Aurora von Königsmarck

Aurora Countess von Königsmarck

Maria Aurora Countess von Königsmarck (born April 28, 1662 in Stade , †  February 16, 1728 in Quedlinburg ) came from the Altmark noble family of Königsmarck . She was mistress of Augustus the Strong and then provess of the Quedlinburg monastery . Voltaire described her next to Catherine II as "the most famous woman in two centuries".

Life

Maria Aurora was the daughter of Count Conrad Christopher von Königsmarck (1634-1673) and his wife Maria Christina von Wrangel (1628-1691), whose half-brother was the Swedish Marshal Carl Gustaf Wrangel , Count von Salmis. She spent most of her childhood at Agathenburg Castle . She attended the courts of Germany and Sweden accompanied by her mother since she was 15. After her death in 1691 she lived for a long time in Hamburg with her younger sister Amalie Wilhelmine von Königsmarck . Three years later, in 1694, she went to Dresden , with the help of Augustus the Strong, to save her brother Philipp Christoph von Königsmarck , who had disappeared in the Guelph Castle in Hanover since July 1st , or at least to be certain of his death and that To obtain the whereabouts of his inheritance.

Her beauty attracted the interest of the elector, who was eight years his junior and had been married to Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth since 1693 , and became his first official mistress. A few days after the birth of his only legitimate son, she gave birth to their son Moritz on October 28, 1696 in Goslar, who would later be honored as Marshal and General Moritz Graf von Sachsen . Soon after the birth, August's affection for her cooled and Aurora withdrew to the Abbey at Quedlinburg . Here she was appointed coadjutor in January 1698 and two years later provost , but nevertheless lived alternately in Berlin, Dresden and Hamburg.

In 1702 she took on a diplomatic mission to the Swedish army camp of Würgen (Virga) in Courland , to Charles XII. to vote cheaper for August the strong. However, this failed because it made no impression on the Swedish king. After the Peace of Altranstadt, she returned to her monastery, where she died on February 16, 1728.

The tomb of Aurora von Königsmarcks is located in the collegiate church of St. Servatius . A staircase leads from the crypt into the so-called princely crypt, the room climate of which helps to mummify corpses. In addition to the coffin Aurora von Königsmarcks, the coffins of the abbesses Anna II zu Stolberg , Anna III. zu Stolberg -Wernigerode and Marie Elisabeth of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf .

education

She had a varied education, spoke numerous languages, some of which were less common, was a virtuoso on the lute and viola da gamba and left behind literary works. These include opera texts, e.g. B. The three daughters of Cecrop , a baroque opera, love songs and cantatas first performed in Ansbach in 1679 and again in Hamburg in 1680. The Hamburg baroque composer Reinhard Keizer dedicated two of his operas to her. The Swedish poet Carl Snoilsky described the fate of her life in a long poem that is contained in the collection of poems Svenska bilder (Swedish pictures).

Works

Source for A. v. Königsmarck as a contributor to the Roman Octavia (Stephan Kraft)

literature

Aurora Countess von Königsmarck (before 1728)

• Rieke Buning, Beate-Christine Fiedler, Bettina Roggmann (eds.): Maria Aurora von Königsmarck. A noble woman's life in Europe during the Baroque period . Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-412-22386-1
• Karlheinz Blaschke:  Königsmarck, Aurora Countess of. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-428-00193-1 , p. 359 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Friedrich Cramer: Memories of Countess Maria Aurora von Königsmark and the Königsmark family . 2 volumes, Leipzig 1836. ( digitized version )
• Otto Julius von Corvin-Wiersbitzki: Biographies of historically famous Maitressen: Maria Aurora, Countess of Königsmark , Leipzig 1848 ( digital copy of the second edition from 1890 )
• Bernd Feicke: Bells ringing for Prince Eugene in the Imperial Monastery of Quedlinburg 1704: on the diplomacy of Aurora von Königsmarck . In: Harz-Zeitschrift . Volume 48/49, 1996/97 [1998], pp. 211-217.
• Beate-Christine Fiedler: Maria Aurora von Königsmarck as a celebrated Baroque poet , in: Quedlinburger Annalen, 8th year 2005, ISSN  1436-7432
• Beate-Christine Fiedler: Maria Aurora von Königsmarck, the Swedish countess from Stade , in: Stader Jahrbuch 1991/92, Stade 1993, ISSN  0930-8946
• Heinrich Theodor Flathe :  Maria Aurora Countess of Königsmark . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, pp. 526-528.
• Otmar Hesse : A European family with ties to Goslar and Quedlinburg. Countess Aurora von Königsmarck. Count Moritz of Saxony. George Sand. Self-published by Otmar Hesse, Goslar 2019, A4 brochure, ISBN 978-3-00-062315-8 .
• Angelika Jordan: Aurora von Königsmarck . Bergisch Gladbach 1974.
• Sylvia Krauss-Meyl : "The most famous woman in two centuries": Maria Aurora Countess von Königsmarck . 3. Edition. Pustet, Regensburg 2012, ISBN 3-7917-1814-2
• Vilhelm Frederik Palmblad: Aurora Königsmark and her relatives . 4 volumes, Leipzig 1848.
• Dorothea Schröder : Maria Aurora von Königsmarck. A Swedish countess from Stade. Stade 2011, ISBN 978-3-87697-100-1 .
• Voltaire: Histoire de Charles XII , Oeuvres completes, Tome XXII, Paris 1821. pp. 89-90.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hans Joachim Böttcher: Christiane Eberhardine. Princess of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Electress of Saxony and Queen of Poland - wife of Augustus the Strong. Dresdener Buchverlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-941757-25-7 , p. 76 ff.
2. ^ Hans Joachim Marx, Dorothea Schröder: Die Hamburger Gänsemarkt-Oper, catalog of the text books Laaber: Laaber 1995, p. 132. Detailed description and treatise in: Werner Braun: Vom Remter zum Gänsemarkt. From the early history of the old Hamburg opera (1677–1697) , Saarbrücken 1987, ISBN 3-925036-17-2 , from p. 89.

Web links

Commons : Aurora von Königsmarck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Preview of a prose work by Aurora v. King's Mark

predecessor	Office	Successor
Anna Dorothea	Provess of Quedlinburg 1704 - 1718	Marie Elisabeth