Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (1786–1859)

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (Russian: Мария Павловна; 16 February 1786 [OS 5 February] – 23 June 1859) was the third daughter of Paul I of Russia and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. She was the Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach by her marriage to Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.

This name uses Eastern Slavic naming customs; the patronymic is Pavlovna.
Maria Pavlovna of Russia
Portrait by Vladimir Borovikovsky, 1800s
Grand Duchess consort of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Tenure14 June 1828 – 8 July 1853
Born(1786-02-16)16 February 1786
Saint Petersburg, Empire of Russia
Died23 June 1859(1859-06-23) (aged 73)
Belvedere Palace, Weimar, Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Imperial Confederate of Germany
Spouse
IssuePrince Charles
Marie, Princess Charles of Prussia
Augusta, German Empress and Queen of Prussia
Charles Alexander, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Full name
Maria Pavlovna Romanova
HouseRomanov
FatherPaul I of Russia
MotherSophie Dorothea of Württemberg

Life

Born on 16 February 1786 in St. Petersburg to Paul I of Russia and his wife Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg (Maria Feodorovna), she was named after her mother and their third daughter and fifth child. Maria Pavlovna was raised at her father's palaces at Pavlovsk and at the nearby Gatchina.

She was the sister of:

As a child, she was not considered pretty: her features were disfigured as a result of a pioneering application of the Smallpox vaccine. Her grandmother, Catherine II of Russia, admired her precocious talent as a pianist but declared that she would have been better to have been born a boy. Her music instructor was Giuseppe Sarti (1729-1802), an Italian composer and Kapellmeister at the Russian court. From 1798, she was taught music by Ludwig-Wilhelm Tepper de Ferguson (1768-1838). In 1796 her grandmother died, making her father the new Emperor of Russia as Paul I.

Marriage

On 3 August 1804, she married Charles Frederick, Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (later Grand Duke) (2 February 1783 – 8 July 1853). The couple stayed in St. Petersburg for nine months, before departing for Weimar. There Maria was greeted with a bout of festivities, as described by Christoph Martin Wieland: "The most festive part of all the magnificence of balls, fireworks, promenades, comedies, illuminations was the widespread and genuine joy at the arrival of our new princess".

Children

Maria and Carl had four children:

After the death of the Grand Duke Charles Frederick in 1853 she retired from public life.

Her last trip to Russia was to the coronation of her nephew as Alexander II of Russia in 1855.

Patronage of arts and sciences

Maria Pavlovna was interested in arts as well as in sciences. She was a patroness of art, science and social welfare in the poor Grand-Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. She maintained a lifelong correspondence with Vasily Zhukovsky and it was to her that Schiller dedicated one of his last poems. She attended ten courses at the University of Jena, some delivered by Alexander von Humboldt, and was instrumental in establishing the Falk Institute in Weimar.

She selected, as tutor to her son Charles Alexander, the Genevan Frédéric Soret, who became well acquainted with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In her later years, Maria Pavlovna invited Franz Liszt to her court, restoring a measure of artistic excellence previously associated with Weimar. He was appointed Kapellmeister Extraordinaire in 1842, and settled there from 1848 (after giving up the concert platform) until after her death. However, the Duchess's growing deafness prevented her from enjoying the premiere of Wagner's opera Lohengrin under Liszt's direction in Weimar on 28 August 1850.

Most famous were the "Literary Evenings (Literarische Abende)" where scholars from the neighboring Jena University and others from outside the Grand-Dukedom were invited to give lectures on various topics. This circle was a focus in post-classical Weimar.

Several collections of the Jena University benefitted by her patronage, among them the Grandducal Oriental Coin Cabinet founded in 1840 by Johann Gustav Stickel, orientalist at the University.

Schiller praised her "talents in music and painting and genuine love of reading", while Goethe hailed her as one of the worthiest women of his time.

Her Traces in Jena and Weimar
Medal by Angela Facius on her 50th anniversary in Weimar in 1854

She owned a small chalet close to Jena, owned formerly by the Protestant theologist of Enlightenment Griesbach, where she used to spend the summer with her children. Maria Pavlovna is buried in Weimar, in a Russian-style chapel next to the Weimarer Fürstengruft.

Ancestry
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References
  • Jena, Detlef, Maria Pawlowna. Großherzogin an Weimars Musenhof, Regensburg 1999.
  • Ihre Kaiserliche Hoheit. Maria Pawlowna. Zarentochter am Weimarer Hof, ed. Stiftung Weimarer Klassik und Kunstsammlungen, Weimar, Weimar 2004.
  • Jeanne Huc-Mazelet, Je suis moi, ils sont eux. Lettres et journal d'une gouvernante à la cour de Russie, 1790-1804, fr:Ethno-Doc, 2018, 256 p. (ISBN 978-2-8290-0584-8). (Jeanne Huc-Mazelet was at Maria Pavlovna's service).
Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (1786–1859)
House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
Cadet branch of the House of Oldenburg
Born: 16 February 1786 Died: 23 June 1859
German royalty
Preceded by
Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt		 Grand Duchess consort of Saxe-Weimar
14 June 1828 – 8 July 1853		 Succeeded by
Sophie of the Netherlands
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