Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

Marie, Duchess of Mecklenburg (probably 1881)

Marie, Duchess of Mecklenburg [-Schwerin], née Princess Windisch-Graetz (born December 11, 1856 in Vienna , † July 9, 1929 in Ludwigslust , full name Marie Gabriele Ernestine Alexandra ) was a member of the grand ducal house of Mecklenburg-Schwerin by marriage and a German-Austrian archaeologist .

Life

Marie, Princess von Windisch-Graetz, was the fourth child and the third daughter of Prince (from 1867: Prince) Hugo von Windisch-Graetz and his wife Luise, Duchess of Mecklenburg (-Schwerin) . After the early death of her mother, when Marie was three years old, she and her sisters grew up temporarily at the court of her uncle, Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II. In Schwerin and Ludwigslust . Details of her early life and education are not known.

On May 5, 1881, she married Duke Paul Friedrich von Mecklenburg-Schwerin , one of her cousins. The couple lived at Ludwigslust Palace and had five children, two of whom died at a young age. The family traveled a lot, giving birth to their daughter Marie Antoinette and son Heinrich Borwin in Venice and another of their children in Algeria . Marie, like her sons Paul Friedrich and Heinrich Borwin, was an enthusiastic reader of Karl May's books. She visited May with them once in Radebeul .

Wagensberg Castle

Duchess Marie was considered wasteful, and the duke couple's financial problems that soon arose led Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV to incapacitate them at the beginning of March 1906 and place them under the trustee of Oberlandstallmeister Christian von Stenglin .

Marie, whose father died in 1904, then moved to her family's estates in Carniola and lived at Wagensberg Castle (Bogenšperk) near Litija . With the outbreak of the First World War , however, Marie and her family had to leave Krain. She lived in Berlin and Mecklenburg during the war. After the war ended, she returned to Wagensberg Castle, which was now part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . She died while staying in Ludwigslust and was buried in the Louisen Mausoleum in the Ludwigslust Palace Park.

archeology

Marie Gabriele Ernestine Alexandra Duchess of Mecklenburg during excavations in Hallstatt in autumn 1907.

At Wagensberg Castle, Marie's interest in the prehistory of Krain developed, and it is possible that she had an earlier interest in prehistory . At the age of 49, she began excavating in the vicinity of her castle. In doing so, she unearthed various testimonies, mainly from the Carniolan and Slovenian Iron Ages , especially the Hallstatt Period. She proceeded with scientific rigor, which set her apart from the many other noble treasure huts of the time. Marie was the first woman to conduct scheduled, organized excavations in the region. The excavation sites include several sites that are still important today, such as Stična , Magdalenska Gora , Vinica and Hallstatt (1907). In 1906 she entered into a secret excavation partnership with Alfred Götze and Friedrich Rathgen , which enabled Alfred Götze to dig up a tumulus in Stična for the prehistoric department of the Berlin Museum of Ethnology and at the same time to instruct Marie on her own excavations.

Marie not only directed the excavations, she also took an active part in the excavations, as the photographs show. The Hallstatt excavation of 1907 was supported and co-financed by Emperor Franz Joseph I. When her own funds ran out, she made her cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II a spectacular gift in 1913 : the Stična breastplate, the most valuable find to date. The gift did not fail to have its effect. The emperor had the breastplate examined by Carl Schuchhardt , who declared it unique , and the Duchess then paid an excavation grant of 100,000 Reichsmarks . With this generous support she was able to continue her excavation work until the outbreak of the First World War. In Magdalenska Gora alone, she excavated ten tumuli with a total of 355 graves.

Their excavations have been documented. From a modern point of view, your documentaries can be judged to be quite good for the time and have got better and better over time. Most of the records were lost in the wake of the world wars. She was familiar with modern methods and findings, such as those of the closed find . As a rule, grave finds were recovered closed, precisely described and stored.

According to the excavation diaries, the daily routine was strictly defined. Every other day Marie worked on site from 9 a.m. until sunset. She was assisted by a secretary, Gustav Goldberg, who took care of the written work and who instructed between ten and 90 workers. In later years she employed professional draftsmen and photographers. She was in correspondence with archaeological greats of her time, such as Oscar Montelius and Joseph Déchelette . Both visited the excavations in Stična in October 1913. Their reports and articles in specialist journals brought the long-awaited professional recognition for Marie's work. Montelius was able to present the emperor in Bonn with another box with finds such as belt buckles. As a result, she received another imperial check in March 1914.

Her last excavation campaign began in Stična on July 28, 1914. After a week, she had to stop because of the outbreak of World War I. Apparently this meant the end of their excavations. Since much of the estate has not been preserved, it is not known whether she was later active in archaeological research.

In her nine years of excavation she brought to light more than 20,000 objects from more than 1,000 graves at 21 excavation sites.

• 

  Bowl helmet from Stična in the Museum of Prehistory and Early History (Berlin).

• 

  Pseudokernos (pompous vessel) from Stična in the Museum of Prehistory and Early History (Berlin).

• 

  Helmet from Vače in the Museum of Prehistory and Early History (Berlin).

• 

  Excavated by Marie and given to Kaiser Wilhelm II: the cuirass from Stična, now in the Museum of Prehistory and Early History (Berlin).

• 

  Bronze bull figure; from the Duchess's excavations in 1907.

collection

The Maries collection , which filled 72 large boxes, had been confiscated as a result of the First World War and taken to the National Museum ( Narodni muzej Slovenije ) in Ljubljana . In the 1920s, Marie tried to obtain a return by petitioning King Alexander I.

Immediately after Marie's death in July 1929, her daughter and heiress Marie Antoinette succeeded in getting King Alexander, who was ruling under a royal dictatorship at the time , to have it returned. The National Museum kept a representative cross-section. In 1932 Marie Antoinette gave the collection to the American Art Association auction house , Anderson Galleries, Inc. in New York City for sale. The auction house arranged for a detailed cataloging by a team of leading European prehistorians under the direction of Adolf Mahr . The catalog, which comprises 131 pages, appeared in 1934. At the auction on December 1, 1934, however, there was no buyer for the collection item, which was unusual at the time, who was willing and able to raise the $ 250,000 demanded by Marie Antoinette. Hugh Hencken , the director of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard University , was then able to acquire the part of the Magdalenska Gora collection, and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The remainder was initially kept in stock by Anderson. After the Anderson Galleries went bankrupt five years later, Hencken managed to acquire the rest for the Peabody Museum. They were researched and cataloged there and were last the subject of a special exhibition in 2006.

The pieces that she and Görtz had brought to Berlin were first exhibited in the Berlin Palace and, from 1920, in the Völkerkundemuseum. They came after 1945 as looted art to Leningrad and from there in 1977 to Leipzig . Only after reunification did they return to the newly designed Berlin Museum of Prehistory and Early History .

literature

• Viola Maier: The Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1856–1929). In: Julia K. Koch, Eva-Maria Mertens (Ed.): A lady between 500 gentlemen. Johanna Mestorf, work and effect (= women, research, archeology. Vol. 4). Waxmann, Münster et al. 2002, ISBN 3-8309-1066-5 . Pp. 257-265.
• Bernd Kasten : Two notorious wasters. Duke Paul Friedrich (1852-1923) and his wife Marie (1856-1929). In: Same: Prince Schnaps. Black sheep in the Princely House of Mecklenburg. Rostock 2009. ISBN 3-356-01334-3 . Pp. 40-49.
• Andrea Rottloff : Archaeologists (= The Famous ). Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2009, ISBN 978-3-8053-4063-2 , pp. 87-89.
• Grete Grewolls: Who was who in Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania. The dictionary of persons . Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2011, ISBN 978-3-356-01301-6 , p. 6319 .

To the collection

• Adolf Mahr (Ed.): Prehistoric grave material from Carniola. Excavated in 1905-14 by HH the late Duchess Paul Friedrich of Mecklenburg (neé Princess Marie of Windischgrätz). Catalog. = Treasures of Carniola (= American Art Association - Anderson Galleries. Sale 4081). American Art Association - Anderson Galleries Inc., New York NY 1934 (auction catalog).
• Sándor Bökönyi: Data on Iron Age horses of Central and Eastern Europe (= The Mecklenburg Collection. Vol. 1 = American School of Prehistoric Research. Bulletin. Vol. 25, ZDB -ID 223123-2 ). Peabody Museum, Cambridge MA 1968.
• Hugh Hencken : The Iron Age Cemetery of Magdalenska Gora in Slovenia (= The Mecklenburg Collection. Vol. 2 = American School of Prehistoric Research. Bulletin. Vol. 32). Peabody Museum, Cambridge MA 1978.
• Peter S. Wells: The Emergence of an Iron Age Economy. The Mecklenburg Grave Groups from Hallstatt and Stična (= The Mecklenburg Collection. Vol. 3 = American School of Prehistoric Research. Bulletin. Vol. 33). Peabody Museum, Cambridge MA 1981, ISBN 0-87365-536-2 .
• Claus Dobiat: Finds from the Mecklenburg Collection (= small writings from the Prehistoric Seminar Marburg. Vol. 12, ISSN  0724-424X ). Moreland & Co., Marburg 1982.
• Gloria Polizzotti Greis: A Noble Pursuit. The Duchess of Mecklenburg Collection from Iron Age Slovenia (= Peabody Museum Collection Series ). Peabody Museum Press, Cambridge MA 2006, ISBN 0-87365-404-8 .

Web links

Commons : Marie von Mecklenburg-Schwerin  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature about Duchess Marie in the state bibliography MV
• Kerstin Geßner: The duchess with the hoe. ( Digitized version )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Government Gazette for Mecklenburg-Schwerin 10 (1906), p. 52.
2. ^ Old man: A Noble Pursuit. 2006, pp. 20-21.
3. ^ Old man: A Noble Pursuit. 2006, p. 36.
4. ↑ Due to the checkered history of the collection, assignments of various finds to graves ( grave groups ) must, however, always be checked critically; See for an example Dragan Božič: A Hallstatt grave containing a cuirass, excavated near Stična by the Duchess of Mecklenburg in 1913. The reliability of grave groups from the Mecklenburg Collection. In: Arheološki Vestnik. Vol. 60, 2009, ISSN  0570-8966 , pp. 63-95, digital version (PDF; 3.67 MB) .
5. ^ Old man: A Noble Pursuit. 2006, p. 40.
6. ^ Old man: A Noble Pursuit. 2006, p. 42.
7. ^ Old man: A Noble Pursuit. 2006, p. 49.
8. ^ Old man: A Noble Pursuit. 2006, p. 50.
9. ^ Old man: A Noble Pursuit. 2006, p. 50.
10. ^ Mahr: Prehistoric grave material from Carniola excavated in 1905-14 by HH the late Duchess Paul Friedrich of Mecklenburg neé Princess Marie of Windischgrätz. 1934.
11. ↑ See the catalog: Greis: A Noble Pursuit. 2006.
12. ↑ See also Rainer-Maria Weiss: The emperor's old finds. The collection of Hallstatt period finds from Carniola, Slovenia. In: Ingrid Griesa, Rainer-Maria Weiss: Hallstatt period (= Zabern's illustrated books on archeology . = Ancient world . Special volume. = The antiquities in the museum for prehistory and early history. Vol. 2). Edited by Wilfried Menghin . von Zabern, Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2566-5 , pp. 48-73.