- Hedi Stadlen
Hedi Stadlen (
6 January 1916 –21 January 2004 ), better known inSri Lanka as Hedi Keuneman, was anAustria nJew ishphilosopher ,political activist , andmusicologist . She was one of the handful ofEuropean Radicals in Sri Lanka .Vienna
She was born Hedwig Magdalena Simon in
Vienna to Else Reis andHans Simon , an eminenteconomist andbanker . She was one of those whose life was deeply affected by the spread of virulentfascism inEurope in the 1930s. Both her parents were assimilated, non-observant Jews; her father had Hedi baptised to make sure that she would haveanti-Semitic shopkeepers during the starvation caused by the First World War.She was sent to a progressive school in Vienna founded by the
Polish-Jewish feminist Eugenia Schwarzwald , at whose home Hedi met such figures as the painterOskar Kokoschka and the architectAdolph Loos . When she was 14, as anatheist she elected under the Austrian Constitution to register as "Konfessionslos" (religionless).She studied philosophy at the
University of Vienna . One of her lecturers, ProfessorMoritz Schlick was shot by a deranged student. The student was later paroled, acclaimed as a 'heroicAryan ' and, became a member of theAustrian Nazi party after the "Anschluss ".Incidents such as this caused Dr Simon to leave Vienna and take his family to
Switzerland and later to the USA.Cambridge
Through contacts in
Whitehall , Dr Simon sent his daughter toNewnham College , Cambridge University, where she continued her studies, but switched toMoral Sciences (philosophy) underLudwig Wittgenstein .She spent her weekends in
London , working for the cause ofIndia n freedom inKrishna Menon 'sIndia League , withIndira Gandhi among others. She later explained that "the racial discrimination suffered by the Jews in Austria made me feel sympathetic to the victims of colonial rule and strengthened my determination to identify with the fight for the freedom and independence of colonial peoples."The capitalist crisis, fascism and the
Spanish Civil War attracted her to theCommunist Party of Great Britain . The historianEric Hobsbawm fell in love with Hedi Simon, but she, in turn fell in love with anotherCommunist undergraduate,Pieter Keuneman who was President of theCambridge Union and editor of the student magazine "Granta ". He was the son of a Dutch BurgherSupreme Court Justice in Sri Lanka.Hedi Simon graduated with
First Class Honours in 1939, but as a woman, was excluded under university rules from the award of her degree. She married Pieter Keuneman in Switzerland in September 1939. The next year they went to Sri Lanka.Colombo
In Sri Lanka, the Left had split in 1940, when the
Trotskyists in theLanka Sama Samaja Party expelled the pro-Moscow faction, which formed the United Socialist Party (USP). The Keunemans joined the USP, which was fiercely anti-colonial until the invasion byHitler of theSoviet Union , thereafter advocating co-operation with the colonial regime against the common enemy, Fascism.Hedi Keuneman was elected president of one of the
co-operative societies were formed to distribute affordable food, following the outbreak of war. She monitored food stocks and prices in centralColombo , popularising cheaper, local foodcereal s such as "bajiri", a locally grown sticky grain, earning herself the nickname "bajiri nona" ("'Bajiri" Lady').Between 1940 and 1942, Hedi Keuneman taught at
University College, Colombo and at the Modern School initiated by another Communist emigrant and India League veteran,Doreen Young Wickremasinghe .She was active in the Friends of the Soviet Union, and, with shoulder-length black hair and sometimes, barefoot in a red
sari , distributed pro-Communist literature, and addressed meetings among English-speaking supporters. She also wrote a pamphlet publicising Hitler's tyranny, "Under Nazi Rule".In 1943 when the USP was dissolved and became the
Communist Party of Ceylon , Pieter became its first general secretary. He and Hedi subsisted on boiledbreadfruit and "sambol", living modestly near the CP office in Borella.London
Following end of the war in 1945, Hedi Keuneman returned to Europe to meet her mother – as a Communist, she was barred from entering the United States (where her father had died in 1942). In London in 1946 she met an old friend from Vienna,
Peter Stadlen a distinguished "concert pianist" who had premiered the WebernOpus 27 Variations . She chose not to return to Sri Lanka, and divorced Pieter. While Hedi Stadlen never rejoined the Communist Party, she never renounced her socialist convictions.She subsequently married Stadlen, with whom she lived in
Hampstead . In 1956, a hand injury obliged Stadlen to turn to music criticism chiefly for the "Daily Telegraph ", and academic study. Hedi collaborated with him, possibly influenced by her musical heritage, as grand-niece of "Johann Strauss". They produced conclusive evidence that extensive sections ofAnton Schindler 's Beethoven conversation books were forgeries. She also played a crucial role in Stadlen's study of Beethoven's intentions with hismetronome markings.On Stadlen's death on
20 January 1996 , Hedi lied about her age and joined the charityVolunteer Reading Help , and for six years helped disadvantaged children in aNorth London primary school to strengthen their reading. She also worked withAnnette Morreau on a biography of the Viennese cellistEmmanuel Feuermann .In 2002 she returned to Cambridge to receive the degree denied to her over five decades previously. At the same ceremony her son, Nick picked up his M.A. and her grandson, Matthew, was awarded his B.A.
Hedi Stadlen was survived by her sons Nicholas, a
commercial law barrister and QC (who holds the record for the longest speech in British legal history - 119 days), and Godfrey, a seniorcivil servant in theHome Office .References
*B. Skanthakumar. [http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2004/07/11/fea02.html "Hedi Stadlen (Keuneman) 1916-2004: Indefatigable political activist"] , "
Sunday Observer ",11 July 2004 ]
*Alan Rusbridger. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,1133538,00.html "Hedi Stadlen: From political activism in Colombo to new insights on Beethoven"] "The Guardian ",29 January 2004
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-983745,00.html Obituary: "Hedi Stadlen"] , "Times Online",31 January 2004
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