Ilse Frapan (1849–1908)

Ilse Frapan was the pen name of Elise Therese Levien, born in Hamburg, Germany. Her parents Carl Heinrich Eduard Levien, an instrument maker, and his wife Maria Therese Antoinette were of French-Huguenot origins. After an early career in teaching at the Paulsenstift, Ilse turned to writing fiction and experienced modest initial success with stories set in her native city. In 1883, she moved to Stuttgart with Emma Mandelbaum, a painter who was her long-time companion. Ilse studied literature and then the couple relocated to Munich, where they were friends of Nobel Prize-winning writer Paul Heyse and Julius Rodenberg, editor of the Deutsche Rundschau. In 1892, the women moved to Zurich, Switzerland, where Ilse attended university. Here her life and work took a more radical turn as she actively campaigned for women’s rights and children’s welfare. In Switzerland, she met Iwan Akunian (Akunoff), an Armenian teacher and author, whom she married in 1898, changing her name to Frapan-Akunian. Ilse traveled extensively throughout Germany, France, and to the Georgia and devoted herself to Akunian's cause of Armenian sovereignty from Turkey, supporting him financially with her writing. However, she remained committed to the relationship with Mandelbaum. In 1908, discovering that she had cancer, Ilse chose to end her life in a death pact with Emma. Ilse Frapan’s works included Wir Frauen haben kein Vaterland (We Women Have No Fatherland), Zwischen Elbe Und Alster (Hamburg Novellas), Bittersüss (Bittersweet), and Arbeit (Work).