak their language.
With Catholic priest, she founded the Eigen Leven society to promote the Flemish Movement from a Catholic perspective. One important initiative was the merger of two existing Flemish literary publications, Dietsche Warande and Het Belfort, into the Dietsche Warande en Belfort journal, which was founded in 1900 and is still active. In the beginning, the new journal was mainly financed by Belpaire herself and she was also a contributor.
Belpaire published a number of essays, including studies on Ludwig van Beethoven and Dickens. She supported a Christian ideal of art, where art brings together truth and beauty, and so did not agree with more modern movements in literature. She published a three volume history of her relatives De families Teichmann en Belpaire and her own memoir Gestalten in 't verleden .
She translated a number of literary works by Scandinavian authors into Dutch, including four by Johannes Jørgensen, one by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson and some fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen.
She died in Antwerp at the age of 95.

In literature