A shameful page in the history of the royal family: Why they tried not to remember about the Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

This representative of the royal family was a very peculiar person, and they tried to delete his name from history. He was declared insane, changed his name and exiled to distant Tashkent. His guilt before the crowned relatives was so great that they preferred not to notice either the success of Nikolai Konstantinovich in the scientific field, or his contribution to the revitalization of the deserts of Central Asia, or the obvious entrepreneurial gift of the disgraced prince.

Family hope

Nikola, as the Grand Duke was called in the family, was born in February 1850. The son of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich and grandson of Nicholas I was the favorite of the entire court. He was distinguished by his beauty and ability to study, and he also danced amazingly and enjoyed the location of the whole family. He was the heir to a truly enormous fortune, his parents owned the Marble Palace in St. Petersburg, incredible in its external beauty and decoration, and the estate in Pavlovsk.

Nikola's character was very capricious. He openly declared that he did not like the emperor, and even suggested to his girlfriends that Russia should become a republic. At the same time, Nikola spent his savings as a teenager not on entertainment and food, but on travel books.

At the age of 18, he graduated with a silver medal from the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff, showing an ability to comprehend the sciences. He became the first representative of the royal family to graduate from this educational institution. The stately handsome captain was enrolled in the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment, which means that a wonderful future, a good career, honor and respect of all relatives awaited him ahead of him.

Breaking Bad

Nikola knew for sure: his whole future life had already been planned in advance. Ahead of him was a military career, a marriage on a duty of blood, protocol, etiquette and all kinds of submission to circumstances. But the rebel by nature was not going to be content with the predetermination of his fate. And therefore he led a rather stormy life, he did not know the analysis of romantic hobbies, he was easily carried away by girls, after a short romance he threw himself into the arms of a new charming woman, not choosing between representatives of the high society and serving women in taverns.

The mother decided to marry her son, choosing for him a befitting bride, as usual, in Germany. Nicola did not mind, and soon became inflamed with a passion for the bride, Frederica of Hanover. He already saw himself as the father of the family, all the relatives were happy about the upcoming marriage, but, unexpectedly for the Romanovs, the bride refused the prince, deciding never to marry at all.

Nikola's suffering was unbearable, but then a new blow befell him: his father started a new family with a ballerina, and his mother, instead of accepting words of consolation from her son, accused him of his father's debauchery. Allegedly, with his hectic lifestyle, Nikola set an example for papa. 30-year-old Nikolai Konstantinovich from such injustice literally went all out.

Fatal love

He consoled himself in the arms of a certain Fanny Lear, an American dancer, who, before meeting with the grandson of the Russian tsar, had managed to be in the arms of more than one man. They met at one of the balls, and Nikolai Konstantinovich fell in love to the point of unconsciousness. Which was not surprising, because, according to rumors, the young lady fully mastered the art of seduction and knew how to present herself. On the very first night of their acquaintance, she signed a playful oath in which she gave her word to belong in body and soul only to the Grand Duke.

Rumors about this novel excited the high society, and the Romanovs decided to send Nikolai Konstantinovich to the war in Turkestan. He returned from the Khiva campaign in 1873, he was a real hero, rightfully receiving the rank of colonel, the Order of St. Vladimir of the III degree and a golden saber on behalf of the emperor. It was during that campaign that the Grand Duke met Dmitry Romanov, an engineer-colonel, writer and traveler, who conveyed to Nikolai Konstantinovich his enthusiasm for Central Asia.

But neither participation in hostilities, nor a new fascination with Central Asia did not rid the Grand Duke of his feelings for Fanny Lear. They met in Samara, and Nikola cherished the hope that nothing else could separate him from his beloved. He showered her with expensive gifts, fulfilled all whims, but the Romanovs could not allow the prince to spend untold wealth on his mistress. She demanded more and more, and the money was desperately lacking. It was then that the prince in the Marble Palace decided to steal diamonds from the setting of the icon, which Nicholas I blessed the parents of Nikolai Konstantinovich with for marriage. The jewelry was found in one of the pawnshops and the trail directly pointed to the true culprit.

By the way, he confessed to what he had done, but did not repent a bit. Relatives took radical measures: Fanny Lear was expelled from the country, and the prince was assigned a medical examination, declared him insane, deprived of awards, titles and titles, and sent away from the capital. It was simply impossible to hush up the scandal in any other way. Already the whole of Petersburg was buzzing, discussing the news that Nikolai Romanov was a thief.

Disgraced prince

For seven whole years, Nikolai Konstantinovich wandered around the cities and villages. He was not allowed to settle anywhere, and there was no question of acquiring any status in society at all. He changed about ten cities, leaving a memory of himself everywhere as an incorrigible womanizer. In 1878, he secretly married Nadezhda Dreyer, the daughter of the city police chief, but the Winter Palace immediately took countermeasures, with the result that the Synod declared the marriage invalid.

When the prince in 1881 asked permission to come to the funeral of his beloved uncle Alexander II, who was blown up by the Narodnaya Volya, he was refused with a thorough rebuke. The new emperor Alexander III told his cousin: his offense has no statute of limitations, and the trampled honor of the family will never be forgiven. True, at the same time, permission was given to enter into marriage and the opportunity to settle in Tashkent.

Here he was finally able to realize all his talents: the prince's enterprises flourished. Cinemas and billiard rooms, a soap factory and a manufactory, trade enterprises and the market brought him an annual income of one and a half million rubles. Given that the content was assigned to him at 200 thousand per year.

Even during his wanderings, he was engaged in scientific activities, published his brochures thanks to the Russian Geographical Society and was keenly interested in the issues of irrigation of the lands of Central Asia. In Turkmenistan, he was able to fully demonstrate his talents, and the desire to "revive the deserts of Central Asia" gave very good results. He built a theater in Tashkent and established ten scholarships for immigrants from Turkestan who were unable to pay for their studies in the main educational institutions of Russia.

But at the same time, he also acquired a harem, appeared in public places with two mistresses at once, fictitiously married a 15-year-old Cossack woman, Daria Chasovitina, and later married a 16-year-old girl Valeria Khmelnitskaya. He had seven children and provided for everyone.

After the revolution, the fate of all the Romanovs could await him, but Konstantin Nikolaevich died of pneumonia on January 14, 1918, before they could get to him.

The cousin Nikolai Konstantinovich, a faithful family man Alexander III and his wife Maria Feodorovna had six children: four sons - Nikolai, who would later become emperor, Alexander, George and Mikhail, as well as two daughters - Ksenia and Olga. Nicholas II, and which of them managed to live to old age?