Krudener

Krudener, Barbara Juliana von (1766-1824), author and religious enthusiast, was born at Riga, her father being the Baron von Vietinghoff. She married a Livonian noble, the Baron von Kriidener, but the marriage was not a happy one she herself, if her novel Valerie (1803) be autobiographical, being not without fault in the matter. The husband went on an embassy to Venice, while the wife lived at Riga, St. Petersburg, and Paris. She then became enamoured of mysticism, and entered on the role of prophetess and herald of Russian success, and taught and preached, the Czar Alexander being one of her hearers. She then went from country to country, and finally retired to her estates at Riga, where she became attached to the Moravians. Her Greek sympathies brought her into trouble, and she died in the Crimea.