Princess Princess is a title used by a female member of a regnant monarch's family or by a female ruler of a principality. The male equivalent is a prince (from Latin '' princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for ...

Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein (née Iwanowska, ; 8 February 18199 March 1887) was a Polish noblewoman who is best known for her 40-year relationship with musician

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...

. She was also an amateur journalist and essayist. It is conjectured that she did much of the actual writing of several of Liszt's publications, especially his 1852 ''Life of Chopin''. She maintained an enormous correspondence with Liszt and many others, which is of vital historical interest. She admired and encouraged

Hector Berlioz Louis-Hector Berlioz (11 December 1803 – 8 March 1869) was a French Romantic music, Romantic composer and conductor. His output includes orchestral works such as the ''Symphonie fantastique'' and ''Harold en Italie, Harold in Italy'' ...

, as is clear from their extensive correspondence, and Berlioz dedicated his ''

Les Troyens ''Les Troyens'' (; in English: ''The Trojans'') is a French grand opera in five acts, running for about five hours, by Hector Berlioz. The libretto was written by Berlioz himself from Virgil's epic poem the ''Aeneid''; the score was composed be ...

'' to her.

Biography

Early years and first marriage

Karolina Elżbieta Iwanowska was born at her maternal grandfather's home in Monasterzyska, now in western

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

but then part of the

Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria The Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, also known as Austrian Galicia or colloquially Austrian Poland, was a constituent possession of the Habsburg monarchy in the historical region of Galicia (Eastern Europe), Galicia in Eastern Europe. The Cr ...

, a crownland of the

Austrian Empire The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a Multinational state, multinational European Great Powers, great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the Habsburg monarchy, realms of the Habsburgs. Duri ...

. She was the only child of wealthy parents, members of the untitled Polish nobility, Piotr Iwanowski (1791-1844) and his wife, Paulina Leonharda Podowska whose massive holdings of land in

Podolia Podolia or Podillia is a historic region in Eastern Europe located in the west-central and southwestern parts of Ukraine and northeastern Moldova (i.e. northern Transnistria). Podolia is bordered by the Dniester River and Boh River. It features ...

included more than 30,000

serf Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed du ...

s. On 26 April 1836, just two months after her 17th birthday (and with pressure from her father), Carolyne married Prince Nicholas von Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg-Ludwigsburg (1812–1864), a German officer in the Russian service who was also a member of an ancient noble house as the son of Prince Peter zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg-Ludwigsburg. They briefly lived together in

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

(where Nicholas served as the governor), but she was unhappy in the city and moved to her country home at Woronińce (today Voronivtsi (''Воронівці''), in Khmilnyk Raion), one of her family's many estates. They had one child together, Marie Pauline Antoinette (1837–1920), who in 1859 married Prince Konstantin of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst.

Independence and Liszt

Princess Carolyne was a fervent Roman Catholic, but separated from her husband after only a few years of marriage. In 1844 her father died, leaving her a fortune. On 2 February 1847 ( O.S.), while on a business trip to Kyiv, she attended a piano recital by

during his third tour of the Russian Empire, at the peak of his international celebrity. After meeting in person, she invited him to Woronińce, first for her daughter's 10th birthday party and then for an extended stay. In September 1847, Liszt permanently retired from touring and began living with Carolyne at Woronińce, where he composed significant portions of the '' Harmonies poétiques et religieuses''. The following year, they moved together to the German city of

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

, where Liszt had already been appointed as ''

Kapellmeister ( , , ), from German (chapel) and (master), literally "master of the chapel choir", designates the leader of an ensemble of musicians. Originally used to refer to somebody in charge of music in a chapel, the term has evolved considerably in i ...

Extraordinaire'', and where the couple would remain for over a decade.

Rome and attempted annulment

Eventually, Carolyne wished to regularise their situation and marry Liszt, but since her husband was still living, she had to convince the Roman Catholic authorities that her marriage to him had been invalid. After an intricate process that involved moving to

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

and making two direct papal audiences, she temporarily was successful (September 1860), and the couple planned to marry in Rome on 22 October 1861, Liszt's 50th birthday. Liszt arrived in Rome the previous day, only to find the princess unable to marry him. It is possible that both her husband and the

tsar of Russia The Tsar of all Russia, formally the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, was the title of the Russian monarch from 1547 to 1721. During this period, the state was a tsardom. The first Russian monarch to be crowned as tsar was Ivan ...

managed to quash permission for the marriage at the Vatican. The Russian government also impounded her several estates (she owned thousands of

serfs Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed dur ...

), which made her later marriage to Liszt, or anyone else, unfeasible. Furthermore, the scandal would have seriously harmed her daughter's marriageability, clearly the main reason why the prince put an end to his wife's scheduled remarriage but this was a real problem only before the marriage of their daughter in 1859.

Rome alone

After the aborted wedding, Carolyne's relationship with Liszt became one of platonic companionship, especially after 1865 when he received minor orders in the Catholic Church and became an

abbé ''Abbé'' (from Latin , in turn from Greek , , from Aramaic ''abba'', a title of honour, literally meaning "the father, my father", emphatic state of ''abh'', "father") is the French word for an abbot. It is also the title used for lower-ranki ...

. Though they no longer lived together, they remained connected, for example dining together when Liszt was in Rome, and naming each other as chief beneficiary of their wills. Carolyne spent her final several decades in Rome writing extensively (and very critically) on church issues. She was devastated by Liszt's death and survived him only a few months, dying on 9 March 1887 in Rome.

Works

Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein was a prolific writer, publishing at least 44 volumes of prose from 1868 to 1887. Most of her works were privately printed; the chief of these was ''Causes intérieures de la faiblesse extérieure de l'Église en 1870'' (the title could be translated as "The Inward Reasons for the Church's Outward Weakness"), a massive 24-volume undertaking. This work was compared to the liberal heterodoxy of Lamennais, and Volumes III and V were placed on the

Index Librorum Prohibitorum The (English: ''Index of Forbidden Books'') was a changing list of publications deemed heretical or contrary to morality by the Sacred Congregation of the Index (a former dicastery of the Roman Curia); Catholics were forbidden to print or re ...

, the Catholic Church's list of banned books. Her preface to the first volume argues that her writings, "which seem to reveal the weaknesses of the Church, actually reveal its strength. By showing the "inner causes" of its weakness, they show at the same time that these causes come from human faults. These are therefore excusable, the government of the Church having been entrusted by the Man-God who established it not to the angels, but to men, always imperfect." She argues that "the ills of the Church are curable" if the Church acknowledges the presence, causes, and effects of those ills. A posthumous publication was ''La vie chrétienne au milieu du monde et en notre siècle. Entretiens pratiques recueillis et publiés par Henri Lasserre'', Paris 1895. She also left voluminous correspondence, not only with Liszt but also with Berlioz, Émile Ollivier, Mieczysław Kamieński, and other figures. Liszt's biographer Alan Walker describes her style as "heavy going, calling for dogged persistence... Some of er lettersrun to twenty or thirty pages of densely packed prose, and there are times when that prose becomes so prolix that it loses touch with reality."