49. Kuno Fischer on the Grand Duchess Sophie of Saxony

Since 1885, a circle of Goethe admirers has gathered in Weimar for a few days every year. These are the members of the Goethe Society, which was founded after the death of Goethe's last grandson. Goethe's last scion bequeathed his grandfather's estate to Grand Duchess Sophie. This woman had enough sense and understanding to make the valuable treasure that had been placed in her hands as fruitful as possible for literary studies. She founded the Goethe Archive and made it a place for the cultivation of Goethe scholarship. She later built her own stately home for this precious legacy. The magnificent building, an ornament of Weimar, will always remain a monument to the heyday of the German spirit. Every day, a small number of scholars work quietly and painstakingly in this house on the Goethe edition, which is being produced with the help of the manuscript estate. From time to time, a stranger comes into these rooms to consult Goethe's papers in order to make them useful for his particular scholarly studies. But every year at Whitsun, these rooms come alive. The most harmless connoisseurs of Goethe's works and the most learned Goethe researchers gather in the Ilmstadt to celebrate the memory of the spirit to whom so many lines of modern cultural development can be traced. A festive lecture and a theater performance are the intellectual delights offered to the "Goethe guests". A tour of the Goethe and Schiller Archives and the Goethe National Museum takes these guests back to the great era in which Weimar was the center of German intellectual life. The Grand Duchess Sophie, to whose work the entire festivity was owed, always appeared at the ceremonial lecture. Following the founding of her archive and under her special care, the Goethe Society was established. The guests were grouped around this woman. The relationship she established with German literature by founding the archive found its living expression in the Goethe Assembly.

Since the spring of this year, Sophie of Saxony is no longer among the living. The Goethe Assembly will now have to take place without its first head. For the first time since the death of the Grand Duchess, the Goethe guests gathered again in Weimar yesterday, October 8. They gathered to first celebrate the memory of the deceased.

A picture of this woman's spirit and personality was to be presented to the gathering by a man with a calling. No-one was more qualified than the aged philosopher Kuno Fischer, who had become a loyal admirer of the Weimar court and a warm eulogist of its deeds thanks to his long-standing relationship with the court. Kuno Fischer would undoubtedly have conveyed the warmth with which he is attached to the Weimar royal house to his audience if he could still speak with the power of speech that was once his own. One could hear in every word of the memorial speaker that it came from deep within; but this time one did not feel it within oneself. The most celebrated academic speaker no longer has the power to ignite the audience. And that is why his speech could not put people in the mood that was necessary to celebrate the day. The speaker sought to explain the high spirits of the deceased princess, her generosity, her energy and her sense of purpose from her descent from the House of Orange. He sketched the spiritual physiognomy of the deceased with the strokes available to this witty philosopher who was attached to beautiful words. He sought to place her personal development in the appropriate light. Kuno Fischer tried to explain the pleasure she must have taken in German classical literature from the connections this literature had with the princess's fatherland. Dutch heroes and Dutch life have been artistically portrayed by our intellectual heroes. The Grand Duchess found her own feeling, her own attitude, when she immersed herself in the works of the spirits to whom she erected a monument in Weimar.

A strictly conservative attitude, even something of a belief in the divine grace of God ran through Kuno Fischer's speech. He believes that a special destiny determines the circles of influence of personalities who rule like the Grand Duchess. He imbued the Grand Duchess with an almost mystical force of personality. A religious air permeated the entire speech. The piety of the mourned woman stood in the right light, because Kuno Fischer revealed that he himself had pious feelings. A man was speaking about a princess who is a good supporter of the monarchical principle, an admirer of the ruling powers, a man who wears with love the medal that shone from his breast. What was said by an ancient philosopher: The same can only be recognized by the same, has proven itself again in Kuno Fischer's speech. The world is reflected in the head of this speaker no differently than in that of a prince. He understands the princes. That is why he can speak well about them. He likes to put his mind at the service of princely persons. To a younger person of modern times, these sentences sometimes give the impression that they come from an attitude that belongs to a bygone era. Younger people are at a loss for words when they have to praise princes. And when they do, they are not really believed. The old historian of philosophy is well clothed in his attitude. He formed his views in a time that had no idea of the radicalism of our present day. With these views he is called upon to appreciate the classical epoch of Germany and its present princely caretakers. The other views of the present would probably never have led to an attitude that is necessary to preserve the traditions of Weimar. One must have made peace with certain currents if one wants to be fully involved in the cultivation of these traditions. You can't do it with a heart that is attached to the present and longs for the future. Kuno Fischer allowed a piece of the past to emerge before us. He spoke of past deeds with a past attitude.

There were listeners in the hall who were not satisfied with the speech. I believe these dissatisfied people are wrong. Kuno Fischer's spiritual affinity with the circles to which the deceased belonged enabled him to paint a genuine, credible picture. A little more religious candor and a little less conservatism would have led the speaker to deliver a distorted picture. If the lecture had been at the height of content and spirit: the audience would have left the hall in a solemn mood. The image of the deceased would have stood before their eyes in clear, distinct and true features. Because Kuno Fischer's fire of speech is weaker today, his image also seemed dull and sometimes even tiring. But even if the colors were not bright enough, they were applied correctly. They were used in a way that only a deep and precise connoisseur of the deceased princess can. Many a word came out of intimate connoisseurship that no one else would have found. That is why Kuno Fischer was the right speaker for this day.

His speech will appear in the November issue of "Cosmopolis". It will be a memorial to the departed princess that is worthy of her.