Lou Andreas-Salomé: Google doodle celebrates 161st birthday of Russian-born German poet, biographer, and novelist

Today’s Doodle, created by Berlin-based guest artist Isabel Seliger, honours Russian-born German poet, essayist, biographer, and novelist Lou Andreas-Salomé, the first woman in history to become a psychotherapist. Andreas-Salomé defied convention by becoming a central presence in famous intellectual circles in late 19th and early 20th century Europe while pursuing a career in philosophy at a period when women’s possibilities in the discipline were limited.

On this day in 1861, Lou Andreas-Salomé was born Louise Salomé in St. Petersburg, Russia. Andreas-Salomé was up in an intelligent household with Russian, German, and French ancestors, and as a young adult, he became interested in French and German literature. She continued her education at the pioneering University of Zurich in 1880, one of the few schools at the time that did not discriminate against women.

Andreas-Salomé joined prominent feminist Malwida von Meysenburg’s literary salon in Rome in 1882, where she met Friedrich Nietzsche. Many believe that Nietzsche’s classic “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” published in 1883, was inspired by Andreas-intellectual Salomé’s prowess. Andreas-Salomé authored a number of psychological articles and novels around the turn of the century, many of which were based on her experiences as a woman negotiating traditional standards and the emerging intellectual movement of the time.

Andreas-Salomé met Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, in 1911 and began an apprenticeship with him. She became the first woman psychoanalysis by combining Freud’s training with her decades of expertise writing about the psyche. Although Andreas-narrative Salomé’s was rarely known during her lifetime, in the 1981 eponymous opera “Lou Salome,” a dramatic retelling of her contacts with Nietzche put light on her storey.