Nikolaus Abramowitsch Putjatin in Dessau and Dresden - Lecture by Dr Maria-Verena Leistner
Prince Nikolaus Abramovich Putyatin (1749-1830), former chief building inspector in St Petersburg, chamberlain and privy councillor at the Russian tsar's court, lived in Kleinzschachwitz near Dresden from 1797, where he had an extravagant villa with 16 balconies, a small viewing tower and other special features built according to his own plans. He was regarded as a generous, free-thinking, knowledgeable and lovable eccentric who was bursting with inventiveness. In today's Dresden district of Kleinzschachwitz, the memory of the former resident and patron is still alive and well. But Prince Putyatin was no stranger to Dessau either. He was one of the many notable contemporaries who wanted to see for themselves the measures that the enlightened ruler Leopold Friedrich Franz (1740-1817) had taken to turn the principality (from 1807 the duchy) of Anhalt-Dessau into a modern state. Prince Putyatin probably came to Dessau for the first time in 1789 and later repeatedly. His enthusiasm for the New Burial Ground (now the Historical Cemetery), which was laid out in 1787-1789 according to plans by Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff (1736-1800), was so great that he had a mausoleum built there, in which his daughter, his wife and Putyatin himself were buried and which is still preserved today.
The German studies expert Dr Maria-Verena Leistner, probably the best expert on the extremely diverse work of the poet Wilhelm Müller and a frequent guest in Dessau-Roßlau, presents the Russian aristocrat and his connections to Dessau in her lecture ‘Patience, reflection and courage, these are the best weapons in the battle of life.’ Nikolaus Abramowitsch Putjatin in Dessau and Dresden. The lecture took place on Tuesday, 25 April 2023, at 7 p.m. in the Archivverbund Dessau (Alter Wasserturm), Heidestraße 21. The Dessau-Roßlau City Archive and the Association for Anhalt Regional Studies organised the event.
