Maria Kalergis

At the age of seventeen Maria von Nesselrode married Jan Kalergis, a rich landowner of Greek Cretan noble descent, who was much older and proved to be of a jealous disposition.

While the division of their assets was in dispute, she was able to tour Europe, including Saint Petersburg, Warsaw, Paris and Baden-Baden.

A year after her birth, her father, Friedrich Karl von Nesselrode, a German and his wife Thekla, a Pole, had separated due to personality differences.

From her sixth year, Maria had been raised in Saint Petersburg in the home of her paternal uncle, Count Karl Robert von Nesselrode-Ehreshoven, a German in the Russian court who for forty years (1816–56) was the Tsar's minister of foreign affairs and who saw to it that Maria received a thorough education.

Guests at her salons included Liszt, Richard Wagner who addressed his infamous essay Das Judentum in der Musik to her, de Musset, Moniuszko, Gautier, Heine who dedicated his poem "The White Elephant" to her and Fryderyk Chopin.

However, her letters to her daughter, son-in-law and friends have survived, and have made it possible to reconstruct many facts about her life and are a valuable source about the period.

[2] With Emperor Franz Josef's permission, Maria Kalergis' grandson, Heinrich von Coudenhove, was allowed to alter his surname to Coudenhove-Calergi, as a tribute to his famous grandmother.