Marie Regelsberg von Thurnberg was born in
Werschetz (as Vršac was known at that time) in the
Austro-Hungarian empire, north of
Belgrade and south-east of
Budapest. (Today it is in north-eastern
Serbia). By the time she was five the family had already moved to
Vienna. Her father,
Oberstleutnant Regelsberg von Thurnberg, was a career soldier, serving in the
Imperial Austrian Army. Her mother came originally from the
Transylvanian Saxon community of ethnic Germans who had been colonising
Transylvania since the twelfth century. It was from her mother that she acquired her love of painting and literature, along with a sound education: she was devastated by her mother's death, after a long illness, at a time when she herself was still only eighteen. She also engaged actively in the emerging women's rights movement. ==Selected works==