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'''Ellen Gottschalk Roy''' (15 August 1904 – 13 December 1960)<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal|date=November 2014|title=Mrs. Ellen Roy|url=https://issuu.com/www.theradicalhumanist.com/docs/november_2014_rh|journal=The Radical Humanist|volume= 78| issue = 8|pages=21–31|via=Issuu}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Jayawardena|first=Kumari.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/878405683|title=The white woman's other burden : Western women and South Asia during British colonial rule|publisher=[[Routledge]]|year=2014|isbn=978-1-136-65707-8|location=New York|pages=241–243|oclc=878405683}}</ref> was a German-Jewish radical, writer, editor, and close collaborator with Indian revolutionary [[M. N. Roy]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1019559442|title=Revolutionary lives in South Asia : acts and afterlives of anticolonial political action|others=Maclean, Kama, 1968-, Elam, J. Daniel|date=5 February 2016|isbn=978-1-317-63711-0|edition=1st|location=London|pages=61–63|oclc=1019559442}}</ref> Following his death, she took on the editorship of the ''Radical Humanist,'' which espoused their shared philosophy.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|date=15 December 1960|title=Woman Editor Murdered|work=[[The Times]]|url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS135094159/TTDA?u=nl_earl&sid=TTDA&xid=0c269520}}</ref> She was a significant [[Humanism|humanist]] leader in [[India]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last=Smith|first=Warren Allen|url=http://archive.org/details/whoswhoinhellhan00smit|title=Who's who in hell : a handbook and international directory for humanists, freethinkers, naturalists, rationalists, and non-theists|date=2000|publisher=New York : Barricade Books|others=Internet Archive|isbn=978-1-56980-158-1}}</ref>

== Life ==
Ellen Gottschalk was born in [[Paris]] in 1904 to Oscar Gottschalk, a diplomat, and his wife Edele (née Frizler).<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5" /> She attended school in [[Cologne]], where she excelled in music and singing.<ref name=":1" /> The [[World War I|First World War]] mobilised Gottschalk against 'the absurdity of hostile patriotisms', and the militarism which accompanied them. She became involved in radical politics, and joined the German Communist Party in 1927.<ref name=":1" />

Gottschalk first met M. N. Roy in 1928.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Roy|first=Samaren|url=https://archive.org/details/dli.bengal.10689.13382/page/n279/mode/2up?q|title=The Twice-Born Heretic: M. N. Roy and Comintern|year=1986|location=Calcutta|pages=248|publisher=FIRMA K L M,CALCUTTA}}</ref> The pair exchanged letters during his imprisonment ('on charges of conspiracy to overthrow the state'<ref>{{Cite ODNB|title=Roy, Manabendra Nath (1887–1954), international communist leader and ideologist|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-62511|access-date=2020-10-07|year = 2004|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/62511}}</ref>) between 1931 and 1936, during which time Gottschalk fled [[Berlin]] for Paris, escaping [[Nazi Germany|Nazi]] rule.<ref name=":2" /> These were published as ''Letters from Jail'' in 1943,<ref name=":4" /> and have been described as 'a document of revolutionary intimacy'.<ref name=":2" /> During his imprisonment, Ellen organised an 'international letter-writing campaign' which demanded the release of Roy, to which [[Jawaharlal Nehru]] and [[Fenner Brockway]] contributed.<ref name=":2" />

Roy was released from prison in 1936, and the following year Gottschalk moved to India and settled in [[Dehradun]] with him. They married in March 1937.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|last=Nath|first=Ramendra|title=Manbendra Nath Roy (1887-1954)|url=https://iep.utm.edu/roy_mn/|website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref> Together, they organised the Radical Humanist group during the 1940s, and she continued to run it following his death in 1954. The importance of her support and collaboration to her husband's achievements has been widely acknowledged, with biographers noting that the 'voluminous writing that Roy did would not have been possible without Ellen.'<ref>{{Cite book|last=Roy|first=M. N.|url=http://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.59148|title=Reason Romanticism And Revolution|date=1948|publisher=Ajanta Publications|location=Delhi|pages=xv}}</ref> She took an active role in the humanist movement, and saw her internationalism as arising in part from her upbringing, as well as from her [[socialism]]:<blockquote>When you are born in one country and your mother belongs to another, and your father to a third, and endowed with his citizenship, you are a foreigner in every country where you have grown up and studied and... lived and worked, and yet you feel at home in all of them; if you then marry an alien from a different continent... and become at home there too... you see the good and bad in all countries and peoples.<ref name=":1" /></blockquote>Ellen Roy wrote ''Radical Democracy'' and, with [[Sibnarayan Ray]], ''In Man's Own Image.''<ref name=":3" />

== Murder ==
Roy was found murdered in her home on 14 December 1960, at the age of 52.<ref name=":0" /> With no signs of robbery, it was speculated that there might have been political motivations.<ref>{{Cite news|date=19 December 1960|title=Murder of Mrs. Roy Investigated|work=The Times|url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS118316947/TTDA?u=nl_earl&sid=TTDA&xid=a5f99651}}</ref> Her murder was later attributed to a local man who had been known to both Ellen and M. N. Roy.<ref name=":2" />

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* [https://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n80135589/ Works by Ellen Gottschalk Roy] at [[WorldCat]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gottschalk Roy, Ellen}}

[[Category:1904 births]]
[[Category:1960 deaths]]
[[Category:German women writers]]
[[Category:German socialists]]
[[Category:German humanists]]
[[Category:German women editors]]
[[Category:German expatriates in France]]
[[Category:German emigrants to India]]

Ellen Gottschalk Roy - Revision history

UpdateBot at 14:11, 2 May 2022