Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Charles Friedrich, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach () (2 February 1783 – 8 July 1853) was a Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.

Biography

Born in Weimar, he was the eldest son of Charles Augustus, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Luise Auguste of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Charles Frederick succeeded his famous father as Grand Duke when he died, in 1828. His capital, Weimar, continued to be a cultural center of Central Europe, even after the death of Goethe, in 1832. Johann Nepomuk Hummel made his career in Weimar as Kapellmeister until his death in 1837. Franz Liszt settled in Weimar in 1848 as Kapellmeister and gathered about him a circle that kept the Weimar court a major musical centre. Due to the intervention of Liszt, the composer Richard Wagner found refuge in Weimar after he was forced to flee Saxony for his role in the revolutionary disturbances there in 1848-49. Wagner's opera Lohengrin was first performed in Weimar in August 1850.

Charles Frederick died at Schloss Belvedere, Weimar, in 1853 and was buried in the Weimarer Fürstengruft.

Family and children

In St. Petersburg on 3 August 1804, Charles Frederick married the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, daughter of Emperor Paul I. They had four children:

• Paul Alexander Karl Constantin Frederick August (b. Weimar, 25 September 1805 – d. Weimar, 10 April 1806).
• Marie Luise Alexandrine (b. Weimar, 3 February 1808 – d. Berlin, 18 January 1877), married......
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