Parents of Sabina Spielrein
The parents married in Rostov-on-Don in 1884, a blooming, bustling city in the south of the Russian Empire.
As portrayed by Sabina,:
“In her youth my mother had loved someone else. They became engaged. And they had to part. Relatives were opposed. My mother felt her life was ruined. Around this time she met my father, was impressed by his intelligence, his firm and noble character, his tender concern for her. In spite of all of this, mother did not love him; three times he was told no. He did not give up. The fourth time she said yes. They became a couple. One could hardly imagine two more different people.”
These impressions would color Sabina’s future love for Jung and the man she married.
Father Nikolai was born into a family of modest means in Warsaw, then under Russian rule.
He first got a Jewish religious education and then a secular one.
He spoke Polish, Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish, German, English, French, Greek, and Latin.
In Berlin he studied agronomy and became rich as importer/exporter of animal feed and fertilizers.
He was often tense, had mood swings but was known in town for his strong personality and original thinking.
He never shook hands with people, went outdoors without wearing hat or topcoat, bathed in cold water, was a vegetarian.
He admired German culture.
As a parent he was both fair and severe and ruled his children with harsh discipline and punishments.
The children were taught languages and every day of the week was devoted to speaking German, English or French.
Mother Eva was as born Lublinskaia, her last name meaning from Lublin, the Polish city I myself was born in.
There were important links between the Jewries of Poland and Russia and their rich chassidic heritages.
Sabina remembered being told at age 3-4 that her maternal great grandfather rabbi Lublinskii was highly venerated for healing and prophetic abilities.
He predicted the time of his death to the minute.
His son Mordechai, her maternal grand father, was still alive in 1910.
He loved people and gave money to relatives thus none was left for her mother’s dowry; but he believed God would provide for it and God did.
Even though Mordechai married a Jewess, his first love had been the daughter of a Christian physician later “unconsciously retained in his love of secular science because my mother was supposed to study, only study and thus he sent her to a Christian gymnasium and then to the university.”
Mother feared falling in love with a gentile.
In fact, a respected gentile man from St. Petersburg fell in love with her beauty, she refused him and he shot himself.
Eva became a dentist and practiced until 1903 to become mother and housewife in their large still standing townhouse, still standing.
In 1887 brother Jan was born, in 1891 brother Isaak, 1895 sister Emilia and 1899 Emil.
Mother also spoke other languages, was musical, but her great passion was shopping and spending money. ~ Henry Zvi Lothane, MD, The rel story of Sabina Spielrein: or fantasies vs. facts of a life, Pages 2-3.
