Sivers, Maria Yakovlevna von

Maria von Sievers is the third child in the family of a Livonian nobleman, Russian Lieutenant General Jacob Fedorovich von Sievers ^[5] (nee Jacob Karl von Sievers ^[6] ; 1813-1882) and Lutheran Carolina Baum (13.6.1834; Arkhangelsk - 1912; Munich), married in St. Petersburg in 1854 ^{[7] [8]} . The family was large: brothers Maria ^[9] and James were older than Maria, and brother Jacob (02.17.1869-1931) ^[10] , sister Olga (1874-1917), brother Fedor (1880-1915) ^[11] .

Maria grew up surrounded by Slavic culture. In 1874, his father was transferred to Riga , the family followed him. Two years later, the general resigned from the army, and they were able to settle in St. Petersburg . In addition to her native German language, Maria mastered Russian, French and English. She received a solid education at the Feldman Institute private school in St. Petersburg. Maria was 15 years old when her father died. At the age of 17, on Palm Sunday, she underwent the ceremony of anointing in St. Petersburg's Church of St. Michael (1884). After a private school, she studied at the Lyceum to get a teacher’s diploma. She began to teach at a school for German workers, but tore her own voice; followed by surgery on the throat. She accompanied her mother on two long trips abroad: in 1884 and in 1888 she visited Berlin, Vienna, Switzerland and Italy. Her family opposed plans to study at the university. Then she settled in a village on a Novgorod estate recently bought by her older brother James. She taught peasant children to read and write in a Sunday school organized by her. The sudden death of a brother who suffered from poor health forced her to return to St. Petersburg. She went to Paris for a two-year study at the conservatory , and also took lessons in the art of recitation at the school of the elderly actress Madame Favard ^[12] .

Returning to St. Petersburg, she played a major role in the theatrical festive production of the drama " Mary Stuart " by Schiller (October 30, 1897). After an enthusiastic response from the public, and pushed by the friendly enthusiasm of Maria von Strauch-Spettini ^[13] , the actress of the German troupe of the Mikhailovsky Theater , she set out to become a dramatic actress. The family insisted on building a career abroad. In 1898, Shpettini drove her to Berlin to audition with the director of the theater. Schiller. However, the high demands on fashion and cosmetics have cooled Maria’s fervor about the classical theater. In search of a new, modernist, more ideal theater, she met with unusual plays by the French Alsatian Eduard Schure : under the general title “Théâtre de l'âme” (Theater of the Soul; plays “Les enfants de Lucifer”, 1900; “La sœur Gardienne”, 1900; and others.) They were published in 1900-1902 ^[14] . Schure was fond of esotericism , and was better known as the author of the book The Great Initiates (Les grands initiés; 1889). Acquaintance with Schure, on the translations of the plays of which she worked ^[15] , and listening to the lectures of Rudolf Steiner (Berlin; 1900) in the hall of the Berlin section ^{[16] of the} Theosophical Society prompted Mary to enter society itself.

After the transformation of the Berlin section into the Theosophical Esoteric Society of Germany and Austria (German branch of the Theosophical Society; Berlin, 1902), led by R. Steiner, Mary was entrusted with administrative work and a library (September 20, 1902). From an employee, Maria actually turned into the first spiritual disciple of Steiner. He had the most sincere trust in Mary, which resulted in Maria’s testament of all his work (testament document from 1907). Maria organized conferences throughout Europe, as well as preparing manuscripts and transcripts of Steiner lectures for publication. Together they published the review “Lucifer”, and then “The Gnosis of Lucifer”, where in 1904-1905 articles were published that made up the book “How to achieve knowledge of higher worlds?” ( GA 10 ; another name is “Initiation [initiation]”). Due to difficulties with publishers, Maria and Joanna Mücke (Johannes Mücke; 1864–1949) opened their own “Philosophical and Theosophical Publishing House” ^[17] on Berlin's Motstrasse . In 1913, after the anthroposophists left the Theosophical Society and formed their own institution, the publishing house changed its name to “Philosophical-Anthroposophical” ^[18] . In the Anthroposophical Society, Mary was the director of the steering committee.

Maria, who was interested in stage art and the art of speech, contributed to Steiner’s creation of four plays - “drum mysteries”, as well as the art of eurythmy (the knowledge of the laws of air movement that underlie verbality). In addition to organizing congresses of society, Maria was involved in theatrical productions - Schüre and Steiner plays were staged, and was involved in the main roles. To put an end to the gossip in the Society and the perplexities of the townsfolk, which often arose when they lived together in temporarily rented houses, Steiner and Maria von Sievers got married on Christmas Day 1914. In total, their cooperation on the formation of the anthroposophical movement lasted 23 years, until the death of Steiner on March 30, 1925.

The articles by Maria von Sievers, as well as the preface written to her books of articles and lectures by Rudolf Steiner, were published by two collections in the publishing house “ Rudolf Steiner Verlag ” under the title “Anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner” (in German; Dornach ; 1967 and 1974 ^{[ 19]} ). Her letters and documents were issued in a separate publication in the same place in 1981 ^[20] .

• Hella Wiesberger, "Marie Steiner de Sivers, une vie pour l'anthroposophie." 1990 (French)