'VOM EISE BEFREIT SIND STROM UND BÄCHE' - EINE OSTERREISE 2016

Auf den Spuren von Hermann, Fürst von Pückler-Muskau

Photographs by berlinzerberus
Hermann von Pückler-Muskau was the first of five children of Count Carl Ludwig Hans Erdmann Pückler, and the Countess Clementine of Callenberg, who gave birth to him at age 15. He was born at Muskau Castle [now Bad Muskau] in Upper Lusatia, then ruled by the Electorate of Saxony. He served for some time in a cavalry regiment at Dresden, and afterwards traveled through France and Italy, often by foot. In 1811, after the death of his father, he inherited the big Standesherrschaft [barony] of Muskau. Joining the war of liberation against Napoleon I of France, he left Muskau under the General Inspectorate of his friend, the writer and composer Leopold Schefer. As an officer under the Duke of Saxe-Weimar he distinguished himself in the field and was made military and civil governor of Bruges.
Letter of Count Puckler to Farina in Cologne 1811

After the war he retired from the army and visited England, where he remained about a year, visiting Her Majesty's Theatre, Haymarket and Drury Lane [admiring Eliza O'Neill], studying parks [he visited the Ladies of Llangollen] and high society, being himself a member of it. In 1822, in compensation for certain privileges which he resigned, he was raised to the rank of "Fürst" by King Frederick William III of Prussia. In 1817 he had married the Dowager Countess Lucie von Pappenheim, née von Hardenberg, daughter of Prussian statesman Prince Karl August von Hardenberg; the marriage was legally dissolved after nine years, in 1826, though the parties did not separate and remained on amicable terms.

Mahbuba, ca. 1840

He returned to England in 1828 where he became something of a celebrity in London society spending nearly two years in search of a wealthy second wife capable of funding his ambitious gardening schemes. In 1828 his tours took him to Ireland, notably to the seat of Daniel O'Connell in Kerry. On his return home he published a not entirely frank account of his time in England. The book was an enormous success in Germany, and also caused a great stir when it appeared in English as Tour of a German Prince [1831–32].

Being a daring character, he subsequently traveled in Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt and Sudan and explored ancient Nubia. He is documented as having visiting the site of Naqa in modern-day Sudan in 1837. He also visited the nearby site of Musawwara, and in both places he carved his name in the stone of the temples. In the same year, at the slave market of Cairo he was enchanted by an Ethopian girl in her early teens whom he promptly bought and named Mahbuba ["the beloved"]. Together they continued a romantic voyage in Asia Minor and Greece. In Vienna he introduced Mahbuba to European high society, but the girl developed tuberculosis and died in Muskau in 1840. Later he would write that she was "the being I loved most of all the world."

Muskau and Branitz Park

He then lived at Berlin and Muskau, where he spent much time in cultivating and improving the still existing Muskau Park. In 1845 he sold this estate, and, although he afterwards lived from time to time at various places in Germany and Italy, his principal residence became Schloss Branitz near Cottbus, where he laid out another splendid park.

Politically he was a liberal, supporting the Prussian reforms of Freiherr vom Stein. This, together with his pantheism and his extravagant lifestyle, made him slightly suspect in the society of the Biedermeier period.

In 1863 he was made a hereditary member of the Prussian House of Lords, and in 1866 he attended — by then an octogenarian — the Prussian general staff in the Austro-Prussian War. In 1871 he died at Branitz, and, in accordance with instructions in his will, his body was cremated.
[Wikipedia]
François-Adrien Boïeldieu [1775-1834]

Overtüre zu 'Der Kalif von Bagdad'
Dresdener Philharmonie

Herbert Kegel, Leitung
by berlinzerberus

Видео 'VOM EISE BEFREIT SIND STROM UND BÄCHE' - EINE OSTERREISE 2016 канала berlinzerberus