Sophie Charlotte of Hanover

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Sophie Charlotte of Hanover, Electress of Brandenburg, Queen in Prussia
Signature Sophie Charlotte von Hannover.PNG

Sophie Charlotte Duchess of Braunschweig and Lüneburg (unofficially "Princess of Hanover") (born  October 30, 1668 in Iburg , †  February 1,  1705 in Hanover ) was the only daughter of Sophie von der Pfalz and Ernst August von Braunschweig-Lüneburg , the later first elector of Hanover.

In 1684 she married the Elector Friedrich von Brandenburg , who from 1688 as Elector Friedrich III. ruled and crowned himself king in Prussia in 1701 . Her son is the later "soldier king" Friedrich Wilhelm I , her grandson Friedrich II.

Her husband built Charlottenburg Palace for her , which she used as her main residence. She was considered highly educated and, like her mother, maintained a close friendship with Leibniz .

Life

Sophie Charlotte (called "Figuelotte" in the family circle) was born in Iburg Castle , where her birth room still exists today. Their first five years were spent with parents in provincial life of Iburger castle before the prince-bishop's family in 1673, the newly built residence in Osnabrück , the Osnabrück Castle , referring, where in 1674 her brother from Hannover Ernst August II. Was born. She was the only daughter of the Prince-Bishops and had three older and three younger brothers. The prince-bishop's family left Osnabrück and moved to Hanover after their uncle Johann Friedrich died in 1679 and their father succeeded him in the Principality of Calenberg .

Sophie Charlotte of Hanover

Sophie Charlotte learned to speak French , English and Italian fluently. She was brought up as a Protestant, but her parents' power-political considerations did not rule out marriage to a Catholic, which her upbringing took into account. With her mother Sophie she went on a trip to France in 1679, which ostensibly pursued her interest in garden design. The main interest of the trip, however, was the possible prospect of Sophie Charlotte's marriage to the Grand Dauphin , the son of the French King Louis XIV , which Sophie tried to thread through with the help of her niece and former foster daughter Liselotte von der Pfalz , the king's sister-in-law. However, this intention failed because of the dynastic plans of Louis XIV, who opted for a Catholic candidate from the Bavarian electoral house.

Thereupon Sophie Charlotte was referred to the Brandenburg Elector House. On November 6, 1684, she married the once widowed Elector Friedrich von Brandenburg. Four years later, the Great Elector died and Friedrich and his wife ascended the electoral throne. The marriage was not a happy one; it had been closed for political reasons, which was the order of the day in aristocratic circles. The Electress gave birth to Friedrich I. three children, of whom only one son survived, the later King Friedrich Wilhelm I. The child was raised in the first years of life, from 1689 to 1692, at the court of his grandmother in Hanover; Sophie Charlotte spoiled her son, who, however, developed a coarse soldiery nature as a boy and rejected the artistic-philosophical way of life of his mother as well as the pompous court culture of his father.

In 1696 she received Gut Lietzow (also Lützow), a Prussian mile northwest of Berlin and a piece of land nearby as compensation for her country estate in Caputh near Potsdam, which she had returned to her husband, and commissioned the architect Arnold Nering with the construction a summer residence . When Arnold Nering died a few months later, the master builder Martin Grünberg took over the construction management. Under his direction, two south-facing courtyard buildings were built for the operating rooms and the servants.

Charlottenburg Palace (completed 1713); the three-winged middle section formed the Lützenburg Castle around 1700
Queen Sophie Charlotte (1705)
Sophie Charlotte's sarcophagus in the Berlin Cathedral

The Electress and future Queen lived relatively independently there; her husband Friedrich only had access if he was expressly invited, for example in the summer of July 11, 1699, when the palace was inaugurated on the occasion of the Elector's birthday. Thereafter, the summer residence became Sophie Charlotte's permanent residence. Around 1700 the castle was expanded into a representative three-wing complex under Eosander von Göthe .

Sophie Charlotte was an opponent of Prime Minister Danckelmann's policies ; after his overthrow in 1697, in which she had played a key role, she withdrew to her Lietzenburg Palace, as she was unable to achieve anything politically at the Berlin court. On January 18, 1701, she was crowned the first queen in Prussia by her husband. From 1696 until her death, she raised the orphaned Caroline von Brandenburg-Ansbach as a foster daughter, who was then married by Sophie Charlotte's mother, Electress Sophie von Hanover, to her grandson Georg von Hanover, later King George II of England .

On February 1, 1705, she died of a sore throat while visiting her mother in Hanover. Her body was dissected and embalmed and publicly displayed on a display bed . On March 9th the transfer to Berlin took place, where the funeral service took place in the older Berlin Cathedral and she was buried. The long time lag between death and evacuation can be explained by the elaborate preparations for the funeral ceremonies, especially the erection of funeral architecture that had to be built at the stations of the funeral procession. Today her final resting place is in the Hohenzollern Crypt of the Berlin Cathedral at the Lustgarten in Berlin.

After the queen's death, the king had the Lietzenburg estate renamed Charlottenburg in honor of his deceased wife . This step had mainly dynastic reasons, because Frederick, a monarch ridiculed by the princes of Europe for lack of outstanding ancestors and great deeds, had to endeavor to have the royal dignity acquired in 1701 internationally recognized. He relied on the dynastic tradition of the House of Hanover by glorifying his wife after her death.

Like her mother, Sophie Charlotte is described as very educated. She drew well-known personalities of her time to her court in Lietzenburg, such as the philosopher Leibniz , whom she knew from her time at the Hanoverian court. Leibniz remained her good friend all her life and was a frequent guest in Lietzenburg. They held intensive philosophical disputations and worked together to found a scientific academy in Berlin, which was also founded by Friedrich on July 11, 1700.

Leibniz, who outlived Sophie Charlotte by eleven years, wrote about her after her death: “She often wanted me to be around; I often enjoyed the conversation of a princess whose spirit and humanity were never surpassed by anyone [...] The queen possessed an incredible knowledge even in remote areas and an extraordinary thirst for knowledge, and in our conversations she endeavored to satisfy this more and more, from which one day a not insignificant benefit for the general public would have arisen if it had not been killed by death. "

In Bad Iburg, where she was born, the Charlottensee is named after her. In addition, the so-called racecourse around the lake, which is part of the federal highway 51 , was renamed Charlottenburger Ring. In Berlin-Charlottenburg there has been a grammar school named after her, the Sophie-Charlotte-Oberschule , as well as the Sophie-Charlotte-Platz and the Sophie-Charlotten-Straße since 1957 .

music

Sophie Charlotte was very educated musically. She played the harpsichord excellently , sang and took care of the Italian opera at her court, for the performance of which a separate opera house was built. The musicians Attilio Ariosti and Giovanni Battista Bononcini were in their service for years as court musicians and composed various operas for them. In their performances she performed z. B. in the orchestra as a general bass player on the harpsichord. She also conducted from the harpsichord. In 1700 Arcangelo Corelli dedicated his Opus 5, 12 violin sonatas with accompanying harpsichord to her. In 1987 the city of Berlin organized an exhibition with the exhibition catalog Sophie Charlotte and the music in Lietzenburg [= today Charlottenburg] as a contribution to its 750th anniversary .

Children from the marriage with King Friedrich I.

  • Friedrich August (6 October 1685 - 31 January 1686)
  • Friedrich Wilhelm I. (* August 14, 1688; † May 31, 1740)

literature

Web links

Commons : Sophie Charlotte von Hannover  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Milestone at berlin.de
  2. ↑ Gerhild HM Komander: Sophie Charlotte - Portrait of a Prussian Queen. Lecture on February 18, 2005 at Urania Berlin (online)
  3. ↑ https://www.operundtanz.de/archiv/2020/02/ Background_dirigentinnen.shtml
  4. ^ Sophie Charlotte and the music in Lietzenburg
  5. ↑ As a paperback
predecessor Office Successor
No Queen of Prussia
1701 to 1705 		Sophie Louise
personal data
SURNAME Sophie Charlotte of Hanover
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sophie Charlotte Duchess of Braunschweig and Lüneburg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Prussian queen
DATE OF BIRTH October 30, 1668
PLACE OF BIRTH Bad Iburg
DATE OF DEATH February 1, 1705
Place of death Hanover