| Maria Stona | |
| Birth Name: | Maria Stonawski |
| Birth Place: | Třebovice ve Slezsku, Austrian Silesia (now Czech Republic) |
| Death Place: | Třebovice |
Maria Stona; Marie Scholz; born Stonawski (1859[1] –1944) was a writer and poet born in a part of Austria-Hungary that later became Czechoslovakian.[2] Her daughter was the sculptor Helen Zelezny-Scholz.
In Třebovice she led artistic salon. She drew into her circles many noticeable persons, world-famous artists, politicians and writers such as Georg Brandes, Georges Clemenceau, Berta von Suttner, Flinders Petrie, Stefan Zweig, being among her guests in her home the Chateau of Třebovice (Strzebowitz).
She corresponded regularly with Georg Brandes from 1899 to his death 1927.
Maria Stona died in 1944, during the World War II. In the course of the liberation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Red Army her chateau was damaged and subsequently was deteriorating. It was completely demolished in 1958.
Some of her books are available at The Royal Library in Copenhagen, which also holds some of her letters in the "Georg Brandes Arkivet".
Maria Scholz was a daughter of Joseph Stonawski, who bought the Castle Strebowitz in 1861, and his wife Marie Prymus from Soběšovice in Cieszyn Silesia. She used the first two syllables of her birth name, Stonawski, as her pseudonym Maria Stona.
In 1881 Maria Scholz married Dr. jur. Albert Scholz, a son of Alois Scholz (1821–1883), the director of the steel works of Witkowitz mining and metallurgical trade union in Moravia-Ostrava. The couple lived from 1881 to 1888 in Chropyně in Moravia, where their daughter Helen Zelezny-Scholz was born on 16 August 1882. The marriage to Albert Scholz lasted until 1899. Maria Stona most likely had a second marriage to the writer, editor and art critic Charles Erasmus Kleinert (1837–1933). In 1933, Maria Stona published a tribute to his life: An Old Austrian - Charles Erasmus Kleinert. His life and his works were published by Adolf Drechsler, Opava in Silesia.
After the death of his father, Joseph took Maria Stonawski Scholz to Strebowitz Martinau and in Silesia, where the Strebowitz Castle and the surrounding park was their residence. At Castle Strebowitz Maria Stona was the center of a literary circle. Landowner and Countess Marie Stonawská-Scholzová loved art. She produced poetry, stories, novels, and travel sketches under the pseudonym Maria Stona. After a short marriage, she was able to live independently thanks to having financial security. She actively participated in the cultural life of the town – she visited exhibits and the theatre, but mainly she supported artists.In this way the château in Třebovice became a cultural centre where artists and the intelligentsia of various nations gathered. Stonawská-Scholzová bountifully hosted and supported local artists regardless of nationality, and eagerly introduced young artists to the public.
The list of important personalities who stayed at Třebovice includes writer Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, noted Austrian prose writer Stefan Zweig, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Bertha von Suttner, writer Subhas Chandra Bose doctor and writer Karl Schönherr, the writer and journalist Paul Keller, the Danish literary critic Georg Brandes, and personalities of political life. She encouraged young artists who belonged to which the Czech pianist and composer Ilja Hurník and others traveled for Eastern Europe, Southern France and Spain.
Her extensive literary heritage, included travelogues, poetry, often sentimental, short stories, novellas and novels. Maria Stona was one of the most important women writers of her time. They drew their psychological empathy from the surrounding world, as Russian troops had occupied Moravia and Silesia in 1945 and Castle Strebowitz was lost as a family residence.
Maria Stona who died in 1944, wrote in German. Her volumes of poetry were translated into Czech by the novelist Helen Salichová after her death.