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The great storyteller Andersen and his snow queen Jenny Lind: unfulfilled love
The great storyteller Andersen and his snow queen Jenny Lind: unfulfilled love

Video: The great storyteller Andersen and his snow queen Jenny Lind: unfulfilled love

Video: The great storyteller Andersen and his snow queen Jenny Lind: unfulfilled love
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Jenny Lind and Hans Christian Andersen
Jenny Lind and Hans Christian Andersen

He was stooped, unattractive and looked very ridiculous because of his clothes a couple of sizes larger, and besides, he had a hysterical suspicious character. She was considered one of the most expensive opera divas and was called “the pride of the nation” and “the Swedish nightingale”. There was nothing in common between them, except that she was his only love and it was to her that he dedicated his most famous fairy tales - "The Snow Queen", "The Nightingale" and "The Ugly Duckling".

Childhood and adolescence

Photo by Hans Christian Andersen
Photo by Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen was born in the small Danish town of Odense. He grew up an unsociable and withdrawn boy who was teased at school because of his tall stature, thinness, a long nose and gross illiteracy. The fact that his grandfather, a woodcarver, had a reputation as a city madman, also played out its role in relation to his classmates in Hans - from the very strange figures of half-humans, half-animals with wings, which he carved, seemed to be very strange to the inhabitants. And while classmates hounded the future great storyteller, he wrote several poems a day with an incredible number of mistakes and cherished dreams of fame.

Andersen reads to children
Andersen reads to children

In 1819 he left for Copenhagen hoping to become an actor. But he got one single role in the crowd. Then Andersen decided to start writing. In this field, he turned out to be more successful, and soon they started talking about him as the author of humorous plays, stories and verses of biblical topics. But Andersen himself suffered from insufficient attention from critics and treated his work with irony. It is difficult to say exactly when he wrote his first fairy tale, but it is certain that he was already a mature man and … unhappy.

The main meeting in life

Jenny Lind
Jenny Lind

Andersen never had success with women, and until a certain moment he did not strive for this. A hysterical eccentric, intolerant of criticism, badly dressed, he always understood that love affairs were not his path. This continued until 1840, when he met the singer Jenny Lind. On September 20, 1843, an entry appeared in Andersen's diary - "I love!" Hans Christian fell in love, but due to determination and shyness, he could not confess his feelings to Jenny. She left Denmark without suspecting anything, and desperate Andersen sent her a letter of confession after her.

Jenny Lind's popularity was limitless
Jenny Lind's popularity was limitless

They met again a year later, but Janie did not say a word about this letter. In Copenhagen, Hans Christian and Janie met every day, but these meetings were excruciating for both of them and very strange. He wrote for her fairy tales and dedicated poems to her. And she called him "child" (although he was 14 years older than her) and "brother". Before Christmas Eve 1846, Andersen was somehow sure that today Jenny would invite him to visit. He sat at the window all day, but there was no invitation. On Christmas morning, he himself came to her with congratulations and asked why she had not called him yesterday.

Monument to Jenny Lind
Monument to Jenny Lind

The singer was surprised and shocked - after all, she was having fun at a party and did not think about her "brother". Janie felt compassion for the storyteller and promised that she would spend the New Year with him. On New Year's Eve, three were sitting under the tree - Andersen, Lind and her friend. Janie that evening laughed a lot, sang and filled up her beloved "brother" with gifts. It was on that evening that the understanding came to Andersen that reciprocity from her should not be expected. And so it happened … Until the end, life remained for Jenny Lind just a "sweet brother."

Frustration

Monument to Andersen
Monument to Andersen

In 1852 Jenny married the pianist Otto Holshmidt. She introduced Andersen to her husband, he showered the newlyweds with congratulations and compliments and never met his lover again. And yet Andersen loved Jenny until the last days of his life. As he grew old, he became even stranger. He spent a huge amount of time in brothels, but not at all because he was looking for carnal pleasures. He simply conducted conversations with the "priestesses of love" - everything else he considered a betrayal of his only beloved. Hans Christian Andersen died on August 5, 1875, all alone. Jenny Lindh survived him by 12 years.

Do you want to know, why Andersen's tales are so sad, we talked about this in one of our reviews.

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