Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth

Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth

Christiane Eberhardine von Brandenburg-Bayreuth (born December 29, 1671 in Bayreuth , † September 4, 1727 in Pretzsch (Elbe) ) was Electress of Saxony and from 1697 titular queen of Poland.

Negotiations Dresden-Bayreuth

From 1690 the Saxon Elector Johann Georg III. Negotiations with the parents of the Brandenburg princess Christiane Eberhardine regarding the marriage of his second son Friedrich August . The princess came from a side line of the Hohenzollern and was related to the Wettins through Magdalena Sibylle von Brandenburg-Bayreuth , the mother of Johann Georg III. As the sister of Margrave Erdmann August von Brandenburg-Bayreuth , the bride's grandfather, she was also the groom's grandmother. The bride and groom were thus second cousins. The Saxon elector and later his successor Johann Georg IV. , The groom's older brother, wanted Saxony to strengthen its position and sought allies to strengthen the ties between the Wettins and Hohenzollern.

The bride's father, the ruling Margrave Christian Ernst von Brandenburg-Bayreuth , delayed an answer because he and especially the mother of the princess, Sophie Luise von Württemberg , had reservations about the applicant. With the questionable reputation of a flighty bon vivant, Friedrich August was not a very worthy applicant. His four letters went unanswered. Only when the parents' negotiations with two candidates who were more attractive to them failed did the Wettiner have a chance. The desire for appropriate care for the now 21-year-old daughter - at an advanced age for what was expected at the time - gained the upper hand: on November 27, 1692, Margrave Christian Ernst finally declared his consent to the marriage alliance.

Wedding in Bayreuth and a short time in Dresden

The couple's wedding took place on January 20, 1693 in Bayreuth, the hometown of the bride. Little was reported about the four-week festivities. A libretto (opera text book) by Antonio di Nepita in the Dresden State Library is one of the rare memorabilia. It shows that the Italian opera and the French ballet had established themselves at the Brandenburg-Bayreuth court of the bride : a prologue and intermediate ballets were given to the three acts sung in Italian .

After the festivities, the newlyweds traveled to Dresden . A few weeks later, Friedrich August and his brother took part in an armed conflict against Ratzeburg , his wife was left alone. Shortly after his return, he was drawn to Venice for the carnival during Lent , which trip he extended to Rome and Naples , which did not speak for his loyalty. On February 11, 1694, the lonely and unhappy Christiane Eberhardine wrote a letter to her mother about her hope for a happier married life and her concern for his health, in which her love for her husband can be felt:

“The Hertzog would be expected every hour and even asked me to know him against him. He has always been healthy. The pleasure park times to Venisse should even have been known to Schlegt, as if he thought he would regret having made this trip, which I wish, so he will stay with me for another meal. "

In the fourth year of marriage, Christiane Eberhardine gave birth to Prince Elector Friedrich August on October 17, 1696 in Dresden . On the occasion of this birth of the heir to the throne, the elector gave her Pretzsch Castle on the Elbe. In the same month the mistress August Aurora von Königsmarck also gave birth to a son. Christiane Eberhardine, who had fulfilled her dynastic duty, soon withdrew from court life in her castle in Pretzsch .

Husband's career and change of faith

Queen-Electress Christiane Eberhardine

Friedrich August soon fought for the Polish crown, for which he converted to Catholicism on June 2, 1697 and was finally crowned as the Polish king in September 1697. However, he did not achieve one goal: his wife Christiane Eberhardine did not convert. She remained true to her Protestant faith and never set foot on Polish soil. Because of her resistance to the plans of her husband, the elector and Polish king, the maternal custody rights over her son, the hereditary prince, were curtailed. The upbringing of the young heir to the throne was entrusted to her mother-in-law Anna Sophie , who then also tried in vain to strengthen her grandson in the Protestant faith. Christiane Eberhardine got on well with her, the mother-in-law lived with her sister Wilhelmine Ernestine von der Pfalz, only a few kilometers up the Elbe at Lichtenburg Castle .

The spatial separation deepened the marital alienation from the elector and led to a rift with the only son. His conversion to Catholicism at a young age was arranged by his father and burdened Christiane Eberhardine's motherhood. The main cause of their grief was not August's mistresses, but the change of denomination of their husband and son. In the solitude of Pretzsch she devoted herself to the works of charity and an ascetic existence in order to atone for what she saw as injustice in her house. Christiane Eberhardine was nicknamed "the prayer column of Saxony" by Protestants as a name of honor and by Catholics as a mockery. So she had Protestant prayer books printed and distributed free of charge for fear of a re-Catholicization of the Saxons. In the eyes of her subjects, she became the guardian of the Lutheran faith.

Pretzsch

Pretzsch Castle on the Elbe

Christiane Eberhardine preferred to live at Pretzsch Castle on the Elbe, at times she moved to Hartenfels Castle in Torgau . She only occasionally took part in certain occasions and festivities at the Dresden court. She often visited her hometown Bayreuth, where operas were given in her honor. In her voluntary exile, following the example of the electoral court, she developed a remarkable cultural life, while her husband's mistresses took on her role in Dresden. She kept the chamber musician and maitre de musique Stephan Jänichen , who died in 1726, a year before her. In connection with music as guests from Bayreuth, the stay in Pretzsch of the composers Georg Heinrich Bümler (1669–1745) and Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch (1691–1765) are mentioned. In his history of the baroque opera in Leipzig , the musicologist Michael Maul ponders whether Eberhardine “might not have been the real broker for the exports of Leipzig operas to Bayreuth”; an investigation of the possible connections is still pending.

In addition to the music at her court in Pretzsch, the fate of orphans was particularly important to her. She was also economically active: in 1697 she took over the glassworks founded by Constantin Fremel in Pretzsch .

Christiane Eberhardine von Brandenburg-Bayreuth died alone at the age of 55 and was buried on September 6, 1727 in the town church of Pretzsch. Neither her husband nor her son attended her funeral.

For the funeral service in Leipzig organized by Hans Carl von Kirchbach , Johann Sebastian Bach composed the so-called Trauerode (" Let, princess, let another ray ", BWV 198) based on a text by Johann Christoph Gottsched , which was written on October 17, 1727 in the Paulinerkirche was performed.

literature

• Franz Otto Stichart: Gallery of the Saxon Princesses; biogr. Sketches of all ancestors of the royal house of Saxony , Leipzig 1857
• Franz Blanckmeister: Electress Christiane Eberhardine of Saxony: an evangelical confessor , Barmen 1892
• Johannes Meyer: Female figures and women rulers in the Wettin house , Bautzen 1912
• Paul Haake: Christiane Eberhardine and August the Strong: a marriage tragedy , Dresden 1930
• Martin Lauckner: An old signature from a delicate hand , in: Sächs. Heimat, Hamburg, born 1981
• Karl Czok: August the Strong and Electoral Saxony , Leipzig 1987. Enlightened absolutism and ecclesiastical-religious tolerance policy in August the Strong, In: Saxony and the Wettiners. Opportunities and Realities (special issue of the Dresdner Hefte ); Dresden 1990
• Walter Fellmann: Princesses. Splendor, loneliness and scandals at the Saxon court , Leipzig 1996
• Klaus Kühnel: Queen without a crown . In: KK: August the Strong and the Weak Sex . Dreikastanienverlag, Wittenberg 2005. ISBN 3-933028-92-2 .
• Hans-Joachim Böttcher : The "court dwarfs" of Christiane Eberhardine . In: Torgauer Heimatkalender 2011. pp. 64–69.
• 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 .
• Michael Maul : Baroque Opera in Leipzig (1693–1720) . Text volume [I] and catalog volume [II], Rombach Wissenschaften, Voces series, ed. by Christian Berger / Christoph Wolff, Vol. 12/1 (Freiburg contributions to the history of music), Rombach Verlag KG, Freiburg i.Br./Berlin/Wien, (I.) S. 833-834, ISBN 978-3-7930- 9584-2 . (This includes further mentions of the Electress Christiane Eberhardine).
• Silke Herz: Queen Christiane Eberhardine - splendor in the service of the state of affairs. Art, ceremonial and social life at the court of the wife of Augustus the Strong , Berlin: Lukas 2019 (writings on residential culture; 12), ISBN 978-3-86732-333-8 .

Web links

Commons : Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

1. ↑ http://thesaurus.cerl.org/record/cnp00177528
2. ^ Staszewski, Jacek: August III. Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. Berlin 1996. pp. 16-19.
3. ^ L'Alfonso D-DL, Hist.Sax. C. 197.
4. ^ Karl Czok: August the Strong and Electoral Saxony. Leipzig 1990. pp. 15, 16.
5. ↑ Hans-Joachim Böttcher: The wedding of August the Strong with Christiane Eberhardine. In: sachsen-lese.de .
6. ↑ She was the first of ten official mistresses of the Elector and Polish King August II.
7. ^ Jacek Staszewski: August III. Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. Berlin 1996. pp. 16-19.
8. ↑ Udo von Alvensleben , Visits before the fall, aristocratic seats between Altmark and Masuria , compiled from diary entries and edited by Harald von Koenigswald, Frankfurt / M.-Berlin 1968, p. 20
9. ^ Pretzsch chemists: History of Schloss Pretzsch , accessed on September 26, 2013.
10. ↑ † 1726 in Pretzsch, s. Hans-Joachim Böttcher: Christiane Eberhardine, Princess of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Electress of Saxony and Queen of Poland, wife of August the Strong , Dresdener Buchverlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-941757-25-7 , page 308.
11. ↑ Irene Hegen: The margravial court chapel in Bayreuth (1661–1769) , p. 16. In: Silke Leopold and Bärbel Pelker (eds.): South German court chapels in the 18th century. An inventory. Heidelberg Academy of Sciences . Academy of the State of Baden-Württemberg (= Writings on Southwest German Court Music, 1. (2003–) 2014), PDF.
12. ↑ Michael Maul: Barockoper in Leipzig , (I.) P. 833-834.

Predecessors	Office	Successors
Maria Kazimiera Sobieska	Queen of Poland 1697–1727	Katharina Opalińska
Eleanor of Saxony-Eisenach	Electress of Saxony 1694–1727	Maria Josepha of Austria