Immortal Beloved - Josephine Re-discovered (2002 To Date)

Josephine Re-discovered (2002 To Date)

Significant new discoveries in European archives were made and published by Steblin (2002, 2007, 2009, 2009a) and Skwara/Steblin (2007). These can be summarized into two important items:

• (1) Josephine’s estranged husband Baron Stackelberg was most likely away from home at the beginning of July 1812 (probably from the end of June for ca. two months), as noted in her diary: “Today has been a difficult day for me. – The hand of fate is resting ominously on me – I saw besides my own deep sorrows also the degeneration of my children, and – almost – all courage deserted me –!!! ... Stackelberg wants to leave me on my own. He is callous to supplicants in need.” Steblin (2007, p. 169) also discovered a document headed "Table of Rules" and dated 5–11 July with a list of ethical categories in the handwriting of Christoph von Stackelberg: "Thus this whole document, dated at the time when ... he ... was deliberating about his future, is surely further proof that Josephine was left alone ... in June and July 1812."

• (2) Josephine expressed her clear intention to go to Prague (in June 1812): “I want to see Liebert in Prague. I will never let the children be taken from me. ... On account of Stackelberg I have ruined myself physically, in that I have incurred so much distress and illness through him.”

"A new way of looking at old evidence confirms that Josephine was Beethoven's one and only 'Immortal Beloved'. ... All of the puzzling aspects about Beethoven's affair with the 'Immortal Beloved,' including his various cryptic comments, can be explained in terms of his one known beloved – Josephine. Why do we doubt his word that there was only one woman who had captured his heart?" (Steblin 2007, p. 180).

However, it should be noted that this conclusion is still very much debated - for example, the article on Beethoven in the most recent edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2001, supports the Antonie hypothesis, an indication of the above-quoted observation by Meredith (2011, p. xvii) that much of the recent, document-based research by European scholars (published in German or in Germany) has been ignored in America.