Elisa von der Recke

Elisa von der Recke
Elisa von der Recke (Anton Graff 1797)
Born	May 20, 1754 Skaistkalne, Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (now Latvia)
Died	April 13, 1833 Dresden, Kingdom of Saxony (now Germany)
Occupation	Poet
Nationality	Baltic German
Spouse	Georg von der Recke

Elisa von der Recke (20 May 1754 – 13 April 1833) was a Baltic German writer and poet.

Elisa von der Recke was born in Schönberg, Skaistkalne parish, Courland, the daughter of Graf (later Reichsgraf) Johann Friedrich von Medem and his wife, Louise Dorothea von Korff. Her younger half-sister was Dorothea von Medem, for whom she carried out diplomatic work. In 1771 she married Kammerherr Georg Peter Magnus von der Recke, living with him at Neuenburg Castle (now Jaunpils Castle). She separated from him in 1776 and divorced in 1781. Their daughter, Frederika von der Recke, died in 1777.

In 1787 her first book, Nachricht von des berüchtigten Cagliostro Aufenthalt in Mitau im Jahre 1779 und dessen magischen Operationen, made a great impact right across Europe, with Catherine the Great even granting Elisa lands in Russia in recognition of the work (making Elisa financially independent). She got to know Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, Herder and other European literary figures, and intensified their relationships through prolific correspondence.

From 1798 she lived almost exclusively in Dresden, and from 1804 cohabited there with her friend Christoph August Tiedge. Their meetings were religio-sentimentalist in tone, with the singing of chorales by Johann Gottlieb Naumann. Her works consisted mainly of pietist-sentimentalist poems, journals and memoirs.