page_title: Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein
section_title: Early years and first marriage
hierarchical_section_title: Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein / Biography / Early years and first marriage
caption_attribution_description: English: Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein with her daughter Princess Mary, about 1840
context_page_description: Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein was a Polish szlachcianka who is best known for her 40-year relationship with musician Franz Liszt. She was also an amateur journalist and essayist, and it is conjectured that she did much of the actual writing of several of Liszt's publications, especially his Life of Chopin. She maintained an enormous correspondence with Liszt and many others, which is of vital historical interest. She admired and encouraged Hector Berlioz, as is clear from their extensive correspondence. Berlioz dedicated Les Troyens to Princess Carolyne.
context_section_description: Karolina Elżbieta Iwanowska was born at her maternal grandfather's home in Monasterzyska, now in western Ukraine but then part of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, a crownland of the Austrian Empire. She was the only child of wealthy parents, Peter Iwanowky and Pauline Podowska, whose massive holdings of land in Podolia included more than 30,000 serfs. On 26 April 1836, just two months after her 17th birthday (and with pressure from her father), Carolyne married Prince Nicholas von Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg-Ludwigsburg (1812–1864), an officer in the Russian service who was also a member of an ancient noble house as the son of Peter Wittgenstein. They briefly lived together in Kyiv (where Nicholas worked for the governor), but she was unhappy in the city and moved to her country home at Woronińce (today Voronivtsi (Воронівці), in Khmilnyk Raion), one of her family's many estates. They had one child together, Marie Pauline Antoinette (1837–1920), who later married Prince Konstantin of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst.
caption: Carolyne with her daughter Marie in 1840
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