THE ILL-FATED WORLD OF A COURTESAN
~MATA HARI
Today as I woke up, it stumbled upon me when my last night's still switched on Indovision was on the History Channel and so it made me wondered of why it smacked my head as my morning stretches seemed did not occur to work for me and yet this kindred my heart and my mind to be interested in something especially history. So I've decided to stay in bed for a while and watched the whole 1 hour programme. As I watched the programme, honestly and relented without a slight hesitation I went on a search on the net and my lists of Brittanica History Encyclopedia regarding on the history discussed, and here are what to be found of: Mata Hari was a stage name for Margaretha Geertruida " Grietje" Zelle (7 August 1876 , Leeuwarden - 15 October 1917, Vincennes), a Dutch exotic dancer and a courtesan who was executed by the firing squad for espionage during World War I.
EARLY LIFE
Born with the silver spoon in Netherlands, as the second child out of four, she had a lavish early childhood due to her father's success in the oil industry's investment, until when she was 13, her father, Adam Zelle went bankrupt in 1889, her parents divorced soon afterwards, then her mother, Antje Van Der Meulen, died in 1891. The family had come apart and she moved to live with her Godfather, Heer Visser, at Sneek. At Leiden, she studied to be a kindergarten teacher but then as the dangerous flirtations conspicuously by the headmaster, she was sent away to her uncle's home in the Hague , by her offended Godfather.
INDONESIA
At 18, she answered an advertisement in a Dutch newspaper placed by a man looking for a wife. She then married Dutch Colonial Army officer Rudolf John MacLeod in Amsterdam. They moved to Java ( Dutch East Indies) and had 2 children, Norman and Jeanne-Louis. One of the places in Indonesia that they resided was in Malang, East Java, which is the place I'm currently stuck into. Violent and alcoholic husband, the marriage was a total disappointment. She ran away to move in with another Dutch officer, Van Rheedes. For months she studied the Indonesian traditions intensively, joining a local dance company. In 1897, she revealed her artistic surname, Mata Hari, Malay for "eye of the day" or the sun, via correspondence to her relatives in Holland.
Failed violent marriage and both the childrens' death complications from the treatment relating to syphilis contracted from the parents, they moved back to Netherlands and the couple divorced in 1903.
PARIS
In 1903, Margaretha moved to Paris, where she performed as a circus horse rider, using the name Lady MacLeod. Struggling to earn a living, she also posed as an artist's model.
By 1905, she began to win fame as an exotic dancer when she adopted her stage name Mata Hari. She was a contemporary of dancers cum leaders in the early modern dance movement, which around the turn of the 20th century looked to Asia and Egypt for artistic inspiration.
Promiscuous, flirtatious and openly flaunting her body with a mystique that captivated both her audiences and the public, Mata Hari was an overnight success from the debut of her act at the Musee Guimet on March 13th, 1905. Following the success, she became the long-time mistress of the millionaire Lyon industrialist Emile Etiene Guimet who founded the musee. She posed as a Java princess of priestly Hindhu birth, pretending to have been immersed in the art of sacred Indian dance since childhood. She was photographed numerous times during this period, nude, or nearly so.
She brought this carefree provocative style to the stage in her act, which garnered in acclaim. The most celebrated segment of her act was her progressive shedding of clothing until she wore just a jeweled bra and some ornaments upon her arms and head.
The act was spectacularly successful, it elevated exotic dance to a more respectable status, and so broke new ground in a style of entertainment for which Paris was later to become world famous. Her style and her free-willed attitude made her a very popular woman, as did her eagerness to perform in exotic and revealing clothing. She posed for provocative photos and mingled in wealthy circles.
Mata Hari was also a successful courtesan, though she was known more for her sensuality and eroticism rather than for striking classical beauty. She had relationships with high-ranking military officers, politicians, and others in influential positions in many countries, including the German Crown Prince, who paid for her luxurious lifestyle.
Her relationships and liaisons with powerful men frequently took her across international borders. Prior to World War I, she was generally viewed as an artiste and a free-spirited bohemian, but as war approached, she began to be seen as a wanton and promiscuous woman, and perhaps a dangerous seductress.
DOUBLE AGENT
During World War I, as a Dutch subject, Margaretha Zelle was thus able to cross national borders freely. To avoid the battlefields, she traveled between the France and Netherlands via Spain and the Britain, and her movements inevitably attracted attention. She was a courtesan to many high-ranking allied military officers during this time.
In January 1917, the German military attache in Madrid transmitted radio messages to Berlin describing the helpful activities of a German spy, code-named H-21, French intelligence agents intercepted the messages and, from the information they contained, identified H-21 as Mata Hari. Unusually, the messages were in a code that German intelligence knew had already been broken by the French, leaving some historians to suspect that the messages were contrived.
CASE AND EXECUTION
On February 13th, 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in her hotel room at hotel Plaza Athenee in Paris. She was put on trial, accused of spying for Germany consequently causing the deaths of at least 50,000 soldiers. She was found guilty and was executed by firing squad on October 15th, 1917, at the age of 41.
LEGEND AND POPULAR CULTURE
The fact that almost immediately after her death questions rose about the justification of her execution, on top of rumours about the way she acted during her execution, set the story. The idea of an exotic dancer working as a lethal double agent, using her powers of seduction to extract the military secrets for her many lovers fired the popular imagination, set the legend and made Mata Hari an enduring archetype of the femme fatale.
Much of the popularity is owed to the film titled Mata Hari (1931) and starring Greta Garbo in the leading role. Eventually, Mata Hari featured in more films, television series and in video game - but increasingly, it is only the use of Margaretha Zelle's famous stage name that bears any resemblance to the real character. Many books have been written about Mata Hari, some of the serious historical, and biographical accounts, but many of them highly speculative. And so I was hoping if one day there'll be a good remake (better one, most importantly historically biographical), I am seriously hoping there'll be a perfect A-lister or a newcomer to play the role, and if God will grant the opportunity, if I'm truly made for the role someday, I will portray and better, will rejuvenate the reincarnation of this one of the world's historical events. One day, someday.
"Merci, monsieur." -Mata Hari's last word on the day she was executed, 15 October 1917.
EARLY LIFE
Born with the silver spoon in Netherlands, as the second child out of four, she had a lavish early childhood due to her father's success in the oil industry's investment, until when she was 13, her father, Adam Zelle went bankrupt in 1889, her parents divorced soon afterwards, then her mother, Antje Van Der Meulen, died in 1891. The family had come apart and she moved to live with her Godfather, Heer Visser, at Sneek. At Leiden, she studied to be a kindergarten teacher but then as the dangerous flirtations conspicuously by the headmaster, she was sent away to her uncle's home in the Hague , by her offended Godfather.
INDONESIA
At 18, she answered an advertisement in a Dutch newspaper placed by a man looking for a wife. She then married Dutch Colonial Army officer Rudolf John MacLeod in Amsterdam. They moved to Java ( Dutch East Indies) and had 2 children, Norman and Jeanne-Louis. One of the places in Indonesia that they resided was in Malang, East Java, which is the place I'm currently stuck into. Violent and alcoholic husband, the marriage was a total disappointment. She ran away to move in with another Dutch officer, Van Rheedes. For months she studied the Indonesian traditions intensively, joining a local dance company. In 1897, she revealed her artistic surname, Mata Hari, Malay for "eye of the day" or the sun, via correspondence to her relatives in Holland.
Failed violent marriage and both the childrens' death complications from the treatment relating to syphilis contracted from the parents, they moved back to Netherlands and the couple divorced in 1903.
PARIS
In 1903, Margaretha moved to Paris, where she performed as a circus horse rider, using the name Lady MacLeod. Struggling to earn a living, she also posed as an artist's model.
By 1905, she began to win fame as an exotic dancer when she adopted her stage name Mata Hari. She was a contemporary of dancers cum leaders in the early modern dance movement, which around the turn of the 20th century looked to Asia and Egypt for artistic inspiration.
Promiscuous, flirtatious and openly flaunting her body with a mystique that captivated both her audiences and the public, Mata Hari was an overnight success from the debut of her act at the Musee Guimet on March 13th, 1905. Following the success, she became the long-time mistress of the millionaire Lyon industrialist Emile Etiene Guimet who founded the musee. She posed as a Java princess of priestly Hindhu birth, pretending to have been immersed in the art of sacred Indian dance since childhood. She was photographed numerous times during this period, nude, or nearly so.
She brought this carefree provocative style to the stage in her act, which garnered in acclaim. The most celebrated segment of her act was her progressive shedding of clothing until she wore just a jeweled bra and some ornaments upon her arms and head.
The act was spectacularly successful, it elevated exotic dance to a more respectable status, and so broke new ground in a style of entertainment for which Paris was later to become world famous. Her style and her free-willed attitude made her a very popular woman, as did her eagerness to perform in exotic and revealing clothing. She posed for provocative photos and mingled in wealthy circles.
Mata Hari was also a successful courtesan, though she was known more for her sensuality and eroticism rather than for striking classical beauty. She had relationships with high-ranking military officers, politicians, and others in influential positions in many countries, including the German Crown Prince, who paid for her luxurious lifestyle.
Her relationships and liaisons with powerful men frequently took her across international borders. Prior to World War I, she was generally viewed as an artiste and a free-spirited bohemian, but as war approached, she began to be seen as a wanton and promiscuous woman, and perhaps a dangerous seductress.
DOUBLE AGENT
During World War I, as a Dutch subject, Margaretha Zelle was thus able to cross national borders freely. To avoid the battlefields, she traveled between the France and Netherlands via Spain and the Britain, and her movements inevitably attracted attention. She was a courtesan to many high-ranking allied military officers during this time.
In January 1917, the German military attache in Madrid transmitted radio messages to Berlin describing the helpful activities of a German spy, code-named H-21, French intelligence agents intercepted the messages and, from the information they contained, identified H-21 as Mata Hari. Unusually, the messages were in a code that German intelligence knew had already been broken by the French, leaving some historians to suspect that the messages were contrived.
CASE AND EXECUTION
On February 13th, 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in her hotel room at hotel Plaza Athenee in Paris. She was put on trial, accused of spying for Germany consequently causing the deaths of at least 50,000 soldiers. She was found guilty and was executed by firing squad on October 15th, 1917, at the age of 41.
LEGEND AND POPULAR CULTURE
The fact that almost immediately after her death questions rose about the justification of her execution, on top of rumours about the way she acted during her execution, set the story. The idea of an exotic dancer working as a lethal double agent, using her powers of seduction to extract the military secrets for her many lovers fired the popular imagination, set the legend and made Mata Hari an enduring archetype of the femme fatale.
Much of the popularity is owed to the film titled Mata Hari (1931) and starring Greta Garbo in the leading role. Eventually, Mata Hari featured in more films, television series and in video game - but increasingly, it is only the use of Margaretha Zelle's famous stage name that bears any resemblance to the real character. Many books have been written about Mata Hari, some of the serious historical, and biographical accounts, but many of them highly speculative. And so I was hoping if one day there'll be a good remake (better one, most importantly historically biographical), I am seriously hoping there'll be a perfect A-lister or a newcomer to play the role, and if God will grant the opportunity, if I'm truly made for the role someday, I will portray and better, will rejuvenate the reincarnation of this one of the world's historical events. One day, someday.
"Merci, monsieur." -Mata Hari's last word on the day she was executed, 15 October 1917.
2 comments:
emm,really a very well described legendary artistic figures...know at least we get to know the origin of this word Matahari and to where it links to..about the lady itself: i see pro and contras.pro:her never giving up spirit,her free will atitude,courage and passion,that i sense those helped her throught out the way in establishing a well known in entertainment bussiness..contras: she has degraded herself by being a courtesan for military's which eventually those are the forces and causes which lead her to her own death.well its world war,women have been ekploited sexually to an extreme end by these mean and irresponsible militaries..when she choose those path,she ended up being fired..and i realized when she uttered merci monsieur(thank you sir-in france) means that she no longer worth living for in a humiliating manner being a courtesan after all the big acheivement she had...trully its a downfall for her..im sorry for her,yet im happy for the time she succeed and emerge as a well known artistic and entertainment figures in her golden time..may u rest in peace Madam Margaretha Geertuida@Mata Hari..May be peace upon u my lady : from your recent fan:Dr Mohd Sean
Wooooowwwwwwwwwww ;D Merci beaucoup ;*
Post a Comment