Баронесса фон Крюденер: Балтийско-немецкая мистик XIX века

19th century Baltic German Mystic

Beate Barbara Juliane Freifrau von Krüdener (née Freiin von Vietinghoff genannt Scheel; 22 November 1764 [O. S. 11 1764]25 December 1824 [O. S. 13 1824]), often called by her formal French name, Madame de Krüdener, was a Baltic German religious mystic, author, and Pietist Lutheran theologian who exerted influence on wider European Protestantism, including the Swiss Reformed Church and the Moravian Church, and whose ideas influenced Tsar Alexander I of Russia.

Baroness von Krüdener was born in Riga, Governorate of Livonia. Her father, Baron Otto Hermann von Vietinghoff genannt Scheel, who had fought as a colonel in Catherine II's wars, was one of the two councillors for Livonia and a man of immense wealth. He was a man of rationalistic views and a leading freemason. Her mother, the Countess Anna Ulrika von Münnich, was a granddaughter of Burkhard Christoph von Münnich, a celebrated Russian field marshal, and a strict Lutheran. Barbe Julie de Vietinghoff, better known as Madame von Krüdener (Mme. de Krüdener) later in life, but, as a child, referred to as Juliana, was one of five children born into the wealthy Vietinghoff family.

Her father, Otto Hermann von Vietinghoff Scheel, had started accruing his wealth from a young age, for as a young man, he proved to possess a knack for business. With his high ambitions, he entered into commercial enterprises that became highly successful. Some of his treasures included grand properties in Kosse (present day Viitina, Estonia) and Marienburg, as well as his grandiose townhouse in Riga, where Barbe Julie was born. Although he was never assigned an official title, he enjoyed the official rank as a privy counselor and as a senator and "would exclaim with pride 'I am Vietinghoff', and behave with all the arrogance of a great noble".

Valérie, ou, Lettres de Gustave de Linar à Ernst de G , Paris, Henrichs, 1804. available onGallica archive. Écrits intimes et prophétiques de Madame de Krüdener, Paris, Éditions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1975. Worldcat. Le Camp de Vertus, ou la Grande revue de l'armée russe, Lyon, Guyot frères, 1815. Available on Gallica archive.

Madame de Krüdener et son temps, 1764 1824. Paris, Plon, 1961. Worldcat. Lady of the Holy Alliance. Ernest John Knapton: New York, Columbia University Press, 1939. Worldcat.