Alma M. Karlin Virtual Home

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Alma M. Karlin, virtualno domovanje

Mariborska 7, SI-3000 Celje

http://www.almakarlin.si/

sikce@knjiznica-celje.si

Phone386 (0) 3 426 1710

Published byCelje Central Library

Branko Goropevšek, Director

branko.goropevsek@knjiznica-celje.si

Phone386 (0) 3 426 1712

This virtual residence is dedicated to Alma Karlin (1889–1950), an extraordinary traveller, polyglot, theosophist and writer from Celje. During 1919 and 1927 she travelled to South and North America, the Pacific Islands, Australia, and various Asian countries and supported herself with odd jobs and writing. Her travel and fiction novels (written in German) became very popular in the 1930s (The Spell of the South Sea was reprinted several times in the edition of over 100,000 copies). During the war her work was banned and in 1944 she joined the Partisans. After the war she lived in a small house in Pečovnik above Celje in straitened circumstances together with her companion Thea Schreiber Gamelin. Her work has been forgotten till 1960s when the ethnologists began to study her collections. Nowadays Alma Karlin inspires artists, feminists, historians as well as the inhabitants of Celje and the general public. The Virtual Home website was conceived by Celje Central Library and offers basic information on her life, travels and bibliography.

Alma Karlin collections in Slovenia

Alma Karlin's legacy is scattered among several institutions. Most of the ethnological collection from her travels is held by Celje Regional Museum which also prepared an exhibition in honour of the 120th anniversary of her (2009–2011).

The Celje Museum of Recent History holds the Alma Karlin Fund with 850 items, mainly postwar correspondence, photographs, drawings and book covers by Alma and her companion Thea Schreiber Gamelin as well as the testimonials by people who knew her personally (Alma vox populi).

Another important collection is maintained by NUK National Manuscript Collection which contains books, magazines, posters, manuscripts and other material. In 2006 NUK displayed them in an exhibition which marked 55th anniversary of her death.

See also

• Celje Regional Museum

External links

• Alma Karlin Virtual Home project (in Slovenian, English and German)
• Alma Karlin on Wikipedia (in English and in German)
• The Odyssey of a Lonley Woman documentary on Alma Karlin on IMDb