Brussels to name public square after Brontë sisters
Jul 2, 2020 19:32:35 GMT
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Post by Carl LaFong on Jul 2, 2020 19:32:35 GMT
A square in Brussels will be named after the Brontë sisters, the first tribute of its kind in the Belgian capital, more than 178 years after Charlotte and Emily arrived in the city to study French.
Councillors in the north-west district of Koekelberg voted to name a square “Place des Sœurs Brontë” in French, or “Zusters Brontë plein” in Dutch, as part of a wider plan for the “feminisation” of public places. The local authority found that the vast majority of its streets and squares named after a person commemorated men.
The resolution in favour of renaming the square describes the three sisters – including Anne Brontë, who never went to Brussels – as “models of emancipation”.
“It is for us a tribute to the literary talents of the Brontë sisters and an honour for the commune of Koekelberg to commemorate the presences of two of the three sisters in our municipality,” said Ahmed Laaouej, the socialist mayor of Koekelberg.
The square is being redeveloped – it has recently been pedestrianised – and is home to the local Dutch-language cultural centre and library. The new name is expected to be made official in early 2021 as part of a street renaming programme.
Charlotte and Emily Brontë arrived in Brussels in February 1842, aged 25 and 23. It was their first and only trip abroad. The sisters hoped that improving their languages would help them open a boarding school at their home of Haworth Parsonage – a plan that never came to pass as they turned to writing novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.
In a letter before her arrival, Charlotte Brontë described Brussels as her “promised land” and said that in half a year she hoped to acquire “a thorough familiarity with French … greatly improve in Italian, and even get a dash of German.” The sisters lived in the city centre but visited Koekelberg to see their Yorkshire friends Mary and Martha Taylor, who studied at the Château de Koekelberg school, a pricier establishment beyond the means of the Brontë sisters.
When the Brontë sisters would meet the Taylors in a park 100 metres from the site of the new square, Koekelberg was a tranquil area, with tree-lined avenues and grand houses. Now it is an urban landscape better known for the vast art-deco Sacred Heart basilica that looms over the Brussels skyline.
Martha died of cholera in 1842 and Charlotte would later visit her grave in a local Protestant cemetery during long, solitary walks. By 1843, Emily had left Brussels for good and Charlotte, lonely and depressed, struggled with her obsessive unrequited love for her married French teacher, Constantin Heger, later thinly disguised as the hot-tempered M Paul Emanuel in Villette.
Helen MacEwan, the founder of the Brussels Brontë Society and author of The Brontës in Brussels, said the naming of the square was great news. “It’s going to be a very important point in Koekelberg, so even though we haven’t got a street bang in the centre of Brussels, which is where they actually lived, I think we can all be absolutely delighted.”
For now, the only trace of the Brontës’ stay in Brussels is a tiny plaque on the Bozar cultural centre, built close to the school – now long-since demolished – where Charlotte and Emily Brontë once lived and worked. The plaque was erected by the Brontë Society in 1979, but until now Brussels has never recognised the English novelists on city walls or street names.
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/02/brussels-to-name-public-square-after-bronte-sisters
Councillors in the north-west district of Koekelberg voted to name a square “Place des Sœurs Brontë” in French, or “Zusters Brontë plein” in Dutch, as part of a wider plan for the “feminisation” of public places. The local authority found that the vast majority of its streets and squares named after a person commemorated men.
The resolution in favour of renaming the square describes the three sisters – including Anne Brontë, who never went to Brussels – as “models of emancipation”.
“It is for us a tribute to the literary talents of the Brontë sisters and an honour for the commune of Koekelberg to commemorate the presences of two of the three sisters in our municipality,” said Ahmed Laaouej, the socialist mayor of Koekelberg.
The square is being redeveloped – it has recently been pedestrianised – and is home to the local Dutch-language cultural centre and library. The new name is expected to be made official in early 2021 as part of a street renaming programme.
Charlotte and Emily Brontë arrived in Brussels in February 1842, aged 25 and 23. It was their first and only trip abroad. The sisters hoped that improving their languages would help them open a boarding school at their home of Haworth Parsonage – a plan that never came to pass as they turned to writing novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.
In a letter before her arrival, Charlotte Brontë described Brussels as her “promised land” and said that in half a year she hoped to acquire “a thorough familiarity with French … greatly improve in Italian, and even get a dash of German.” The sisters lived in the city centre but visited Koekelberg to see their Yorkshire friends Mary and Martha Taylor, who studied at the Château de Koekelberg school, a pricier establishment beyond the means of the Brontë sisters.
When the Brontë sisters would meet the Taylors in a park 100 metres from the site of the new square, Koekelberg was a tranquil area, with tree-lined avenues and grand houses. Now it is an urban landscape better known for the vast art-deco Sacred Heart basilica that looms over the Brussels skyline.
Martha died of cholera in 1842 and Charlotte would later visit her grave in a local Protestant cemetery during long, solitary walks. By 1843, Emily had left Brussels for good and Charlotte, lonely and depressed, struggled with her obsessive unrequited love for her married French teacher, Constantin Heger, later thinly disguised as the hot-tempered M Paul Emanuel in Villette.
Helen MacEwan, the founder of the Brussels Brontë Society and author of The Brontës in Brussels, said the naming of the square was great news. “It’s going to be a very important point in Koekelberg, so even though we haven’t got a street bang in the centre of Brussels, which is where they actually lived, I think we can all be absolutely delighted.”
For now, the only trace of the Brontës’ stay in Brussels is a tiny plaque on the Bozar cultural centre, built close to the school – now long-since demolished – where Charlotte and Emily Brontë once lived and worked. The plaque was erected by the Brontë Society in 1979, but until now Brussels has never recognised the English novelists on city walls or street names.
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/02/brussels-to-name-public-square-after-bronte-sisters