Princess Sophie of The Netherlands, Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar and family

[Marengo]

From this website:

The last descendant of Goethe, Walther von Goethe, had left Goethe's literary remains as a legacy to the Grand-duchess Sophie. She had founded the archives in order that the legacy might be introduced in appropriate manner into the spiritual life of the times. She naturally turned to those personalities of whom she had to assume that they might know what was to be done with the Goethe literary remains.

[lucien]

Originally Posted by Marengo

From this website:

The last descendant of Goethe, Walther von Goethe, had left Goethe's literary remains as a legacy to the Grand-duchess Sophie. She had founded the archives in order that the legacy might be introduced in appropriate manner into the spiritual life of the times. She naturally turned to those personalities of whom she had to assume that they might know what was to be done with the Goethe literary remains.

The Goethe - Schiller Archiv,founded by the Grandduchess Sophie in 1889:
http://www.klassik-stiftung.de/einru...er-archiv.html

[Marengo]

I think that is by far her greatest legacy to the world, though Goethe is usually more associated with one of her predecessors, Duchess Anna-Amalia (who was his most important patron during his life).

Sophie had quite some property in The Netherlands, hadn´t she? I believe she owned some acres in Scheveningen, which were sold years ago. However it remained the right of her heirs to decide what would happen to that land and hence Prince Michael-Benedictus recently had to be invited to Scheveningen as they wanted him to give permission to build some flats, I don´t know if he did though.

[Marengo]

As written on the Alexander Palace Forums by Thijs:

She was though known for her intelligence but also for her bad temper. Just like her brother King William lll she had outbursts of bad temper and could get furious if things wouldn`t get the way she wanted to. Her mother queen Anna Paulowna wrote once to her brother Tsar Nicolas l that she saw in her children (especially William) the signs of the blood of Tsar Paul, her father. He could get outreageous furious too. I don`t know the attitude of Sophie towards her brother the King. William lll however "played" with their, as it seems, love and hate game. Whenever he met her he embraced her (just too )close and (just too) very long in his strong arms just to annoy her.

Sophie inherited the complete Goethe and Schiller archives which made her say: "I inherited but the whole world with me". And so she did, she donated her inheritance to the German people and had a special building built in Weimar, which still exists, as a place to show the inheritance of the Goethe Schiller archives.

She was extremely wealthy, especially from her mother she had the "biggest part of the inheritance" and she was known for her jewelry collection (especially pearls). But she also owned very large estates in The Hague and in Silezia, also as parts of her inheritance. The estate Muskau in Silezia was hers and she visited her Dutch and Silezian estates every year for a longer period. That made her husband say that he was visiting his wife on her grounds. She was very close to the Dutch nation and was aware of everything that happened in the Netherlands. For a while she even was the crown princess untill the Dutch government changed the constitution. She was a wise advisor to the young queen Emma who adored her "aunt Sophie". I think though that princess Marie, the furstin of Wied (the daughter of prince Frederick and princess Louise) was mre popular in the Netherlands but I am not for sure for that. Anyway, Marie looks more affectionate to me.

Her sister in law queen Sophie hated her and thought of her as an evil woman. But queen Sophie thought so about just every member of the Dutch royals (exceptions: prince Frederick and princess Amalia da Gloria). But the hate of Sophie seemed very strong against grandduchess Sophie and her mother queen Anna Paulowna, the mother in law of queen Sophie.

Queen Sophie was horrified when she found out that most of the inheritance of queen Anna Paulowna was split up between prince Henry and grandduchess Sophie and legates to some Russian relatives. Her two sons were as good as desinherited.

[Marengo]

As posted by Joris on the Benelux Royals MB:

Detlef Jena wrote a book (in German) about four spouses of Saxe-Weimar rulers: Das Weimarer Quartett. Die Fürstinnen Anna Amalia - Louise - Maria Pawlowna - Sophie. Publ. Verlag F. Pustet, Regensburg 2007. ISBN 978-3-7917-2044-9. EUR 29.90. 296 pp.
I post this here because we, of course, are mainly interested in highly sophisticated Sophie, Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, née Princess van Oranje-Nassau, Princess of the Netherlands (1824-1897), daughter of King Willem II and Queen Anna Paulowna, married to Grand Duke Carl Alexander - culturally very active in Weimar.

[Helena]

I was wondering, which of the daughters of Grand Duchess Sophie did King Willem III want to marry? And why was he sent to Waldeck? I don't think in those days they valued the 'in love' factor as much as now, so was the Weimar court taken aback by the close family relation or by the age difference?