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Charles Augustus | |
---|---|
Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach | |
Reign | 9 June 1815 – 14 June 1828 |
Predecessor | Raised from duchy |
Successor | Charles Frederick |
Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach | |
Reign | 20 September 1809 – 9 June 1815 |
Predecessor | New creation from personal union |
Successor | Raised to grand duchy |
Duke of Saxe-Weimar | |
Reign | 28 May 1758– 20 September 1809 |
Predecessor | Ernest Augustus II |
Successor | Union with Saxe-Eisenach |
Regent | Dowager Duchess Anna Amalia |
Duke of Saxe-Eisenach | |
Reign | 28 May 1758– 20 September 1809 |
Predecessor | Ernest Augustus II |
Successor | Union with Saxe-Weimar |
Regent | Dowager Duchess Anna Amalia |
Born | Weimar, Duchy of Saxe-Weimar, Holy Roman Empire (now in Thuringia, Germany) | 3 September 1757
Died | 14 June 1828 70) Graditz, near Torgau, Province of Saxony, Kingdom of Prussia (now in Saxony, Germany) | (aged
Spouse | |
Issue | |
House | Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach |
Father | Ernest Augustus II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach |
Mother | Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel |
Religion | Lutheranism |
Karl August, sometimes anglicised as Charles Augustus (3 September 1757 – 14 June 1828), was the sovereign Duke of Saxe-Weimar and of Saxe-Eisenach (in personal union) from 1758, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach from its creation (as a political union) in 1809, and grand duke from 1815 until his death. He is noted for the intellectual brilliance of his court. [1]
Born in Weimar, he was the eldest son of Ernst August II, Duke of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach (Ernest Augustus II), and Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.
His father died when he was only nine months old (28 May 1758), and the boy was brought up under the regency and supervision of his mother. His governor was the Count Johann Eustach von Görtz and in 1771, Christoph Martin Wieland was appointed his tutor. In 1774 the poet Karl Ludwig von Knebel came to Weimar as tutor to his brother, the young Prince Frederick Ferdinand Constantin, and in the same year the two princes set out, with Count Görtz and Knebel, for Paris. At Frankfurt, Knebel introduced Karl August to the young Goethe. [2]
In Karlsruhe on 3 October 1775, after he returned to Weimar and assumed the government of his duchy, Karl August married Luise Auguste, daughter of Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. [2]
One of the first acts of the young duke was to summon Goethe to Weimar, and in 1776 he was made a member of the privy council. "People of discernment," the duke said, "congratulate me on possessing this man. His intellect, his genius is known. It makes no difference if the world is offended because I have made Dr Goethe a member of my most important collegium without his having passed through the stages of minor official professor and councillor of state." [2]
The Weimaraner , a breed of gun dog is said to have been developed by August and his court for hunting. Karl August was also interested in literature, in art, in science, funding Goethe and the foundation of the Weimar Princely Free Drawing School and encouraging Weimar Classicism.[ citation needed ] Critics praised his judgment in painting; biologists found in him an expert in anatomy. [2]
His aim was to educate his people to work out their own political and social salvation, the object of education being in his view, as he explained later to the dismay of Metternich and his school, to help men to independence of judgment. To this end Herder was summoned to Weimar to reform the educational system and the University of Jena attained the zenith of its fame under his rule. Weimar became the intellectual centre of Germany. [3]
Meanwhile, in the affairs of Germany and of Europe the character of Karl August gave him an influence out of all proportion to his position as a sovereign prince.[ citation needed ] He had early faced the problem presented by the decay of the Holy Roman Empire, and began to work for the unity of Germany. The plans of Emperor Joseph II, which threatened to absorb a great part of Germany into the heterogeneous Habsburg monarchy, threw him into the arms of Prussia, and he was the prime mover in the establishment of the league of princes ( Fürstenbund ) in 1785, by which, under the leadership of Frederick the Great, Joseph's intrigues were frustrated.[ citation needed ] He was, however, under no illusion as to the power of Austria, and he refused the offer of the Hungarian crown.[ citation needed ] In 1788 Karl August took service in the Prussian army as major-general in active command of a regiment. As such he was present, with Goethe, at the Battle of Valmy in 1792, and in 1794 at the Siege of Mainz and the Battle of Pirmasenz (14 September) and Kaiserslautern (28–30 November). After this, dissatisfied with the attitude of the powers, he resigned, but rejoined on the accession of his friend King Frederick William III to the Prussian throne. The disastrous campaign of Jena (1806) followed. On 14 October, the day after the battle, Weimar was sacked, and Karl August, to prevent the confiscation of his territories, was forced to join the Confederation of the Rhine. From this time till after the Moscow campaign of 1812 his contingent fought on the French side in all Napoleon's wars. In 1813, however, he joined the Sixth Coalition, and at the beginning of 1814 took command of a corps of 30,000 men operating in the Netherlands. [3]
At the Congress of Vienna (1815) Karl August was present in person and protested vainly against the narrow policy of the powers in confining their debates to the rights of the princes to the exclusion of the rights of the people. His services in the war of liberation were rewarded with an extension of territory and the title of grand duke (Großherzog), but his liberal attitude had already made him suspect, and his subsequent action brought him still further into confrontation with the reactionary powers. He was the first of the German princes to grant a liberal constitution to his state under Article XIII of the Act of Confederation (5 May 1816) and his concession of liberty to the press made Weimar for a while the focus of journalistic agitation against the existing order. Metternich dubbed him contemptuously der grosse Bursche for his patronage of the revolutionary Burschenschaften , and the celebrated festival held at the Wartburg by his permission in 1817, though in effect the mildest of political demonstrations, brought down upon him the wrath of the great powers. The grand duke was compelled to yield to the remonstrances of Prussia, Austria and Russia. The liberty of the press was again restricted in the grand duchy, but, thanks to the good understanding between the grand duke and his people, the regime of the Carlsbad Decrees pressed less heavily upon Weimar than upon other German states.[ citation needed ]
Karl August died at Graditz, near Torgau, in 1828. Karl von Dalberg, the prince-primate, who owed the co-adjutorship of Mainz to the duke's friendship, said that he had never met a prince with so much understanding, character, frankness and true-heartedness; the Milanese, when he visited their city, called him the uomo principe, and Goethe himself said of him that "he had the gift of discriminating intellects and characters and setting each one in his place. He was inspired by the noblest good-will, the purest humanity, and with his whole soul desired only what was best. There was in him something of the divine. He would gladly have wrought the happiness of all mankind. And finally, he was greater than his surroundings. ... Everywhere he himself saw and judged, and in all circumstances his surest foundation was in himself." Karl August's correspondence with Goethe was published in 2 volumes at Weimar in 1863. [3]
He left two surviving sons: Karl Frederick, by whom he was succeeded, and Karl Bernhard, a soldier, who, after the Congress of Vienna, became colonel of a regiment in the service of the King of the Netherlands, served as commander of the Dutch troops in the Belgian campaign of 1830 (the Ten Days' Campaign), and from 1847 to 1850 held the command of the forces in the Dutch East Indies. Bernhard's son, William Augustus Edward, known as Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar (1823–1902), entered the British army and ended his career as a field marshal. [3]
Karl August's only surviving daughter, Caroline Louise, married Frederick Ludwig, Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and was the mother of Helene (1814–1858), wife of Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans, eldest son of Louis Philippe I, King of France. [3]
Ancestors of Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach [4] |
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Karl August and Luise Auguste had seven children:
In addition, Karl August acknowledged five children by him born out of wedlock:
The House of Wettin was a dynasty of German kings, prince-electors, dukes, and counts that once ruled territories in the present-day German states of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. The dynasty is one of the oldest in Europe, and its origins can be traced back to the town of Wettin, Saxony-Anhalt. The Wettins gradually rose to power within the Holy Roman Empire. Members of the family became the rulers of several medieval states, starting with the Saxon Eastern March in 1030. Other states they gained were Meissen in 1089, Thuringia in 1263, and Saxony in 1423. These areas cover large parts of Central Germany as a cultural area of Germany.
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was a German state, created as a duchy in 1809 by the merger of the Ernestine duchies of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach, which had been in personal union since 1741. It was raised to a grand duchy in 1815 by resolution of the Congress of Vienna. In 1903, it officially changed its name to the Grand Duchy of Saxony, but this name was rarely used. The grand duchy came to an end in the German Revolution of 1918–19 with the other monarchies of the German Empire. It was succeeded by the Free State of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, which was merged into the new Free State of Thuringia two years later.
Karl Ludwig von Knebel was a German poet and translator.
Saxe-Weimar was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the Wettin dynasty in present-day Thuringia. The chief town and capital was Weimar. The Weimar branch was the most genealogically senior extant branch of the House of Wettin.
Charles Frederick was the reigning Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
Ernst August II Konstantin, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, was the reigning Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
Maria Pavlovna was a grand duchess of Russia as the daughter of Paul I, Emperor of all the Russias and Empress Maria Feodorovna and later became the Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach by her marriage to Charles Frederick of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1783–1853).
Princess Marie Luise Alexandrina of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was a princess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, by birth, and, by marriage, a princess of Prussia. She was the daughter of Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia.
Charles Alexander was the ruler of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach as its grand duke from 1853 until his death.
Charles Augustus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, was a German prince and head of the grand ducal house of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
Michael, Prince of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach is the current head of the Grand Ducal House of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, as well as the most senior agnate of the entire House of Wettin.
Ernest Augustus I, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, was a duke of Saxe-Weimar and, from 1741, of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
Karl August, Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was a German prince and Hereditary Grand Duke (Erbgroßherzog) of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
Princess and Landgravine Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt was a German princess. She was the daughter of Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. On 3 October 1775 she married duke Charles Augustus of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and as such a member of the court sphere of Weimar Classicism. She was held to be serious and introverted but also compassionate and sympathetic, in the aftermath of the Battle of Jena which guaranteed her part in the later "myth of Weimar" ("Weimarmythos").
Princess Ida Caroline of Saxe-Meiningen, was a German princess, a member of the House of Wettin, and by marriage Princess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
Karl von Heygendorff was a German officer in the army of the Kingdom of Saxony, rising to major general.
Princess Pauline of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was the wife of Charles Augustus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
The atheism dispute was an event in German cultural history that lasted between 1798 and 1800 and had an effect on the German philosophy in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries.
Prince Frederick Ferdinand Constantin of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was a titular Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and a major general in the army of the Electorate of Saxony. He lived during the Age of Enlightenment.