Catherine Dolgorukov
Encyclopedia
Princess Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova (In Russian
Княжна Екатерина Михаиловна Долгорукова), also known as Catherine Dolgorukova, Catherine Dolgoruki, or Catherine Dolgorukaya, (14 November 1847 – 15 February 1922), was the daughter of Prince Michael Dolgorukov and Vera Vishnevskaya. She was a long-time mistress of Tsar
Alexander II of Russia
and later, as his morganatic
wife, was created Princess Yurievskaya (Светлейшая княгиня Юрьевская).
Alexander and Catherine already had three children when they formed a morganatic marriage
on 6 July 1880, less than a month after the death of the Emperor's wife, Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, on 8 June. A fourth child had died in infancy. Catherine became a widow
with the assassination
of Alexander II on 1 March 1881 by members of Narodnaya Volya.
, a sensuous mouth, and light chestnut tresses." He visited her at the school and took her for walks and on carriage rides. Catherine had liberal opinions, formed in part by her time at the school, and she discussed them with the Tsar. He later arranged for her to become a lady-in-waiting
to his wife, who was suffering from tuberculosis
. Catherine liked the Tsar and enjoyed being in his company, but she didn't want to become one of a series of mistresses. Though her mother and the headmistress of the Smolny Institute both urged her to seize the opportunity to better her circumstances and those of her family, Catherine and Alexander did not actually become intimate until July 1866, when she was moved by her pity for the Tsar after the death of his eldest son, Nicholas Alexandrovich, Tsarevich of Russia, and after an attempt to assassinate him. Her own mother had died two months before. That night, she later recalled in her memoirs, the Tsar told her: "Now you are my secret wife. I swear that if I am ever free, I will marry you."
The Tsar insisted that Catherine and their children remain nearby. He saw her three or four times a week when she was escorted by the police to a private apartment in the Winter Palace
and they wrote to one another every day and sometimes several times each day, often discussing the pleasure they found in making love. In one 28-page letter, written when Catherine was pregnant, she asked the Tsar to remain faithful to her "for I know you are capable in one moment when you want to make it, to forget that you desire only me, and to go and make it with another woman." Twenty-nine of the previously unpublished passionate letters the couple wrote to one another were auctioned off in May 2007 for high sums.
Alexander sketched Catherine in the nude, rented her a mansion in St. Petersburg, and thought of her constantly. Still, great secrecy was required. They never signed their letters to one another with their real names and used the code word "bingerle" to refer to the sex act. When she went into labor with her third child, Boris, in February 1876, Catherine insisted on being taken to the Winter Palace, where she gave birth in the Emperor's rooms, but the baby was taken back to Catherine's private residence while Catherine recovered from childbirth in the Emperor's rooms for nine days. Boris caught cold and died a few weeks later.
The relationship met with tremendous disapproval from the Tsar's family and from those at Court. Catherine was accused of scheming to become Empress and of influencing the Tsar towards liberalism. She was said to associate with unscrupulous businessmen. Some members of the family feared that Catherine's children might supplant the Tsar's legitimate heirs. The Tsar tired of hearing veiled criticisms from relatives and wrote to his sister Queen Olga of Württemberg, shortly after their marriage that Catherine never interfered in affairs at court, despite the ugly rumors about her. "She preferred to renounce all social amusements and pleasures so desired by young ladies of her age...and has devoted her entire life to loving and caring for me," the Tsar wrote. "Without interfering in any affairs, despite the many attempts by those who would dishonestly use her name, she lives only for me, dedicated to bringing up our children."
Fearing that she might become the target of assassins, the Tsar had moved Catherine and their children to the third floor of the Winter Palace by the winter of 1880. Courtiers spread stories that the dying Tsarina was forced to hear the noise of Catherine's children moving about overhead, but her rooms were actually far away from those occupied by the Empress. Though the Tsar had been unfaithful on many occasions in the past, his relationship with Catherine began after the Empress, who had had eight children, stopped having intercourse with her husband on the advice of her doctors. After the Empress asked to meet his children with Catherine, the Tsar brought their two older children, George and Olga, to the Empress's bedside and she kissed and blessed both children. Both the Tsar and his wife were in tears during the meeting. The Tsar told his family that he chose to marry Catherine soon after the death of the Empress because he feared that he would be assassinated and she would be left with nothing. The marriage was unpopular both with the family and with the people, but the Tsar forced them to accept it. He granted Catherine the title of Princess Yurievskaya and legitimized their children, though they had no right to the throne as children of a morganatic marriage.
Some courtiers described Catherine as "vulgar and ugly" and resented that she was there in the place of their dead Empress. One of them, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, wrote that "the eyes, by themselves, would be attractive, I suppose, only her gaze has no depth -- the kind in which transparency and naivete meet with lifelessness and stupidity ... How it irks me to see her in the place of the dear, wise, and graceful Empress!" The Tsar, however, was delighted to finally be married to his long-time mistress and to be able to be open about their relationship. In his memoirs, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia
wrote that the Tsar behaved like a teenage boy when in Catherine's presence and she also appeared to adore him. At one point in family company, the Tsar asked George, his oldest child by Catherine, if he would like to become a Grand Duke. "Sasha, for God's sake, drop it!" Catherine rebuked him, but the exchange fueled the family's fears that the Tsar planned to make Catherine his Empress and supplant his legitimate heirs with his second family. The family also resented it when they heard Catherine call her husband by the diminutive "Sasha." Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich wrote that his father, Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich of Russia, was sorry for Catherine because the family treated her so coldly.
Though they were happy together, the troubled political situation and constant threats of assassination cast a shadow over their lives together. On 1 March 1880, an explosion shook the dining room of the Winter Palace. Alexander ran upstairs to Catherine's rooms, shouting "Katya, my dearest Katya!" She was unhurt, as was the dying Empress, who was so ill she was unaware an explosion had occurred. Alexander's brother-in-law Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine
, who was there during the assassination attempt, bitterly resented that the Tsar had forgotten his dying wife, Prince Alexander's sister, was also in the Palace and might have been injured in the assassination attempt. A year later, on the day that Alexander was assassinated, Catherine pleaded with him not to go out because she had a premonition that something would happen to him. He quieted her objections by making love to her on a table in her rooms and leaving her behind. Within hours he was mortally wounded and was brought back to the palace, broken and bleeding. When she heard the news, Catherine ran half-dressed into the room where he lay dying and fell across his body, crying "Sasha! Sasha!" In his memoirs, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich recalled that the pink and white négligée
she was wearing was soaked in Alexander's blood. At his funeral, Catherine and her three children were forced to stand in an entryway of the church and received no place in the procession of the Imperial Family. They were also forced to attend a separate Funeral Mass than the rest of the family.
and on the Riviera
, where she became known as a fashionable hostess and was used to having twenty servants and a private railway car, though the Romanov Family continued to look upon her and her children with disdain. Tsar Alexander III had his secret police spy on her and received reports on her activities in France. Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia
used illness as an excuse to avoid socializing with her in 1895. Tsar Nicholas II recalled that Catherine was offended when he refused to be the sponsor when her daughter Olga married the Count of Merenberg
in the spring of 1895. His mother, the dowager empress, had been appalled by the idea, so Nicholas declined. Catherine's son George was an abysmal failure in the Russian Navy, as Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia
informed her by letter, but he was granted a place in the Cavalry School. Catherine survived her husband by forty-one years and died just as her money was running out.
/knyaginya):
Three of the children left descendants.
, and the identically-named Katia was directed by Robert Siodmak
and released in 1959.
A biography of Princess Catherine was written by Princess Marthe Bibesco
. This biography was the basis for the movie of 1938. The English translation by Priscilla Bibesco was published in 1939.
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
Княжна Екатерина Михаиловна Долгорукова), also known as Catherine Dolgorukova, Catherine Dolgoruki, or Catherine Dolgorukaya, (14 November 1847 – 15 February 1922), was the daughter of Prince Michael Dolgorukov and Vera Vishnevskaya. She was a long-time mistress of Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
Alexander II of Russia
Alexander II of Russia
Alexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...
and later, as his morganatic
Morganatic marriage
In the context of European royalty, a morganatic marriage is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which prevents the passage of the husband's titles and privileges to the wife and any children born of the marriage...
wife, was created Princess Yurievskaya (Светлейшая княгиня Юрьевская).
Alexander and Catherine already had three children when they formed a morganatic marriage
Morganatic marriage
In the context of European royalty, a morganatic marriage is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which prevents the passage of the husband's titles and privileges to the wife and any children born of the marriage...
on 6 July 1880, less than a month after the death of the Emperor's wife, Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, on 8 June. A fourth child had died in infancy. Catherine became a widow
Widow
A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...
with the assassination
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
of Alexander II on 1 March 1881 by members of Narodnaya Volya.
Relationship with the Tsar
Catherine first met Alexander when she was twelve and he paid a visit to her father's estate. At the time, he saw her only as a little girl and probably forgot their visit. After the death of her father, who had left his family without resources, Catherine and her sister were sent to the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens in St. Petersburg, a school for well-born girls. The Tsar paid for their education and that of their four brothers. Alexander met the sixteen-year-old Catherine there on an official visit to the school in the fall of 1864 and was immediately attracted. One contemporary described the young Catherine as "of medium height, with an elegant figure, silky ivory skin, the eyes of a frightened gazelleGazelle
A gazelle is any of many antelope species in the genus Gazella, or formerly considered to belong to it. Six species are included in two genera, Eudorcas and Nanger, which were formerly considered subgenera...
, a sensuous mouth, and light chestnut tresses." He visited her at the school and took her for walks and on carriage rides. Catherine had liberal opinions, formed in part by her time at the school, and she discussed them with the Tsar. He later arranged for her to become a lady-in-waiting
Lady-in-waiting
A lady-in-waiting is a female personal assistant at a royal court, attending on a queen, a princess, or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman from a family highly thought of in good society, but was of lower rank than the woman on whom she...
to his wife, who was suffering from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. Catherine liked the Tsar and enjoyed being in his company, but she didn't want to become one of a series of mistresses. Though her mother and the headmistress of the Smolny Institute both urged her to seize the opportunity to better her circumstances and those of her family, Catherine and Alexander did not actually become intimate until July 1866, when she was moved by her pity for the Tsar after the death of his eldest son, Nicholas Alexandrovich, Tsarevich of Russia, and after an attempt to assassinate him. Her own mother had died two months before. That night, she later recalled in her memoirs, the Tsar told her: "Now you are my secret wife. I swear that if I am ever free, I will marry you."
The Tsar insisted that Catherine and their children remain nearby. He saw her three or four times a week when she was escorted by the police to a private apartment in the Winter Palace
Winter Palace
The Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was, from 1732 to 1917, the official residence of the Russian monarchs. Situated between the Palace Embankment and the Palace Square, adjacent to the site of Peter the Great's original Winter Palace, the present and fourth Winter Palace was built and...
and they wrote to one another every day and sometimes several times each day, often discussing the pleasure they found in making love. In one 28-page letter, written when Catherine was pregnant, she asked the Tsar to remain faithful to her "for I know you are capable in one moment when you want to make it, to forget that you desire only me, and to go and make it with another woman." Twenty-nine of the previously unpublished passionate letters the couple wrote to one another were auctioned off in May 2007 for high sums.
Alexander sketched Catherine in the nude, rented her a mansion in St. Petersburg, and thought of her constantly. Still, great secrecy was required. They never signed their letters to one another with their real names and used the code word "bingerle" to refer to the sex act. When she went into labor with her third child, Boris, in February 1876, Catherine insisted on being taken to the Winter Palace, where she gave birth in the Emperor's rooms, but the baby was taken back to Catherine's private residence while Catherine recovered from childbirth in the Emperor's rooms for nine days. Boris caught cold and died a few weeks later.
The relationship met with tremendous disapproval from the Tsar's family and from those at Court. Catherine was accused of scheming to become Empress and of influencing the Tsar towards liberalism. She was said to associate with unscrupulous businessmen. Some members of the family feared that Catherine's children might supplant the Tsar's legitimate heirs. The Tsar tired of hearing veiled criticisms from relatives and wrote to his sister Queen Olga of Württemberg, shortly after their marriage that Catherine never interfered in affairs at court, despite the ugly rumors about her. "She preferred to renounce all social amusements and pleasures so desired by young ladies of her age...and has devoted her entire life to loving and caring for me," the Tsar wrote. "Without interfering in any affairs, despite the many attempts by those who would dishonestly use her name, she lives only for me, dedicated to bringing up our children."
Fearing that she might become the target of assassins, the Tsar had moved Catherine and their children to the third floor of the Winter Palace by the winter of 1880. Courtiers spread stories that the dying Tsarina was forced to hear the noise of Catherine's children moving about overhead, but her rooms were actually far away from those occupied by the Empress. Though the Tsar had been unfaithful on many occasions in the past, his relationship with Catherine began after the Empress, who had had eight children, stopped having intercourse with her husband on the advice of her doctors. After the Empress asked to meet his children with Catherine, the Tsar brought their two older children, George and Olga, to the Empress's bedside and she kissed and blessed both children. Both the Tsar and his wife were in tears during the meeting. The Tsar told his family that he chose to marry Catherine soon after the death of the Empress because he feared that he would be assassinated and she would be left with nothing. The marriage was unpopular both with the family and with the people, but the Tsar forced them to accept it. He granted Catherine the title of Princess Yurievskaya and legitimized their children, though they had no right to the throne as children of a morganatic marriage.
Some courtiers described Catherine as "vulgar and ugly" and resented that she was there in the place of their dead Empress. One of them, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, wrote that "the eyes, by themselves, would be attractive, I suppose, only her gaze has no depth -- the kind in which transparency and naivete meet with lifelessness and stupidity ... How it irks me to see her in the place of the dear, wise, and graceful Empress!" The Tsar, however, was delighted to finally be married to his long-time mistress and to be able to be open about their relationship. In his memoirs, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia
Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia
Grand Duke Alexander Mihailovich of Russia, Александр Михайлович Aleksandr Mihailovits was a dynast of the Russian Empire, a naval officer, an author, explorer, the brother-in-law of Emperor Nicholas II, and an advisor of the said Emperor.-Biography: Alexander was born the son of Grand Duke...
wrote that the Tsar behaved like a teenage boy when in Catherine's presence and she also appeared to adore him. At one point in family company, the Tsar asked George, his oldest child by Catherine, if he would like to become a Grand Duke. "Sasha, for God's sake, drop it!" Catherine rebuked him, but the exchange fueled the family's fears that the Tsar planned to make Catherine his Empress and supplant his legitimate heirs with his second family. The family also resented it when they heard Catherine call her husband by the diminutive "Sasha." Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich wrote that his father, Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich of Russia, was sorry for Catherine because the family treated her so coldly.
Though they were happy together, the troubled political situation and constant threats of assassination cast a shadow over their lives together. On 1 March 1880, an explosion shook the dining room of the Winter Palace. Alexander ran upstairs to Catherine's rooms, shouting "Katya, my dearest Katya!" She was unhurt, as was the dying Empress, who was so ill she was unaware an explosion had occurred. Alexander's brother-in-law Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine
Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine
Prince Alexander Ludwig Georg Friedrich Emil of Hesse, GCB was the third son and fourth child of Louis II, Grand Duke of Hesse and Wilhelmina of Baden.-Questioned parentage:...
, who was there during the assassination attempt, bitterly resented that the Tsar had forgotten his dying wife, Prince Alexander's sister, was also in the Palace and might have been injured in the assassination attempt. A year later, on the day that Alexander was assassinated, Catherine pleaded with him not to go out because she had a premonition that something would happen to him. He quieted her objections by making love to her on a table in her rooms and leaving her behind. Within hours he was mortally wounded and was brought back to the palace, broken and bleeding. When she heard the news, Catherine ran half-dressed into the room where he lay dying and fell across his body, crying "Sasha! Sasha!" In his memoirs, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich recalled that the pink and white négligée
Negligee
The negligee is a form of women's clothing consisting of a sheer usually long dressing gown. It is a form of nightgown intended for wear at night and in the bedroom...
she was wearing was soaked in Alexander's blood. At his funeral, Catherine and her three children were forced to stand in an entryway of the church and received no place in the procession of the Imperial Family. They were also forced to attend a separate Funeral Mass than the rest of the family.
Later life
After the Tsar's death, Catherine received a pension of approximately 3.4 million rubles and agreed to give up the right to live in the Winter Palace or any of the Imperial residences in Russia in return for a separate residence for herself and the three children. She settled in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and on the Riviera
French Riviera
The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...
, where she became known as a fashionable hostess and was used to having twenty servants and a private railway car, though the Romanov Family continued to look upon her and her children with disdain. Tsar Alexander III had his secret police spy on her and received reports on her activities in France. Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia
Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia
Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia, , was the third son of Alexander III and Empress Marie of Russia. He was named George after his mother's younger brother, King George I of Greece...
used illness as an excuse to avoid socializing with her in 1895. Tsar Nicholas II recalled that Catherine was offended when he refused to be the sponsor when her daughter Olga married the Count of Merenberg
Count of Merenberg
Count of Merenberg is the title bestowed in 1868 by the reigning Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, George Victor, upon the morganatic wife and male-line descendants of Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau , who married Natalia Alexandrovna Pushkina , former wife of Russian General Mikhail Leontievich...
in the spring of 1895. His mother, the dowager empress, had been appalled by the idea, so Nicholas declined. Catherine's son George was an abysmal failure in the Russian Navy, as Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia
Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia
Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia was the sixth child and the fourth son of Alexander II of Russia and his first wife Maria Alexandrovna . Destined to a naval career, Alexei Alexandrovich started his military training at the age of 7...
informed her by letter, but he was granted a place in the Cavalry School. Catherine survived her husband by forty-one years and died just as her money was running out.
Children
Catherine and Alexander had four children styled Prince/Princess (knyazKnyaz
Kniaz, knyaz or knez is a Slavic title found in most Slavic languages, denoting a royal nobility rank. It is usually translated into English as either Prince or less commonly as Duke....
/knyaginya):
- HSH Prince George Alexandrovich YurievskyPrince George Alexandrovich YurievskyPrince George Alexandrovich Yuryevsky was the natural son of Alexander II of Russia by his mistress Catherine Dolgorukov. The marriage of George's parents' eight years after his birth, on 6 July 1880, resulted in the legitimation of their three surviving children, so that George gained the style...
(12 May 1872 – 13 September 1913). Married Countess Alexandra von Zarnekau, a morganaticMorganatic marriageIn the context of European royalty, a morganatic marriage is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which prevents the passage of the husband's titles and privileges to the wife and any children born of the marriage...
daughter of Duke Konstantin of Oldenburg and Agrafena DjaparidzeJaparidze (noble family)Jap'aridze was a Georgian noble family known from c. 1400.A family legend recorded by Prince Ioann of Georgia in his genealogical treatise holds it that the Jap'aridze descended from the Mongol officer in Racha called Jap'ar whose scions later converted to Georgian Orthodox Christianity and were...
, Countess von Zarnekau. - HSH Princess Olga Alexandrovna Yurievskaya (7 November 1874 – 10 August 1925) Married Georg Nikolaus, Count of MerenbergCount of MerenbergCount of Merenberg is the title bestowed in 1868 by the reigning Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, George Victor, upon the morganatic wife and male-line descendants of Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau , who married Natalia Alexandrovna Pushkina , former wife of Russian General Mikhail Leontievich...
, a morganaticMorganatic marriageIn the context of European royalty, a morganatic marriage is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which prevents the passage of the husband's titles and privileges to the wife and any children born of the marriage...
son of Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau by his wife, Natalia Aleksandrovna, a daughter of Alexander Pushkin. - Boris Alexandrovich Yurievsky (23 February 1876 – 11 April 1876).
- HSH Princess Catherine Alexandrovna YurievskayaCatherine YurievskayaPrincess Catherine Alexandrovna Yurievskaya , was the natural daughter of Alexander II of Russia by his mistress, later his wife, Catherine Dolgorukov. In her own family she was known as Katia...
(9 February 1878 – 22 December 1959). She was married to Prince Alexander Vladimirovich Baryatinsky, and later to Prince Sergei Platonovich ObolenskySerge ObolenskySergei Platonovich 5th Knyaz Obolensky-Neledinsky-Meletzky was a Russian Prince and Vice Chairman of the Board of Hilton Hotels Corporation....
.
Three of the children left descendants.
In media
Princess Catherine's story was made into a film twice. Katia, released in 1938, was directed by Maurice TourneurMaurice Tourneur
Maurice Tourneur was an important international film director and screenwriter.-Life:Born Maurice Thomas in the Belleville district of Paris, France, his father was a jeweler. As a young man, Maurice Thomas first trained as a graphic designer and a magazine illustrator but was soon drawn to the...
, and the identically-named Katia was directed by Robert Siodmak
Robert Siodmak
Robert Siodmak was a German born American film director. He is best remembered as a thriller specialist and for the series of Hollywood film noirs he made in the 1940s.-Early life:...
and released in 1959.
A biography of Princess Catherine was written by Princess Marthe Bibesco
Marthe Bibesco
Marthe, Princess Bibesco was a Romanian-French writer of the Belle Époque...
. This biography was the basis for the movie of 1938. The English translation by Priscilla Bibesco was published in 1939.