Marlene Dietrich and Erich Maria Remarque: You Only Live Once
St Petersburg University and its Representative Office in Barcelona invite you to the online lecture "Marlene Dietrich and Erich Maria Remarque: You Only Live Once", which will continue the conference series "One Love Story". The lecture will be delivered by Anna Silyunas, a theatre critic, an art historian and Director of the Cultural Foundation "Russian House in Barcelona".
Marlene and Erich met a couple of years before the outbreak of World War II, when the Nazi Party was already in power in Germany. Publicly rejecting and sharply condemning Nazism, they had long been forced to "wander" and live on different continents − he was in Europe, and she was in America. Their meetings were followed by long separations, during which they kept in touch by correspondence. Remarque loved her passionately and desperately; his letters implored her: ‘Love me! Love me!’. ‘...And if I cry out to you with such despair... − who would give me back the happiness of crying out to make my desires come true a thousand times... for you are the only fulfilment of all my desires, beloved Fata Morgana of the Lord.’
Marlene enjoyed incredible success with men and constantly demanded the admiration of someone other than Remarque. He was an integral part of her life, a family member, but by no means the only man. Admiring her feline grace, the writer called his mistress a cougar. Only too late did he realise that the claws of this animal left incurable wounds.
Marlene Dietrich’s daughter wrote in her memoirs. ‘... All the men who were with her wanted to marry her. There was a lot of love in her life, but when I saw how easily she broke up with her admirers, I felt so bad for them, I really sympathised with them’.
In March 1939, Remarque decided to move to his beloved who lived in the United States at that time. Turning a blind eye to her numerous adulteries, he found solace in the work and alcohol. He was tormented by depression. Later Remarque wrote her letters again from the imaginary eight-year-old nephew Alfred, reminding her of the fondness and passion of the first months of their relationship. It amused Marlene, she melted, but not for long.
The couple split up in 1940. Eric Maria Remarque passed away on 25 September 1970. After his death, the writer’s widow actress Paulette Goddard destroyed all the letters from Marlene Dietrich. One of the few surviving letters was sent a week before his death: ‘Beloved Alfred, I send you all my heart’.
The meeting will be held online in Russian with simultaneous interpreting into Spanish.