Christiane Lüth

Lüth was born on Nordsjælland, the daughter of the Danish official Heinr. Fr. Georg Fischer (1781—1829) and Mette Elisabeth Petersen (1789—1857), and raised in Fredensborg.[1]

As an adult, Lüth became a governess for a rich family in Holstein. In 1838, she married A. H. F. Lüth (1806-1859), a Lutheran German priest from the Duchy of Oldelburg who worked for the same family she worked for.

In 1839, Lüth's spouse was appointed the personal chaplain of the queen of Greece, Amalia of Oldenburg, and the couple moved to Greece together with her unmarried sister Johanne ("Hanne"). She and her husband lived at the royal court in Athens from 1839 until 1852.

After the 3 September 1843 Revolution, many of the Germans were sent back to Germany by the king out of concern for the Greek oposition, but the Lüth couple's position was not touched. In 1852, Lüth's spouse left his service and she returned with him to Germany, were they settled in Lübeck. When she was widowed in 1859, she returned to Denmark.

Her diary described the journey to Greece via Saxony, Vienna and Trieste, and the life at the Greek royal court primarily from 1839 until the 3 September 1843 Revolution.[1]

This was the period of the Germans dominance of the court. At this period of time, the independent Kingdom of Greece had only just been established after the liberation from the Ottoman Empire. She described the capital of Athens as more similar to a small merchant town than a capital, and the Old Royal Palace had not yet been finished. The king and queen were both foreigners from Germany, and the Royal court were with few exceptions composed by Germans courtiers, surrounded by a colony of German who had came to seek their fortune in the capital of the new nation. The Greek population had been isolated from contact with Western Europe for centuries, and were suprised to see the Queen and the other Western European women do things such as riding and participate in balls and other leasure activities, which were normal in Western Europe but until then uncommon in Greece.

This atmosphere is described in the diary. Christiane Lüth describes a number of well known contemporaries at court and in the city, of whom the majority belonged to the Western European colony of Athens.

Her diary was published in Danish in 1906-1927.