Fonds Olga Rorschach  Bern UB Medizingeschichte: Rorschach-Archiv ; Fonds Olga Rorschach

Signatur: Rorsch OR

---

18uu-1961. - 2 boxes (21 cm)

Only on inquiry

Biographische Notiz:   Olga Rorschach, née Ol’ga Vil’gemovna Štempelin, was born on 27th May / 8th June 1878 in Buinsk, a small town near Kazan, as the eldest child of Wilhelm Karlow Štempelin, pharmacist, and Elisaweta Matwjewa. Her father’s family originated in the Baltic States but had settled generations earlier in Russia. Her father belonged to the Lutheran church whereas his wife was an orthodox Russian. Together with her brother one year and sister eight years younger, Olga passed her childhood and youth first in Buinsk and later in Kazan. Having received her first education from her mother at home she entered the Rodionow Institute in Kazan, which had been founded by a grand duchess for daughters of noblemen, officers and state employees with special merits. After qualifying she lived with her brother in Kazan where he went to school while she earned a living for both by giving private lessons. From 1901 to 1902 she attended medical lectures at the Friedrich Humboldt University in Berlin as a guest student, and in autumn 1902 matriculated as medical student at the University of Zurich, where, in 1906, she became acquainted with her fellow student Hermann Rorschach. In 1908, after concluding her studies with her dissertation “Zur Differentialdiagnose der perniziösen Anämie”, she travelled to Kazan to prepare for the Russian state examination in medicine. In 1910 she returned to Switzerland to marry Hermann Rorschach. The couple lived in a flat in the psychiatric hospital in Münsterlingen where in summer 1909 H.R. had been appointed assistant and where in 1911 Olga was engaged also as assistant.   At the end of 1913 she together with her husband left Switzerland with the intention of settling in Russia. Her husband found employment in the private sanatorium Krjukovo near Moscow but, unsatisfied with the job, returned to Switzerland six months later to accept a position at the Psychiatric Hospital Waldau in Bern. It was intended that Olga would follow him a couple of months later but, due to the outbreak of World War I, her return to Switzerland was delayed until 1915. In autumn 1915 the couple moved to Herisau where H.R. was engaged as associate director at the psychiatric hospital, but where Olga was not permitted to undertake any medical activities. In 1917 she gave birth to daughter Elisabeth (Lisa) and two years later to son Wadim. After the death of her husband in 1922 she had to support the family. For two years she held the post of her deceased husband, but then she had to leave because the administration came to the view that the post should be filled by a male with a Swiss medical diploma. It proved, however, to be difficult for her to find another job in a clinic and in 1924 she moved with her children to Teufen in Canton Appenzell. With a payment from her husband’s life insurance she was able to buy a small house where she provided accommodation and outpatient aftercare for a few discharged psychiatric patients. Furthermore she took the opportunities offered of deputising in Ludwig Binswanger’s private sanatorium Bellevue in Kreuzlingen, and in the Psychiatric Hospital Cery in Lausanne. Thanks to Binswanger she was able to accompany wealthy patients abroad as their medical attendant. In 1953 she left her home in Teufen to live with her daughter Elisabeth in Zurich, where she died in 1961.

https://swisscollections.ch/Record/991170539050805501 (Katalogeintrag in swisscollections) 

Akzession: Herkunft: Bequeathed to the Rorschach-Archives by Wadim Rorschach. Datum: 2010.   Ordnungszustand: 1) Biographical material 2) Correspondence 3) Manuscripts 

CH-002121-2-991170539050805501, http://kalliope-verbund.info/CH-002121-2-991170539050805501

Modifikation: 15.12.2021

---