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{{Short description|Austrian author (1836–1895)}}
{{Redirect|Masoch|the 1980 biographical film|Masoch (film)}}
{{More citations needed|date=July 2019}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2026}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2019}}
{{Infobox person
| image = Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, portrait 3.jpg
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| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1836|1|27|df=y}}
| birth_place = Lemberg, [[Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria]], Austrian Empire<br/>(now [[Lviv]], Ukraine)
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1895|3|9|1836|1|27|df=y}}
| death_place = Lindheim near [[Altenstadt, Hesse|Altenstadt]], German Empire
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| education =
| occupation = Writer, journalist
| years_active =
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| known_for = Being the namesake of [[Sadomasochism|masochism]]
| notable_works = ''[[Venus in Furs]]''
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| relatives = [[Marianne Faithfull]], great great niece<ref>{{cite news |last1=Farber |first1=Jim |title=Marianne Faithfull, a Pop Star Turned Survivor, Is Dead at 78 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/30/arts/music/marianne-faithfull-dead.html |access-date=30 January 2025 |work=The New York Times |date=30 January 2025}}</ref>
}}

'''Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch'''{{efn|''[[Ritter (title)|Ritter]]'' is a Germanic title of nobility translating to "knight".}} ({{IPA|de-AT|ˈleːopɔld fɔn ˈsaxɐ ˈmaːsɔx|lang}}; 27 January 1836 – 9 March 1895) was an Austrian nobleman, writer and journalist, who gained renown for his romantic stories of [[Galicia (Eastern Europe)|Galician]] life. The term ''[[Sadomasochism|masochism]]'' is derived from his name, invented by his contemporary, the Austrian psychiatrist [[Richard von Krafft-Ebing]]. Masoch did not approve of this use of his name.<ref>Alison M. Moore, ''Sexual Myths of Modernity: Sadism, Masochism and Historical Teleology'', (Lexington Books, 2016) {{ISBN|9781498530736}}{{Page needed|date=September 2020}}</ref>

During his lifetime, Sacher-Masoch was well known as a [[man of letters]], in particular a [[utopia]]n thinker who espoused [[socialist]] and [[humanist]] ideals in his fiction and non-fiction. Most of his works remain untranslated into English.

==Biography==

===Early life and education===
Sacher-Masoch was born in the city of [[Lemberg]], the capital of the [[Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria]] (now [[Lviv]], [[Ukraine]]), at the time a province of the [[Austrian Empire]], into a [[Roman Catholic]] family. His father was an Austrian civil servant,<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/world/city-tied-to-masochism-finds-link-painful-sure-but-some-like-it.html "City in Ukraine Tied to Masochism Finds Link Painful, Sure, but Some Like It"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423104553/https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/world/city-tied-to-masochism-finds-link-painful-sure-but-some-like-it.html |date=23 April 2021 }} by Andrew Higgins, ''[[The New York Times]]'', 14 November 2014</ref> Leopold Johann Nepomuk [[Ritter (title)|Ritter]] von Sacher, and his mother Charlotte Josepha von Masoch, a [[Western Ukrainian Nobility|Ukrainian noblewoman]].<ref>[http://www.wumag.kiev.ua/index2.php?param=pgs20044/70 The cultural legacy of Sacher-Masoch] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201103070209/http://wumag.kiev.ua/index2.php?param=pgs20044%2F70 |date=3 November 2020 }}{{dubious|date=December 2023}} Nataliya Kosmolinska and Yury Okhrimenko</ref> The father later combined his surname with his wife's ''von Masoch'', at the request of her family (she was the last of the line). Sacher served as a Commissioner of the Imperial Police Forces in Lemberg, and he was recognised with a new title of [[Austrian nobility]] as Sacher-Masoch awarded by the [[Franz Joseph I of Austria|Austrian Emperor]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Sacher-Masoch|first=Leopold Von|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KOFSMQAACAAJ|title=Venus in Furs|date=2017-01-18|publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform|isbn=978-1-5426-1563-1|language=en}}</ref>

Leopold studied law, history and mathematics at [[Graz University]] (where he obtained a doctorate in history in 1856), and after graduating he became a lecturer there.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sacher-Masoch, Leopold von 1836–1895 |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/sacher-masoch-leopold-von-1836-1895 |access-date=2024-04-11 |website=encyclopedia.com |archive-date=30 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240530144550/https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/sacher-masoch-leopold-von-1836-1895 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Galician storyteller===
[[File:Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, portrait.jpg|thumb|200px|Masoch in the 1860s]]
His early, non-fictional publications dealt mostly with Austrian history. At the same time, Masoch turned to the folklore and culture of his homeland, Galicia. Soon he abandoned lecturing and became a free man of letters. Within a decade his short stories and novels prevailed over his historical [[non-fiction]] works, though historical themes continued to imbue his fiction.<ref name=":0" />

[[Pan-Slavism|Panslavist]] ideas were prevalent in Masoch's literary work, and he found a particular interest in depicting picturesque types among the various ethnicities that inhabited [[Galicia (Eastern Europe)|Galicia]]. From the 1860s to the 1880s he published a number of volumes of ''Jewish Short Stories'', ''Polish Short Stories'', ''Galician Short Stories'', ''German Court Stories'' and ''Russian Court Stories''.

===''The Legacy of Cain''===
In 1869, Sacher-Masoch conceived a grandiose series of short stories under the collective title ''[[Legacy of Cain]]'' that would represent the author's aesthetic ''Weltanschauung'' ([[worldview]]). The cycle opened with the manifesto ''The Wanderer'' that brought out [[misogynist]] themes that became peculiar to Masoch's writings. Of the six planned volumes, only the first two were ever completed. By the middle of the 1880s, Masoch abandoned the ''Legacy of Cain''. Nevertheless, the published volumes of the series included Masoch's best-known stories, and of them, ''[[Venus in Furs]]'' (published 1870) is the most famous today. The novella expressed Sacher-Masoch's fantasies and fetishes (especially for dominant women wearing fur). He did his best to live out his fantasies with his mistresses and wives. In 1873 he married Angelika Aurora von Rümelin.

===Private life and inspiration for ''Venus in Furs''===
[[File:Leopold von Sacher-Masoch with Fannie.jpg|thumb|Fanny Pistor and Sacher-Masoch]]
Fanny Pistor was an emerging literary writer. She met Sacher-Masoch after she contacted him, under the assumed name and fictitious title of Baroness Bogdanoff, for suggestions on improving her writing to make it suitable for publication. She was the inspiration for ''Venus im Pelz'' ([[Venus in Furs]]). The erotic novel spawned the word [[Sadomasochism|masochism]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=19 June 1999 |title=Sex god? Marianne's last word |url=http://www.mariannefaithfull.org.uk/inter23.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070315133950/http://www.mariannefaithfull.org.uk/inter23.html |archive-date=15 March 2007 |website=The Times}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/schwer-hoerig-a-a9a40eac-0002-0001-0000-000013518068|title=Schwer hörig|magazine=[[Der Spiegel]]|date=26 January 1986|access-date=19 July 2021|language=de|archive-date=19 July 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210719054204/https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/schwer-hoerig-a-a9a40eac-0002-0001-0000-000013518068|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Later years===
In 1874, Masoch wrote the novel ''Die Ideale unserer Zeit'' (''The Ideals of Our Time''), an attempt to give a portrait of German society during its [[Gründerzeit]] period.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.know.cf/enciclopedia/en/Leopold_von_Sacher-Masoch|title=Leopold von Sacher-Masoch|website=know.cf|access-date=15 March 2020}}{{dead link|date=September 2020}}</ref>

In his late fifties, his [[mental health]] began to deteriorate, and he spent the last years of his life under [[psychiatry|psychiatric]] care. According to official reports, he died in Lindheim in 1895. (Lindheim, at that time near [[Altenstadt, Hesse|Altenstadt]], was incorporated into the municipality of Altenstadt in 1971.) It is also claimed that Masoch died in an [[Psychiatric hospital|asylum]] in [[Mannheim]] in 1905.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/humansexuality00arie |title=Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia |last=Weinberg |first=Thomas S. |publisher=Garland Publishing |year=1992 |isbn=0-8240-7972-8 |editor-last=Bullough |editor-first=Vern L. |chapter=Sacher-Masoch, Leopold Ritter von |editor-last2=Bullough |editor-first2=Bonnie |url-access=registration}}</ref>

===Trivia===

Sacher-Masoch is the great-great-uncle, through her Austrian-born mother [[Eva von Sacher-Masoch]], [[Baron]]ess Erisso, of the late English [[Rock music|Rock star]] and film actress [[Marianne Faithfull]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.canada.com/cityguides/vancouver/story.html?id=c2a86822-529a-421f-959e-e0e613a0fc53&k=94564|title=Marianne keeps the Faith – In concert: Marianne Faithfull|date=29 May 2007|work=[[The Province|The Vancouver Province]]|access-date=12 November 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121104093456/http://www.canada.com/cityguides/vancouver/story.html?id=c2a86822-529a-421f-959e-e0e613a0fc53&k=94564|archive-date=4 November 2012}}</ref> She died on 30 January 2025.

==Masochism==
[[File:Sacher_Masoch_compilation_1901.jpg|thumb|A Sacher-Masoch compilation published in 1901]]
The term ''[[Sadomasochism|masochism]]'' was coined in 1886 by the Austrian psychiatrist [[Richard von Krafft-Ebing|Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing]] (1840–1902) in his book ''[[Psychopathia Sexualis]]'':

{{blockquote|...I feel justified in calling this sexual anomaly "Masochism", because the author Sacher-Masoch frequently made this perversion, which up to his time was quite unknown to the scientific world as such, the substratum of his writings. I followed thereby the scientific formation of the term "[[Daltonism]]", from [[John Dalton|Dalton]], the discoverer of colour-blindness.<br>
During recent years facts have been advanced which prove that Sacher-Masoch was not only the poet of Masochism, but that he himself was afflicted with the anomaly. Although these proofs were communicated to me without restriction, I refrain from giving them to the public. I refute the accusation that "I have coupled the name of a revered author with a perversion of the sexual instinct", which has been made against me by some admirers of the author and by some critics of my book. As a man, Sacher-Masoch cannot lose anything in the estimation of his cultured fellow-beings simply because he was afflicted with an anomaly of his sexual feelings. As an author, he suffered severe injury so far as the influence and intrinsic merit of his work is concerned, for so long and whenever he eliminated his perversion from his literary efforts he was a gifted writer, and as such would have achieved real greatness had he been actuated by normally sexual feelings. In this respect he is a remarkable example of the powerful influence exercised by the ''vita sexualis'' be it in the good or evil sense over the formation and direction of man's mind.<ref>{{cite book|last=Von Krafft-Ebing|first=Richard|author-link=Richard von Krafft-Ebing|title=Psychopathia Sexualis: A Medico-Forensic Study|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wf3fBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA132|access-date=28 July 2019|year=2013|orig-year=1939|publisher=Elsevier Science|isbn=978-1-4831-9410-3|page=132}}</ref>}}

Sacher-Masoch was not pleased with Krafft-Ebing's assertions. Nevertheless, details of Masoch's private life were obscure until Aurora von Rümelin's memoirs, ''Meine Lebensbeichte'' (My Life Confession; 1906), were published in Berlin under the pseudonym Wanda v. Dunajew (the name of a leading character in his ''Venus in Furs''). The following year, a French translation, ''Confession de ma vie'' (1907) by "[[Wanda von Sacher-Masoch]]", was printed in Paris by Mercure de France. An English translation of the French edition was published as ''The Confessions of Wanda von Sacher-Masoch'' (1991) by [[RE/Search Publications]].

==Selected bibliography==
{{Main|Leopold von Sacher-Masoch bibliography}}
* 1858 ''A Galician Story 1846''
* 1865 ''Kaunitz''
* 1866 ''Don Juan of Kolomiya''
* 1867 ''The Last King of Hungary''
* 1870 ''The Divorcee''
* 1870 ''[[Legacy of Cain]] Vol. 1: Love'' (includes his most famous work, ''[[Venus in Furs]]'')
* 1872 ''Faux Ermine''
* 1873 ''Female Sultan''
* 1873 ''The Messalinas of Vienna''
* 1873–74 ''Russian Court Stories'': 4 Vols.
* 1873–77 ''Viennese Court Stories'': 2 Vols.
* 1874/76 ''{{Lang|de|Liebesgeschichten aus verschiedenen Jahrhunderten}}'' [''Love Stories from Several Centuries''], 3 volumes, includes "{{Lang|de|Die Bluthochzeit zu Kiew|italic=no}}" ("Bloody Wedding in Kyiv"), "Ariella"
* 1874 ''Die Ideale unserer Zeit'' [''The Ideals of Our Time'']<ref>[http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-buch?apm=0&aid=537&teil=0203&seite=00000001 ''Die Ideale unserer Zeit''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201105040645/http://anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-buch?apm=0&aid=537&teil=0203&seite=00000001 |date=5 November 2020 }}, novel in four books, Vienna 1874 (facsimile at [[Austrian National Library]])</ref>
* 1875 ''Galician Stories''
* 1877 ''The Man Without Prejudice''
* 1877 ''[[Legacy of Cain]]. Vol. 2: Property''
* 1878 ''The New Hiob''
* 1878 ''Jewish Stories''
* 1878 ''The Republic of Women's Enemies''
* 1879 ''Silhouettes''
* 1881 ''New Jewish Stories''
* 1883 ''{{Lang|de|Die Gottesmutter}}'' (''The Mother of God'')
* 1886 ''Eternal Youth''
* 1886 ''Stories from Polish Ghetto''
* 1886 ''Little Mysteries of World History''
* 1886 ''Bloody Wedding in Kyiv'''<ref>{{cite book|url=https://sovabooks.com.au/product/bloody-wedding-in-kyiv-two-tales-of-olha-kniahynia-of-kyivan-rus/|title=Bloody Wedding in Kyiv: Two Tales of Olha, Kniahynia of Kyivan Rus|author1=Leopold von Sacher-Masoch|author2=Petro Haivoronskyi|translator=Svitlana Chоrnomorets|location=Sydney|publisher=Sova Books|year=2016|isbn=9780987594372|access-date=21 September 2020|archive-date=7 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210307090504/https://sovabooks.com.au/product/bloody-wedding-in-kyiv-two-tales-of-olha-kniahynia-of-kyivan-rus/|url-status=live}} (about [[Olga of Kiev]])</ref>
* 1887 ''Polish Stories''
* 1890 ''The Serpent in Paradise''
* 1891 ''The Lonesome''
* 1894 ''Love Stories''
* 1898 ''Entre nous''
* 1900 ''Catherina II''
* 1901 ''Afrikas Semiramis''
* 1907 ''Fierce Women''

==See also==
* [[BDSM]]
* [[List of Austrian writers]]
* [[Marquis de Sade]]
* [[Sadism and masochism in fiction]]
* ''[[Story of O]]''

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Bach, Ulrich E, [https://www.academia.edu/222462/Sacher-Masochs_Utopian_Peripheries "Sacher-Masoch's Utopian Peripheries."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190730013435/https://www.academia.edu/222462/Sacher-Masochs_Utopian_Peripheries |date=30 July 2019 }} In: ''[[The German Quarterly]]'' 80.2 (2007): 201–219.
* Biale, David, "Masochism and Philosemitism: The Strange Case of Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch", ''[[Journal of Contemporary History]]'' 17 (1982), 305–323.
*[[Gilles Deleuze|Deleuze, Gilles]], "Coldness and Cruelty," in ''Masochism,'' New York: Zone Books (1991).
* John K. Noyes, ''The Mastery of Submission. Inventions of Masochism''. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1997.
* Carlo Di Mascio, ''Masoch sovversivo. Cinque studi su Venus im Pelz'', Firenze, Phasar Edizioni, 2018. {{ISBN|978-88-6358-488-2}}
* Alison Moore, Recovering Difference in the Deleuzian Dichotomy of Masochism-without-Sadism. Angelaki 14 (3), November 2009, 27–43.
* Alison M. Moore, ''Sexual Myths of Modernity: Sadism, Masochism and Historical Teleology''. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016. {{ISBN|978-0-7391-3077-3}}

==External links==
{{wikisource|works=or}}
{{wikiquote}}
* {{commons category-inline|Leopold von Sacher-Masoch}}
* {{Gutenberg author| id=2220| name=Leopold von Sacher-Masoch}}
** [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6852 ''Venus in Furs''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201113173015/https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6852 |date=13 November 2020 }} from [[Project Gutenberg]]
** [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=5431 The Bookbinder of Hort] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803015333/http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=5431 |date=3 August 2020 }}, part of an anthology, ''Stories by Foreign Authors''
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Leopold von Sacher-Masoch}}
* {{Librivox author |id=4656}}
* [http://brendanconnell.wordpress.com/2007/06/25/leopold-von-sacher-masoch-the-letawitza-2/ The Letawitza] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071015033706/http://brendanconnell.wordpress.com/2007/06/25/leopold-von-sacher-masoch-the-letawitza-2/ |date=15 October 2007 }}
* [https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/who-was-a-naughty-ukrainian-then-with-communism-dead-the-town-of-lvov-is-celebrating-all-sorts-of-famous-sons-except-the-leopold-von-sachermasoch-sort-andrew-higgins-reports-1415561.html ''The Independent Saturday'', 23 July 1994] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925054857/https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/who-was-a-naughty-ukrainian-then-with-communism-dead-the-town-of-lvov-is-celebrating-all-sorts-of-famous-sons-except-the-leopold-von-sachermasoch-sort-andrew-higgins-reports-1415561.html |date=25 September 2015 }}
* [[Stanislav Tsalyk]]: [https://web.archive.org/web/20140519002116/http://kyivweekly.com.ua/style/etno/2010/11/29/164154.html Don Juan of Lviv]

{{Leopold von Sacher-Masoch}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sacher-Masoch, Leopold Von}}
[[Category:1836 births]]
[[Category:1895 deaths]]
[[Category:Writers from Lviv]]
[[Category:19th-century Austrian journalists]]
[[Category:Austrian male journalists]]
[[Category:19th-century Austrian novelists]]
[[Category:Writers from Austria-Hungary]]
[[Category:Austrian journalists]]
[[Category:Austrian socialists]]
[[Category:Austrian erotica writers]]
[[Category:BDSM writers]]
[[Category:Austrian male novelists]]
[[Category:Utopian socialists]]
[[Category:19th-century Austrian male writers]]
[[Category:Austrian knights]]

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch - Revision history

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