Countess Anna Charlotte Dorothea von Medem was born a Gräfin (Countess) of the noble Baltic German Medem family and later became Duchess of Courland. Popularly known as Dorothea of Courland after her marriage to Peter von Biron, the last Duke of Courland, she hosted an aristocratic salon in Berlin and performed various diplomatic duties on behalf of her estranged husband. She would spend the rest of her life in her estate in Löbichgau, where she would invite and host many important political and cultural figures of the time and make many acquaintances, ranging from Goethe over Napoleon I of France to Talleyrand, the latter of whom she was reportedly very close.

Baltic German nobility was a privileged social class in the territories of today's Estonia and Latvia. It has existed continuously since the Northern Crusades and the medieval foundation of Terra Mariana. Most of the nobility were Baltic Germans, but with the changing political landscape over the centuries, Polish, Swedish and Russian families also became part of the nobility, just as Baltic German families re-settled in locations such as the Swedish and Russian Empires. The nobility of Lithuania is for historical, social and ethnic reasons separated from the German-dominated nobility of Estonia and Latvia.