Carl Alexander (Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach)

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Grand Duke Carl Alexander of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Carl Alexander, photo: Ludwig Held
Monument to Carl Alexander in Eisenach
Charles Alexander (1818-1901), 1855
Charles Alexander (1818-1901), 1855
Vereinsthaler Grand Duke Carl Alexanders, 1858
Lapel of a club thaler Grand Duke Carl Alexander, 1858
Carl Alexander (1900). Last shot by Louis Held

Carl Alexander August Johann, also Karl Alexander August Johann (born June 24, 1818 in Weimar ; † January 5, 1901 there ), was Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach .

Life

Carl Alexander was the son of Grand Duke Carl Friedrich of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and the Tsar's daughter Maria Pawlowna .

The young prince was given careful training at an early age by the respected Swiss educator Frédéric Soret . He was granted a special talent in the acquisition of foreign languages. Private tuition was followed in 1835 by two-year studies (law, history and natural sciences) at the universities in Leipzig and Jena, as well as military training. In 1841 he finished his studies as Dr. jur. in Jena.

From childhood he was friends with Walther von Goethe , the grandson of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , who was born in Weimar the same year as Carl Alexander . The Grand Duke later appointed his childhood friend to be his chamberlain and bestowed on him the House Order of the White Falcon .

Carl Alexander married his cousin, Princess Sophie of Orange-Nassau , daughter of King Wilhelm II of the Netherlands and his wife Anna Pawlowna , a sister of his mother, in The Hague on October 8, 1842 .

With his rather liberal views, Carl Alexander was an eccentric in aristocratic circles; the good contacts to numerous political journalists and writers of the 48s, however, may have protected him from possible domestic political mistakes. During this revolutionary time, Weimar was the safe haven for persecuted liberal artists. In 1851 he took over the protectorate of the Weimar Masonic Lodge . Although Carl Alexander was friends with Fanny Lewald and Hans Christian Andersen , he entered the war against Denmark in the First German-Danish War as Hereditary Grand Duke in 1849 under the Paulskirche constitution in favor of the acquisition of Schleswig-Holstein . On July 8, 1853 he became Grand Duke - with constitutional assumption of government on Goethe's birthday on August 28, 1853.

Carl Alexander regretted Prussia's absence from the Frankfurt Fürstentag in 1863, which led to its failure, and in the German War of 1866 he only joined Prussia on the basis of a Bismarck ultimatum. In the Franco-Prussian War 1870–1871, Carl Alexander only took part in "Samaritan services", but he emphasized his entry into the war in favor of Schleswig in 1849 throughout his life. The Grand Duke and his son Karl August participated in the proclamation of emperor in Versailles on January 18, 1871. He rejected the Kulturkampf fueled by Prussia in the young German Reich, and when the Socialist Law was passed in 1878 , he expressed a certain understanding of social democracy: "The misfortune is that there is some truth in the socialist teachings."

Coffin in the princely crypt (second from the front)

His coffin is in the Princely Crypt of the Weimar Historical Cemetery .

Cultural work

As early as 1838, Carl Alexander used extensive funds to renovate the Wartburg and left his mark on many parts of the city of Eisenach . He promoted Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner (in Eisenach there is an important Richard Wagner collection in the Fritz Reuter house ), preserved the tradition of the Weimar Classicism and gave the Weimar old town its appearance with the erection of the Herders , Wieland and 1857 monuments to Goethe -Schiller memorial . In 1860 he founded the Grand Ducal Art School in Weimar (with Arnold Böcklin , Franz von Lenbach and the sculptor Reinhold Begas ). The landscape painting made the Thuringian countryside aware of the history painting served the realization historical events at the Wartburg and the genre painting depicting the people in his daily environment. The so-called Weimar School of Painting , which pioneered open-air painting and impressionism in Germany, developed in its vicinity . A large part of the collection was acquired by Grand Duke Carl Alexander and his successor Wilhelm Ernst for the former Grand Ducal Museum . Other donations and purchases were made, the majority of which the Klassik Stiftung Weimar now has in its collections. The Weimar Music School was founded in 1872, the Carolo-Alexandrinum grammar school in Jena was founded in 1876 , the Goethe National Museum in Weimar was partially redesigned in 1886 , the Goethe and Schiller Archives opened in 1887 and finally the Goethe National Museum was created in 1889 in Eisenach.

His reign, which ended with the Weimar Congress of the Goethe Bund ( Lex Heinze ) in November 1900, is known as the Weimar Silver Age . When Carl Alexander died in 1901 at the age of 82, he had already survived two of his four children. Among them was his only son, who had died in 1894. His son Wilhelm Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach took office and created the New Weimar with Henry van de Velde , Hans Olde and the sculptor Adolf Brütt .

progeny

His marriage to Princess Sophie of the Netherlands in 1842 has four children:

  • Karl August (1844–1894), Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
⚭ 1873 Princess Pauline of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1852–1904)
⚭ 1876 Prince Heinrich VII. Reuss zu Köstritz (1825–1906)
⚭ 1886 Duke Johann Albrecht of Mecklenburg (1857–1920)

Monuments

A memorial stele has been preserved in the forest near Bad Berka .

In honor of Carl Alexander, Councilor Alexander Ziegler had the Carl Alexander Tower built on the Ringberg near Ruhla in 1867 . The tower still exists today and is the only observation tower in the western Thuringian Forest.

In 1907, the sculptor Adolf Brütt created his monument as the “keeper of Weimar culture” for Weimar in the newly founded Weimar Sculpture School . Relocated in 1938 for a performance by Hitler, the equestrian statue was removed for the 1st May celebration of the SED in 1946 and the base was buried. The equestrian portrait has since disappeared. It is not known whether it was melted down or transported to the Soviet Union. The found base was initially set up on Beethovenplatz, and since summer 2003 with a stylized attachment in the form of an equestrian portrait on Goetheplatz. Since June 23, 2006, the base has finally stood with a new foundation on its place of origin, today's Goetheplatz.

In his capacity as head of the new sculpture school, Brütt influenced the preserved statue of Carl Alexander in Eisenach at the foot of the Wartburg - hence a resemblance to the statue of Friedrich von Esmarch for Tönning .

The Jena Gymnasium, inaugurated in 1876, was named Carolo-Alexandrinum in 1880 .

exhibition

On his 200th birthday, the Weimar Classic Foundation is honoring Carl Alexander with an exhibition from May 4 to July 1, 2018. Under the title “Chrysanthemum and Falcon. Carl Alexander and Japan - Weimar, Jena, Tokyo ”, the prince's special relationship with Japan will be highlighted in the Weimar City Palace. The exhibition is being developed in cooperation with the University Archives of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Thuringia State Archives  / Main State Archives Weimar and is flanked by a corresponding supporting program.

Publications

  • Diary sheets from a trip to Munich and Tyrol in 1858 . Edited by Conrad Höfer, Verlag Philipp Kühner, Eisenach 1933.
Correspondence
  • Correspondence between Joseph Viktor von Scheffel and Carl Alexander, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach , Karlsruhe 1928.
  • Carl Alexander and the Wartburg in letters to Hugo von Ritgen , Moritz von Schwind and Hans Lucas von Cranach . Letsch, Hanover 1925.
  • Grand Duke Carl Alexander and Fanny Lewald -Stahr in their letters from 1848–1889 . 2 vols., Introduced and ed. v. Rudolf Göhler, Mittler, Berlin 1932.
  • My noble, dear Grand Duke! Correspondence between Hans Christian Andersen and Grand Duke Carl Alexander of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach . Edited by Ivy York Möller-Christensen and Ernst Möller-Christensen. Wallstein, Göttingen 1992.
  • My most gracious lord! My kind correspondent! Fanny Lewald's correspondence with Carl Alexander von Sachsen-Weimar 1848 - 1889 . With an introduction by Eckart Kleßmann , Böhlau, Weimar 2000.

literature

Web links

Commons : Carl Alexander (Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jutta Krauss: Carl-Alexander von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach on his 175th birthday. His relationship to politics and art. Wartburg yearbook. Leipzig 1994. pp. 11-39. ISBN 3-930040-07-7 .
  2. ↑ Dagmar von Gersdorff: Walther von Goethe. The burden of the big name . In: Hellmut Th. Seemann, Thorsten Valk (ed.): The age of grandchildren. Cultural policy and reception of classical music under Carl Alexander . Yearbook of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010. ISBN 978-3-8353-0603-5 .
  3. ↑ Dr. Theodor Toeche-Mittler: The imperial proclamation in Versailles on January 18, 1871 with a list of the festival participants. Ernst Siegfried Mittler and Son, Berlin 1896.
  4. ↑ H. Schnaebeli: photographs of the imperial proclamation in Versailles. Berlin 1871.
  5. ↑ Angelika Pöthe: Carl Alexander. Patron in Weimar's ›Silver Era‹ . Böhlau, Cologne 1998, pp. 101-104.
  6. ^ Weimar School of Painting, Weimar Classic Foundation
  7. ↑ Otto Heinrich Klüche: Grand Duke founded the CA. In: TLZ , January 17, 2001.
  8. ↑ Reinhold Brunner: On the history of the Eisenacher Carl-Alexander-Bibliothek . Eisenach-Jahrbuch 1992. Marburg 1992, ISBN 3-89398-114-4 , pp. 62-63.
  9. ↑ Detlef Jena : The Odyssey of the Carl Alexander Monument in Weimar . Thuringian State Newspaper, 23 August 2017.
  10. ↑ Cornelius Steckner: The prince to whom you owe that you can still see so much unchanged- In: Vor-Reiter Weimar. The Grand Dukes Carl August and Carl Alexander in the memorial. Jena 2003, pp. 182-285. ISBN 3-931743-53-5 .
  11. ↑ Christiane Weber: Patrons of Art and Science in the "Silver Age". In: Thüringer Allgemeine online, January 4, 2018, accessed on March 19, 2018.
predecessor Office successor
Carl Friedrich Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
1853 - 1901 		Wilhelm Ernst
personal data
SURNAME Carl Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Carl Alexander August Johann (full name); Karl Alexander August Johann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1853–1901)
DATE OF BIRTH June 24, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH Weimar
DATE OF DEATH January 5, 1901
Place of death Weimar