Weimar Court of Muses

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The Weimar Musenhof .
Friedrich Schiller declaims in the Tiefurter Park . Among the audience, second person on the far left (seated with a view of Schiller) Herder , in the center of the picture (seated with cap) Wieland and right (standing) Goethe (oil painting by Theobald von Oer , 1860, today on loan from the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in the office of the office of the German Federal President in Bellevue Palace )

The Weimar Musenhof is the culturally interested circle ( Musenhof ) that Anna Amalia von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach , "Duchess Mother", gathered around her in 1775 since her son Karl August von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1757-1828) took over government ; "One dealt with books read together, with the plays that had just gone on stage, the musical events of the season or worked on the journals and paperbacks that were published in Weimar, Tiefurt or Jena." Meeting points were the Wittumspalais , the Anna Amalia had moved in in 1774, as well as the rural summer seats of Ettersburg (Ettersburg Castle and Park ) and Tiefurt Castle . The circle consisted of nobles and commoners, courtiers, civil servants, writers, artists and scientists. The duchess of the poet and philosopher Christoph Martin Wieland , whom she had brought to court in 1772 to teach her two sons, was on hand to create a neat and witty sociability . Other members or guests of the group included Goethe , the philosopher and theologian Johann Gottfried Herder , general superintendent in Weimar, the court ladies Luise von Göchhausen and Baron Henriette Wolfskeel von Reichenberg , the chamberlains Friedrich Hildebrand von Einsiedel and Karl Siegmund von Seckendorff , the writer and page steward Johann Karl August Musäus , the court dance master Johann Adam Aulhorn and many more. In 1771 Anna Amalia invited the Seylersche Drama Society with several prominent actors and playwrights, including Konrad Ekhof and the principal Abel Seyler , to her court; however, after the castle fire in 1774, the company had to leave Anna Amalia's court and move to Gotha.

This conception of a “Weimar court of muses” has been criticized since the 1990s as the creation of legends of the 19th century and thus negated. It is pointed out that the Weimarer Hof is nowhere referred to as a “court of the muses” in the sources from around 1800 and that Anna Amalia wanted the usual class barriers to be preserved.

In the spread of the striking and memorable Musenhof attribution, four levels can be distinguished:

  • In 1807 Goethe's obituary for Anna Amalia appeared in several journals, who also used her death as a cultural self-stylization of Weimar.
  • In 1908 Wilhelm Bode published a trilogy about the life of Anna Amalia, including Volume 2: The Court of Muses of the Duchess Amalie, Berlin 1908; it has been published repeatedly under the title The Weimar Court of Muses and is accordingly influential.
  • In 1844 the historian Wilhelm Wachsmuth published a “historical sketch” in which the term “court of the muses” was used for the first time.
  • The “court of the muses”, solidified into a formula, has been spread for decades, in particular through popular representations, but also by many scholars - general and literary historians. In an attempt at typology that appeared in 1993, the “Court of the Muses” is named as one of five types of Fürstenhof and Weimar is called the “Court of the Muses par excellence” .

In the meantime, however, after the widespread use of sources, the “Weimar Musenhof” has been abandoned as a historical myth .

literature

  • Ilse-Marie Barth: Literary Weimar. Metzler, Stuttgart 1971.
  • Volker Bauer: Court society in Germany from the middle of the 17th to the end of the 18th century. Attempt a typology. Tubingen 1993.
  • Joachim Berger: The Invention of the Weimar “Musenhofs” by editions in the 19th century, in: Dieter Degreif (Ed.): Archives and cultural history. Lectures from the 70th German Archives Day, Siegburg 2001, pp. 295–314.
  • Joachim Berger (Hrsg.): The "court of the muses" Anna Amalias: sociability, patronage and art lover in classical Weimar. Cologne et al. 2001, ISBN 3-412-13500-3 .
  • Joachim Berger: Anna Amalia von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1739–1807): Spaces for thought and action of an "enlightened" duchess. Winter, Heidelberg 2003, ISBN 3-8253-1516-9 .
  • Stefanie Freyer: The Weimarer Hof around 1800. A social history beyond myth. Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-486-72502-5 .
  • Heide Schulz: Weimar's most beautiful star: Anna Amalia of Saxony-Weimar and Eisenach. Source texts for the creation of an icon. Winter, Heidelberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8253-5887-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ilse-Marie Barth: Literary Weimar. Metzler, Stuttgart 1971. p. 45
  2. ↑ Stefanie Freyer: "The Weimar Court around 1800. A Social History Beyond Myth". Munich 2013, pp. 11 and 15.
  3. ↑ Joachim Berger: "Anna Amalia von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1739–1807): Spaces of thought and action of an 'enlightened' Duchess". Heidelberg 2003, p. 17.
  4. ↑ Stefanie Freyer: "The Weimarer Hof around 1800. A social history beyond myth." Munich 2013, p. 11.
  5. ↑ Volker Bauer: “Court society in Germany from the middle of the 17th to the end of the 18th century. An attempt at a typology ”. Tübingen 1993, p. 76.

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