Maria Kalergis
Encyclopedia
- For her daughter, see Marie Kalergi (1840-1877)Marie Kalergi (1840-1877)Marie Kalergi was a Polish noblewoman. She was the daughter of Jan Kalergi and the pianist Marie Nesselrode, founding the Coudenhove-Kalergi family. On 27 June 1857, she married Franz Karl Coudenhove in Paris...
.
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, 7 August 1822 – 22 May 1874, Warsaw) was a countess, Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
pianist and patron of the arts.
Life
At the age of seventeen Maria Nesselrode married Jan Kalergis, a rich landowner, who was much older and proved to be of a jealous disposition. Though they had a daughter, MarieMarie Kalergi (1840-1877)
Marie Kalergi was a Polish noblewoman. She was the daughter of Jan Kalergi and the pianist Marie Nesselrode, founding the Coudenhove-Kalergi family. On 27 June 1857, she married Franz Karl Coudenhove in Paris...
, born in 1840 in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, less than a year after their wedding they mutually decided to separate. Despite several attempts to overcome their aversion for each other, they would continue living separately, without divorcing, until Jan's death. He ensured Maria a prosperous life; to be sure, after their separation the division of their assets was in dispute, but they did allow her to tour Europe, including Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, Warsaw, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden
Baden-Baden is a spa town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is located on the western foothills of the Black Forest, on the banks of the Oos River, in the region of Karlsruhe...
.
The course of Maria's marriage may have been influenced by her childhood experiences. A year after her birth, her father, Fryderyk Karol Nesselrode (of German descent) and his wife Tekla Nałęcz-Górska (of Polish descent), had separated due to personality differences. From her sixth year, Maria had been reared in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
in the home of her paternal uncle, Karl Robert Nesselrode, a Russian
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
diplomat of German descent who for forty years (1816–56) was the Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
's minister of foreign affairs and who saw to it that Maria received a thorough education.
She may have inherited her musical talent from her parents, and for a while took lessons from Chopin, who praised her talent. She was taught Polish by her mother and also spoke French (then the language of Polish salon
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
s), German, English, Italian and Russian.
She is remembered as the great love of Cyprian Norwid
Cyprian Norwid
Cyprian Kamil Norwid, a.k.a. Cyprian Konstanty Norwid is a nationally esteemed Polish poet, dramatist, painter, and sculptor. He was born in the Masovian village of Laskowo-Głuchy near Warsaw. One of his maternal ancestors was Polish King John III Sobieski.Norwid is regarded as one of the second...
. For her, the acquaintance with the young poet was but one of many episodes in an active social life. He, shy and deferential, withdrew into the shade of the beautiful Maria's other admirers. For many years he harbored feelings for her that more than once served him as a source of poetic inspiration. He confided his feelings in letters to Maria Trembicka (General Stanisław Trębicki's daughter who later married a man named Faleński), a close friend of the "white siren." Encouraged by his confidante's friendship, he proposed to Maria Kalergis but was not accepted.
From 1847 she lived in Paris, then from 1857 in Warsaw. Guests at her salons included Liszt
Liszt
Liszt is a Hungarian surname. Notable persons with that surname include:* Franz Liszt , Hungarian composer and pianist* Adam Liszt , father of Franz Liszt* Anna Liszt , mother of Franz Liszt...
, Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
(who dedicated Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
to her), de Musset
Alfred de Musset
Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du siècle from 1836.-Biography:Musset was born on 11 December 1810 in Paris...
, Moniuszko
Stanisław Moniuszko
Stanisław Moniuszko was a Polish composer, conductor and teacher. His output includes many songs and operas, and his musical style is filled with patriotic folk themes of the peoples of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
, Gautier
Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic....
, Heine
Heinrich Heine
Christian Johann Heinrich Heine was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, essayist, and literary critic. He is best known outside Germany for his early lyric poetry, which was set to music in the form of Lieder by composers such as Robert Schumann...
(who dedicated his poem "The White Elephant" to her) and Chopin. Back in Warsaw she became a patroness of the arts and took part in charity fund-raising concerts and theatrical performances. Her resources were always available to those in need.
When Stanisław Moniuszko
Stanisław Moniuszko
Stanisław Moniuszko was a Polish composer, conductor and teacher. His output includes many songs and operas, and his musical style is filled with patriotic folk themes of the peoples of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
wanted to premiere the four-act version of his opera Halka
Halka
Halka is an opera by the Polish composer Stanisław Moniuszko. The libretto was by Wlodzimierz Wolski , a young Warsaw poet with radical social views. It is part of the canon of Polish national operas.-Performance history:...
in Warsaw, he was opposed by the director of the Warsaw government theaters, Siergiej Muchanow
Siergiej Muchanow
Siergiej Siergiejewicz Muchanow was a Russian official, an officer in the Special Corps of Gendarmes, director of the Warsaw Theatre Directorate and second husband of the Polish pianist Maria Kalergis.-Life:He was the son of Sergiej Aleksandrowicz Muchanow, governor of Kharkiv, and Minadora...
(who was also the Warsaw chief of police and in 1863 would become Maria's second husband). Thanks to Maria's intervention, Moniuszko managed to get the opera put on. Three months after the January 1858 opening, she organized a concert to benefit Moniuszko, who was having financial difficulties. The concert raised 25,000 Polish złotych, which enabled the composer to meet his basic needs and take a journey abroad.
Maria Kalergis had an appreciable influence on the development of musical culture, helping found the Warsaw Musical Institute (now the Warsaw Conservatory) and founding with Moniuszko the Warsaw Musical Society, now the Warsaw Philharmonic
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra
The Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra , one of Poland's premier musical institutions, was established in 1901 on the initiative of an assembly of Polish aristocrats and financiers, as well as musicians...
. In 1857–71 she frequently appeared as a pianist.
Soon after her husband's death in 1863, she married Siergiej Muchanow
Siergiej Muchanow
Siergiej Siergiejewicz Muchanow was a Russian official, an officer in the Special Corps of Gendarmes, director of the Warsaw Theatre Directorate and second husband of the Polish pianist Maria Kalergis.-Life:He was the son of Sergiej Aleksandrowicz Muchanow, governor of Kharkiv, and Minadora...
, ten years her junior. He was with her during her illness and nursed her devotedly through her final days. It was probably then that, sensing the approaching end of her life, Maria destroyed her correspondence. Her letters to her daughter, son-in-law and friends have survived, however, and have made it possible to reconstruct many facts about her life and are a valuable source of knowledge about the period. She was interred at Warsaw's Powązki Cemetery
Powazki Cemetery
Powązki Cemetery , also known as the Stare Powązki is a historic cemetery located in the Wola district, western part of Warsaw, Poland. It is the most famous cemetery in the city, and one of the oldest...
. On her death, Liszt wrote his Elegy on Marie Kalergi.
Descendents
Maria Kalergis' grandson, Jan Henryk Maria Count Coudenhove, with Emperor Franz JosefFranz Josef
Franz Josef or Franz Joseph is a given name.People known solely by the name:* Franz Joseph I of Austria , Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary and King of Bohemia...
's permission, changed his surname to Coudenhove-Calergi. He married a Japanese lady, Mitsuko Aoyama
Mitsuko Aoyama
Mitsuko, Countess of Coudenhove-Kalergi , formerly known as , was one of the first Japanese people to emigrate to Europe, after becoming the wife of an Austrian diplomat, Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi, in Tokyo...
. Their son, Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, in 1923 founded the Paneuropean Union.