Russian Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna in German sources and historiography

The article gives an overview of German sources about the life of the Russian Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna, born Princess Luisa Maria Augusta of Baden, the spouse of the Russian Emperor Alexander I. These unknown and hitherto unexplored German sources were discovered in Germany, in Baden-Wurttemberg, the homeland of the Empress where she had lived for the first 13 years of her life and which she later visited in 1814-1815 and 1818-1819. Materials discovered in Baden archives, museums and libraries are analysed. The major items from museums, such as the private belongings of the Empress, portraits, medals, belongings of her relatives from the Zering family, are described. Furthermore, the private papers of the Empress from the Karlsruhe archives are represented, as well as 20 out of her 3000 letters that the Baden State Library keeps. For the first time the most significant memoirs of the Empress's German contemporaries are presented and analysed. The German printed media is widely represented, in particular Baden, Leipzig, Weimar-Eisenach, Berlin and Hamburg newspapers and journals which covered the visit of the Empress to Western Europe. The major memoirs and printed media of the early 19 century giving the coverage of the Vienna Congress are presented.

Keywords

Authors

References