Jump to content

Grand Duke Nicholas Konstantinovich of Russia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Grand Duke Nicholas Constantinovich
Великий Князь Николай Константинович Романов
PredecessorGrand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia
SuccessorDuke Artyom Alekseyevich
Born(1850-02-14)14 February 1850
Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died26 January 1918(1918-01-26) (aged 67)
Tashkent, Russian Turkestan
Burial
St. George's Cathedral, Tashkent
SpouseNadezhda Alexandrovna Dreyer
IssuePrince Artemy Nikolayevich

Prince Aleksandr Nikolayevich

Princess Daria Nikolayevna
HouseHolstein-Gottorp-Romanov
FatherGrand Duke Constantine Nikolaevich of Russia
MotherPrincess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg

Grand Duke Nicholas Constantinovich of Russia (14 February 1850 – 26 January 1918) was the first-born son of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich and Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia and a grandson of Nicholas I of Russia.

Early life

[edit]

Nicholas was born during the reign of his paternal grandfather Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, and, like the eldest sons of all his four sons, was named after him. At the time of his birth, he was seventh in the order of succession to the Russian throne, behind his uncle, four cousins, and father.

Most royal children were brought up by nannies and servants so by the time Nikolai had grown up he lived a very independent life having become a gifted military officer and an incorrigible womanizer. In 1873, he had an affair with a notorious American woman Henrietta "Harriet" Ely Blackford. In a scandal related to this affair, he stole three valuable diamonds from the revetment of one of the most valuable family icons. On December 11, 1874, he was formally declared insane by his uncle Emperor Alexander II and de facto banished from Saint Petersburg. For some time he was exiled to Orenburg and ultimately further to newly conquered Tashkent in Central Asia where Nicholas lived until his death, still styled Grand Duke but deprived of all the royal patronages and functions.[1] Blackford later wrote about the affair in her book "Roman d'une Americaine en Russie" under the pseudonym Fanny Lear.

Later life

[edit]

He lived for many years under constant supervision in the area around Tashkent in the southeastern Russian Empire (now Uzbekistan) and made a great contribution to the city by using his personal fortune to help improve the local area. In 1890 he ordered the building of his own palace in Tashkent to house and show his large and very valuable collection of works of art and the collection is now the center of the state Museum of Arts of Uzbekistan. He was also famous in Tashkent as a competent engineer and irrigator, constructing two large canals, the Bukhar-aryk (which was poorly aligned and soon silted up) and the much more successful Khiva-Aryk, later extended to form the Emperor Nicholas I Canal, irrigating 12,000 desyatinas, 33,000 acres (134 km2) of land in the Hungry Steppe between Djizak and Tashkent. Most of this was then settled with Slavic peasant colonisers.[1]

Nikolai had a number of children by different women. One of his grandchildren, Natalia Androsova, died in Moscow in 1999.

Death

[edit]

Nikolai died of pneumonia on 26 January 1918.[2] He was buried in St. George's Cathedral (later demolished by the Soviet regime).

Family

[edit]

Nikolai married Nadezhda (variantly spelled Nadejda) Alexandrovna Dreyer (1861–1929), daughter of Orenburg police chief Alexander Gustavovich Dreyer and Sophia Ivanovna Opanovskaya, in 1882. Two children were born from this marriage:

Honours

[edit]

Ancestry

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b Manaev, G. (8 August 2018). "4 sex scandals in the Romanov family". Russia Beyond the Headlines. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
  2. ^ Massie, Robert K. (1995), The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, London: Random House, p. 255, ISBN 0-09-960121-4
  3. ^ Staatshandbücher für das Herzogtums Sachsen-Altenburg (1869), "Herzogliche Sachsen-Ernestinischer Hausorden" p. 21
  4. ^ Hof- und Staatshandbuch des Großherzogtums Oldenburg: 1879. Schulze. 1879. p. 31.
  5. ^ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Großherzogtum Hessen (1879), "Großherzogliche Orden und Ehrenzeichen" p. 11
  6. ^ "Königlich Preussische Ordensliste", Preussische Ordens-Liste (in German), 1, Berlin: 6, 21, 934, 1886
  7. ^ Staatshandbuch für das Großherzogtum Sachsen / Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1874), "Genealogie", p. 14
  8. ^ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Königreich Württemberg (1907), "Königliche Orden" p. 65
  9. ^ "A Szent István Rend tagjai" Archived 22 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ Acović, Dragomir (2012). Slava i čast: Odlikovanja među Srbima, Srbi među odlikovanjima. Belgrade: Službeni Glasnik. p. 628.

Further reading

[edit]
  • McDonald, Eva; McDonald, Daniel (2012). Fanny Lear: Love and Scandal in Tsarist Russia (Hardcover). Bloomington, Indiana, USA: iUniverse. ISBN 978-1-4759-2428-2.. English translation of Fanny Lear's 1875 French language memoir Le Roman d’une Americaine en Russie. Accompagné de Lettres Originales.
[edit]