Friedrich Christian (Saxony)
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Friedrich Christian Leopold Johann Georg Franz Xaver of Saxony (born September 5, 1722 in Dresden , † December 17, 1763 in Dresden) was Elector of Saxony from October 5, 1763 until his death .
Life
Friedrich Christian came as the third son of the Saxon electoral and Polish royal couple August III. and Maria Josepha , a born Archduchess of Austria.
As the electoral prince, Friedrich Christian had noted in his diary: “The princes are there for their subjects and not the subjects for the princes. The wealth of the subjects, the public credit and a good army make up the true happiness of the prince. ” And thus showed himself open to the ideas of the Enlightenment . He was of marked musical talent. For his 11th birthday, Johann Sebastian Bach composed the cantata Herkules am Scheidewege .
A weak child from birth and suffering from incurable paralysis of the feet, he was dependent on wheelchairs from an early age. In a well-known painting that shows him in the company of his Wettin and Wittelsbach families, he is shown sitting in a wheelchair - it was created during his flight from the Prussians to Munich and is now hanging in Nymphenburg Palace . His mother is said to have repeatedly tried to persuade the young prince to enter the clergy and thus to renounce the throne in favor of his younger brothers.
Since his two older brothers, the electoral princes Friedrich August and Joseph August, had already died in childhood and he had not given in to his mother's insistence, he followed his father's death on October 5, 1763 as the Saxon elector. He also applied for the Polish crown. This already happened in a letter to the Cardinal Primate of October 6, 1763, with reference to the approval of all neighboring powers: “... and I have reason to hope that, if the Polish nation is inclined, this sign of their love and trust will be shown to me to give, all neighboring powers will be happy to see such. ”For this purpose, Count Karl Georg Friedrich von Flemming was appointed Foreign Minister because of his Polish connections.
One of his first actions was the dismissal of the extremely controversial Prime Minister Count Heinrich von Brühl , who had plunged the Electoral State into crisis through his failed financial policy, but above all through his catastrophic foreign policy actions that contributed to the fateful Seven Years' War for Saxony . In the rétablissements he tried to rearrange the shattered state finances that his predecessors had left him and to give the devastated and plundered country new impetus through economic reconstruction. Reforms to streamline the court and simplify administration based on the principle of thrift have begun. Most of the members of his cabinet , such as Thomas von Fritsch from Leipzig , Friedrich Ludwig Wurmb and Christian Gotthelf von Gutschmid, came from the upper class .
After only 74 days of his rather successful reign, Friedrich Christian died of smallpox and was buried in the donor's vault of the Catholic Court Church in Dresden.
Until his eldest son and heir came of age, his wife and his brother Franz Xaver exercised guardianship.
Marriage and offspring
Friedrich Christian had been married to the extremely cultured and also musically gifted Princess Maria Antonia of Bavaria , a daughter of the Bavarian Elector Karl Albrecht and the Archduchess Maria Amalie of Austria , thus his first cousin, since 1747 . He had the following children with her:
- Son (* / † June 9, 1748 in Dresden, died after giving birth)
- Friedrich August III./I. (* December 23, 1750 in Dresden; † May 5, 1827 in Dresden), Elector and later King of Saxony, elected King of Poland and Duke of Warsaw
- Karl (born September 24, 1752 in Dresden, † September 8, 1781 in Dresden), Prince of Saxony
- Joseph (born January 26, 1754 in Dresden, † March 25, 1763 in Dresden), Prince of Saxony
- Anton (born December 27, 1755 in Dresden, † June 6, 1836 in Pillnitz), King of Saxony
- Maria Amalie (born September 26, 1757 in Dresden, † April 20, 1831 in Neuburg an der Donau), Princess of Saxony
- ⚭ Charles II August (born October 29, 1746 in Düsseldorf; † April 1, 1795 Mannheim), Duke of Palatinate-Birkenfeld-Zweibrücken
- Maximilian (born April 13, 1759 in Dresden; † January 3, 1838 in Dresden), Hereditary Prince of Saxony
- ⚭ Caroline (born November 22, 1770 in Parma, † March 1, 1804 in Dresden), Princess of Parma
- ⚭ Maria Luisa (born October 2, 1802 in Barcelona, † March 18, 1857 in Rome), Princess of Parma
- Therese Maria (born February 27, 1761 in Munich, † November 26, 1820 in Dresden), Princess of Saxony
- Son (* / † 1762, stillborn)
ancestors
literature
- August Moritz Engelhardt: Friedrich Christian Elector of Saxony - a biographical draft; together with a description of the coins and medals related to this prince and minted under his government . Verlag der Wagnerschen Buchhandlung, Dresden 1828 ( digitized version )
- Heinrich Theodor Flathe : Friedrich Christian (Elector of Saxony) . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 789 f.
- Gerhard Schmidt: Friedrich Christian. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1961, ISBN 3-428-00186-9 , p. 574 f. ( Digitized version ).
Web links
- Literature by and about Friedrich Christian in the catalog of the German National Library
- Karlheinz Blaschke : Friedrich Christian . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Friedrich August II. |
Elector of Saxony 1763 |
Friedrich August III. (until 1768 under the administration of Prince Xavier ) |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Friedrich Christian |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Friedrich Christian Leopold Johann Georg Franz Xaver (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Elector of Saxony |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 5, 1722 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dresden |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 17, 1763 |
| Place of death | Dresden |