Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach - History

History

The duchies of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach had been ruled in personal union by the House of Wettin since 1741, after the Eisenach line had died out upon the death of Duke Wilhelm Heinrich. The first Duke of the personal union was Ernest Augustus I, the who built of the Belvedere Palace in Weimar. His son Ernest Augustus II reigned for only three years, and died at the age of 20 years. At the age of 18, he married the one year younger Brunswick Princess Anna Amalia, a niece of King Frederick II of Prussia. A year later she gave birth to her son, Charles Augustus and after another year, when she was already a widow, to her son Constantine.

As Dowager Duchess Anna Amalia actively took up the regency, with the approval of the Empress Maria Theresa and the support of her ethical Minister Baron von Fritsch. As educator for her sons, she employed the poet Christoph Martin Wieland, who was a professor at the university of Erfurt.

At 18 years of age, Charles Augustus married Princess Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt. He employed the poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe, with whom he soon became friends. Goethe, in turn, invited the authors Johann Gottfried Herders and Friedrich Schiller to Weimar, thus laying the foundation for the Weimar Classicism circle, which was supported in the background by Anna Amalia. Later regents would see it as main task to guard this heritage.

In 1804 Duke Charles Augustus' eldest son and heir Charles Frederick married Maria Pavlovna Romanova, sister of Emperor Alexander I of Russia, a conjugal union which decisively promoted the rise of the Ernestine Saxe-Weimar dynasty. It also gave the duchy some protection during the turmoil of the Napoleonic wars. Though at first an ally of Prussia in the Napoleonic War of the Fourth Coalition, Duke Charles Augustus escaped his deposition by joining the Confederation of the Rhine on 15 December 1806.

After the official merger in 1809, the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach consisted of the separate districts around the capital Weimar in the north and Eisenach in the west. Thanks to their Russian connection, the duchy gained substantially from the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the east, it gained the district of Neustadt an der Orla (629 km²). It also received most of Erfurt, which had been an exclave of Mainz before the war. It further gained smaller possessions, such as Blankenhain and Kranichfeld. In the Rhön area, the Eisenacher Oberland was created from adjacent former parts of Hesse-Kassel and territories held by the secularized Fulda monastery. Finally, the country was raised to a Grand Duchy.

The cosmopolitan Grand Duke gave his grand duchy the first liberal constitution in Germany, on 5 May 1816. Students of the University of Jena organized themselves as Germany's first fraternity, the Urburschenschaft and celebrated Wartburg Festival at the Wartburg in October 1817. Many liberal-minded people participated and the speakers, most of them students, must be regarded as having been among the earliest democrats in Germany.

Maria Pavlovna, who was Grand Duchess from 1828, featuring composers like Franz List and Peter Cornelius. Her art-loving son Charles Alexander (1818-1901), who was Grand Duke from 1853, also supported the arts, and music in particular. He was married to Sophie, who supported his plans, and he rebuilt the decaying Wartburg the romantic historicism style of the day and had it painted by Moritz von Schwind. He also supported, albeit half-heartedly, the founding of the School of Applied Arts in Weimar, which merged to form the Bauhaus in 1919.

In 1901 Charles Alexander was succeeded by his grandson William Ernest, who was married to Caroline Reuss of Greiz and later to Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen (1890–1972). In 1903, the Grand Duchy officially changed its name to Grand Duchy of Saxony. However, many people continue to call it Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, to avoid confusion with the neighbouring Kingdom of Saxony.

William Ernest abdicated the throne on 9 November 1918, thereby ending the monarchy in the state. It continued as the Free State of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, until 1920, when it merged with most of its neighbours to form Thuringia, with Weimar as the state capital.