Амалия Голицына: Берлинская салонная хозяйка и духовный центр Мюнстера

German salonist

Princess Adelheid Amalie Gallitzin (also known as Amalia Samuilovna Golitsyna or in Russian as Амалия Самуиловна Голицына; 28 August 1748 – 27 April 1806) was a German salonist. She was the daughter of the Prussian Field Marshal Count Samuel von Schmettau and the mother of Prince Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin.

Countess Adelheid Amalia von Schmettau was born in Berlin on 28 August 1748, the daughter of Prussian Field Marshall Count Samuel von Schmettau (1684 1751) and his second wife Maria Johanna von Ruffer (1717 1771). Her father died when she was very young, and at the age of four or five, her mother placed her in an Ursuline convent school in Breslau. She was brought back home to Berlin at the age of nine, and taught by private tutors. At the age of fourteen or fifteen she attended a French finishing academy in the city for two years. After leaving finishing school, Amalie was introduced into society and invited to become one of the maids of honor to Margravine Elisabeth Louise of Brandenburg Schwedt, wife of Prince Ferdinand, brother of Frederick the Great. In 1768 while on an excursion with Princess Ferdinand and other ladies of court to the spa at Aachen, that she met Prince Dimitri Gallitzin. Prince Gallitzin was returning to Saint Petersburg, having completed fourteen years serving as Catherine the Great's ambassador to France. Although a professing Catholic, she was a great admirer of Diderot. The educational reform introduced by Franz Friedrich Wilhelm von Fürstenberg, Vicar General of Münster, induced her to take up her residence in the Westphalian capital. She was able to gather around her, at Münster, a mystical literary cenacle which had a considerable influence on German intellectual and religious life at the time. Portions of her correspondence and diaries were published by Scheuter (Münster, 1874–76) in three parts. She was the mother of the well known American missionary Prince Demetrius Gallitzin. She died in Angelmodde.