Almanach de Gotha

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The Almanach de Gotha, was a respected directory of Europe's highest nobility and royalty. First published in 1763 at the ducal court of Frederick III, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, it was regarded as an authority in the classification of monarchies, ducal houses, families of former rulers, and royalty. It was published annually until 1944 when the Soviet's destroyed the Almanach de Gotha's archives.

In 1998 a London based publisher acquired the rights to the Almanach de Gotha name from Justus Perthes Verlag Gotha GmbH (this is regarded as a new work by Perthes and not a continuation of the editions published by them from 1785 to 1944^[1]). The new publishers produced six editions (consisting of two volumes), the last one published in 2004. The second volume (Volume II) of this new work, published in 2001, has received some criticism.^[2]^[3]

1 Gotha publication, 1763-1944
2 Structure
3 After World War II
4 London publication, 1998-2004
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links

[edit] Gotha publication, 1763-1944

The purpose of the almanach was to record the ruling houses of Europe and their cadet branches, the most important of those they had ennobled, and incumbent diplomatic corps and highest officers of state. The undertaking was massive, as there were many royal families in Germany and Italy alone, and their minor branches numbered in the thousands. The inclusion of a noble family in the almanach was seen as socially vital. Since communications were slow in the 18th and 19th centuries, a source was needed to check the existence of high noble persons. Following World War I and the fall of many royal houses, noble titles became easy to masquerade, due to the lack of a central regulating authority on granting titles; this made inclusion in the incorruptible Almanach de Gotha even more essential. If a noble title was not listed in the almanach, it could be presumed that the title was self-created and therefore invalid. Inclusion of lower nobility was never even attempted, as that was seen as the task of each country's own nobility or corresponding institution.

Even in the early 19th century this in-or-out dichotomy caused problems. Napoleon's reaction was typical of the "nouveau riche". The elected Emperor wrote to his Foreign Minister, de Champagny:

Monsieur de Champagny, this year's "Almanach de Gotha" is badly done. I protest. There should be more of the French Nobility I have created and less of the German Princes who are no longer sovereign. Furthermore, the Imperial Family of Bonaparte should appear before all other royal dynasties, and let it be clear that we and not the Bourbons are the House of France. Summon the Minister of the Interior of Gotha at once so that I personally may order these changes.^[4]

The response of the publishers was to humour Bonaparte by producing two editions: one for France, with the newly ennobled, and one for the remainder of Europe (i.e., those ennobled by those enthroned by Divine Right of Kings, as opposed to what the publishers deemed a Corsican upstart).

[edit] Structure

Although the almanach's structure changed over years, it consisted essentially of three sections. The first section always listed the sovereign houses of Europe. Sections two and three experienced some changes after the Franco-Prussian War, described below. The genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner comments that those changes display "pan-German triumphalism" and even a "fairly nasty bit of Germanic chauvinism."^[5]

For over a century, the second section consisted of non-sovereign princely houses from all over Europe (save many easternmost areas). Rohans, Leiningens, Ruspolis, Windisch-Graetzes, Norfolks, Lobkowiczes, Thurn-Taxises and Czartoryskis appeared in happy coexistence. At that time, the third section was for immediate counts of the Holy Roman Empire (HRE), a specific, and by many measures the lowest, caste of the included high nobility.

However, in the 1876 edition, sections two and three were amalgamated, which elevated those former HRE comital families to the level of princely houses. In the intervening years those counts had become mediatized, but quite regularly their house heads had received a compensation in titles: primogenitural princely title. In the 1877 edition, section two was divided into parts A and B, almost along "ethnic" lines: all mediatized Germans, be they comital or princely, were assigned to A; and all princely non-German families and non-mediatized HRE families were put into B. This created an illusion that mediatized Germans were higher than princely non-Germans. The illusion was strengthened in 1890, when the almanach renamed II A to section II, and II B to section III.

The original section two, and its successor, the third section, included only selected families of European high nobility, or "princely houses". The almanach did not succeed in full coverage; families from geographical corners that were not perceived by editors to be of interest to monarchical courts of Western Europe, the almanach's major audience, were not well-represented or were listed only in later editions.

This division was considered of great social significance in the Holy Roman Empire and its successor states; nobles from the second section were considered legally equal to German royals appearing in the first section (at least with those royals whose houses actually were ducal or less before the Napoleonic period; of the truly older kingdoms, Prussia declined to recognize a countess Harrach, mediatized, from section two, to marry its king in better than morganatic terms). For example, if a countess from the second section married a royal or sovereign from the first section (who mostly were of houses until 19th century just ducal or margravial, immediate comital and so forth), their alliance was considered equal and their children were regarded as dynastic, thus inheriting succession rights. On the other hand, if a countess or princess or duchesse-in-her-own-right from the third section married a German petty sovereign from the first section, their children were usually treated as non-dynastical and excluded from the succession line in most monarchies.

The arbitrary division was a major source of frustration for those families who landed in the third section. For example, the Birons of Courland and Murats of Naples, both relatively parvenue families, ineffectually claimed their right to be included in the second section. Moreover, most princely families of the Russian Empire were not included in the Gotha at all, while the Bagrationi of Georgia (presumed to be the oldest royal dynasty of Europe, and certainly reigning into the 19th century in some parts of Georgia)^{[citation needed]} as well as other reigning Georgian princely families (Dadiani of Mingrelia) possibly deserved a place in the first section. The same may be said for the Girays of Crimea, who claimed descent from Genghis Khan.

Another source of frustration was Gotha's rather Salic stance in favor of agnatic descent. Many houses of other countries were formed on the basis of cognatic succession. There existed many pretenders to lost monarchies and sovereign or semi-sovereign earlier provinces in Western Europe, but these were regularly treated as ducal or princely families of agnatic descent in part three, if mentioned at all.

The Gotha's condescending attitude towards Eastern European nobility and royalty, and towards Iberian, Spanish, British, Italian, and Scandinavian highest nobility, led to the proliferation of German mediatized princesses in the royal houses of Europe, as their value in the marriage market had been artificially enhanced by Gothic rankings. Another consequence was the yet ongoing Romanov succession dispute, as Maria Vladimirovna of Russia, a claimant to the headship of the Russian Imperial Family,^[6] has a Romanov father and Bagrationi mother, a morganaut according to the Gotha standards; the entire Russian male dynastic descent went extinct when applying Gothic standards.

[edit] After World War II

When the Soviet troops entered Gotha in 1945, they systematically destroyed all archives of the Almanach de Gotha.

In 1951 a different publisher, C.A. Starke, began publication of a multi-volume German-language publication entitled the Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels (GHdA). The publication is divided into subsets; the Fürstliche Häuser subset is largely equivalent to the Almanach de Gotha. However, no single volume of the Fürstliche Häuser includes all the families included in the Almanach de Gotha. It is necessary to use multiple volumes to trace the majority of European royal families.

[edit] London publication, 1998-2004

The Almanach de Gotha Volume II as most recently published

In 1989 legal proceedings began to return the Almanach de Gotha to the Perthes family. After succeeding in proving their claim, a new company, Almanach de Gotha Limited was formed in London and acquired the rights to the Almanach de Gotha name from Justus Perthes Verlag Gotha GmbH. Justus Perthes consider this a new work and not a continuation of the series last published by them in 1944 with the 181st edition.^[1] In spite of this the new publishers launched with the 182nd edition on 16 March 1998 at Claridge's Hotel.^[7] It was written in English instead of French.^[8] Charlotte Pike served as editor and John Kennedy as Managing Director and publisher. Pike would later be replaced as editor of the Gotha.

The London publishers have produced five editions of Volume I (1998, 1999, 2000, 2003 and 2004) which includes Europe's and South America's reigning, formerly reigning, and mediatised princely houses. A single edition of Volume II covering other non-sovereign princely and ducal houses of Europe was published in 2001.^[9] The single (and so far only) edition of Volume II of this new publication has received some criticism.^[2]^[3]