Transcultural Assemblages of Prince Hermann Von Pückler-Muskau (1785–1871) and Machbuba/Ajiamé/Bilillee Freya Schwachenwald
Art, Nature, Ghosts, and Ice Cream: Transcultural Assemblages of Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau (1785–1871) and Machbuba/Ajiamé/Bilillee Freya Schwachenwald Introduction Walking through Cottbus, Brandenburg, Germany, it is almost impossible to miss the visual presence one of its most famous local personas: from billboards at the train station to an eponymous bus line, Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau (1785–1871) seems omnipresent as a local historical figure and as a welcome vehicle for tourism marketing. When visitors direct their steps through his former park in Branitz at the outskirts of Cottbus, they will most likely come across an unexpected sight: two earthen pyramids. One of them is located in the middle of a artifical lake. Primary and historiographical sources tell us that this pyramid was built by Pückler in the 1850s and that it encases his remains, as envisioned by him while commissioning the construction.1 The pyramid was finished in 1856, fifteen years before Pückler’s death.2 No plaque commemorates him on the pyramid. Pückler and his wife Lucie von Hardenberg (1776–1854) are only commemorated by a stone with a cross, erected posthumously on another small island of the lake. Today, the pyramid, as well as the surrounding park and its castle are maintained by the Stiftung Fürst Pückler Museum Schloss und Park Branitz (Prince Pückler Castle Museum and Branitz Park Foundation). The foundation describes its namesake and the former owner of the castle and park as “one of the greatest European landscape artists, a dandy, ladies’ man, ingenious socialite, connoisseur of exquisite food and namesake to an 1 Siegfried Neumann, “Die Begräbnisstätten im Branitzer Park,” in Pückler, Pyramiden, Panorama: neue Beiträge zur Pücklerforschung, ed.
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