Maria Pavlovna of Russia
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- :For other uses, see Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia
Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (Russian: Великая княжна Мария Павловна) (February 16, 1786–June 23, 1859) was the third daughter of Paul I of Russia and Sophie Marie Dorothea of Württemberg, notable as a patron of arts and literature at the court of Weimar. 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.
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, admired her precocious talent as a pianist but declared that she'd better be born a boy. Her music instructor was Giuseppe Sarti, a composer.
In 1804, she married Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, with whom they stayed in Saint Petersburg for nine months, before departing for Weimar. There she 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".
One of her and Charles Frederick's children, Augusta, married Wilhelm I in 1829 and became Empress of Germany. Maria Pavlovna was interested in arts as well as sciences. 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.
In her later years, Maria Pavlovna invited Franz Liszt to her court, restoring a measure of artistic excellence previously associated with Weimar. However, her growing deafness prevented her from enjoying the premiere of Lohengrin in Weimar on 28 August, 1850. Her last trip to Russia was to the coronation of her nephew as Alexander II of Russia. Maria Pavlovna is buried in Weimar, in a Russian-style chapel by the side of the Goethe-Schiller Mausoleum.
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