Catherine Dolgorukov

Infobox Person
name = Catherine Dolgorukova, Princess Yurievskaya


image_size = 180px
caption = Princess Catherine Dolgorukova
birth_date = birth date|1847|11|14|mf=y
birth_place = Russia
death_date = death date and age|1922|2|15|1847|11|14|mf=y
death_place = Nice, France
spouse = Alexander II of Russia (morganatic)

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 July 6, 1880, less than a month after the death of the emperor's wife, Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, on June 8. 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.

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. [Radzinsky (2005), pp. 194-198] One contemporary described the young Catherine as "of medium height, with an elegant figure, silky ivory skin, the eyes of a frightened gazelle, a sensuous mouth, and light chestnut tresses." [Lincoln (1981), p. 440] 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. [Radzinsky (2005), pp. 194-198] He later arranged for her to become a lady-in-waiting to his wife, who was suffering from tuberculosis. [Lincoln (1981), pp. 440] 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." [Radzinsky (2005), pp. 194-198] [Tarsaidze (1970), p. 92]

The Tsar insisted that Catherine and their children remain nearby. He saw her three or four times a week [Lincoln (1981), p. 441] when she was escorted by the police to a private apartment in the Winter Palace [Bergamini (1969), p. 344] and they wrote to one another every day [Lincoln (1981), p. 441] 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.cite web | author=Harding, Luke| year=2007| title = "From Russia with lust: Tsar's erotic letters to young mistress auctioned" | Work= "Guardian Unlimited" | url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2080486,00.html| accessdate= January 28| accessyear=2008] Alexander sketched Catherine in the nude, [Bergamini (1969), p. 344.] rented her a mansion in St. Petersburg, [Bergamini (1969), p. 344] 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.cite web | author=Harding, Luke| year=2007| title = "From Russia with lust: Tsar's erotic letters to young mistress auctioned" | Work= "Guardian Unlimited" | url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2080486,00.html| accessdate= January 28| accessyear=2008] 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. [Tarsaidze (1970]

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. [Bergamini (1969), p. 353] 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." [Radzinsky (2005), p. 233]

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. [Radzinsky (2005), p. 300] 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.cite web | author=Harding, Luke| year=2007| title = "From Russia with lust: Tsar's erotic letters to young mistress auctioned" | Work= "Guardian Unlimited" | url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2080486,00.html| accessdate= January 28| accessyear=2008] 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. [Tarsaidze (1970] 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. [Radzinsky (2005), p. 368]

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!" [Radzinsky (2005), pp. 377-378] 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. [Radzinsky (2005), p. 378] 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. [Radzinsky (2005), p. 378-380]

Though they were happy together, the troubled political situation and constant threats of assassination cast a shadow over their lives together. On March 1, 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 of Hesse's sister, was also in the palace and might have been injured in the assassination attempt. [Mager (1998), p. 71] 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. [Radzinsky (2005), pp. 409-410] When she heard the news, Catherine ran half-dressed into the room where he lay dying and fell across his body, crying "Sasha! Sasha!" [Radzinsky (2005), p. 419] In his memoirs, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich recalled that the pink and white négligée she was wearing was soaked in Alexander's blood. [Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), p. 7] 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. [Bergamini (1969), p. 370]

Later life

After the Tsar's death, Catherine received a pension of approximately 3.4 million rubles [Perry and Pleshakov (1999), p. 31] 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. [Perry and Pleshakov (1999), p. 31] She settled in Paris and on the Riviera, where she became known as a fashionable hostess and was used to having twenty servants and a private railway car, [Bergamini (1969), pp. 370, 464] 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. [Perry and Pleshakov, p. 31] Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia used illness as an excuse to avoid socializing with her in 1895. [Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), p. 133] 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. [Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), p. 133] 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. [Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), p. 133] Catherine survived her husband by forty-one years and died just as her money was running out. [Bergamini (1969), p. 464]

Children

Catherine and Alexander eventually had four children, styled Prince/Princess (knyaz/knyaginya):

*George Alexandrovich Yurievsky (12 May, 1872 - 13 September, 1913). Married Alexandra of Oldenburg, Countess von Zarnekau, daughter of Konstantin Friedrich Peter, Duke of Oldenburg and Agrafena Djaparidze, Countess von Zarnekau.
*Olga Alexandrovna Yurievskaya (7 November, 1874 - 10 August, 1925) Married Georg Nikolaus of Nassau, Count of Merenberg.
*Boris Alexandrovich Yurievsky (23 February, 1876 – 11 April, 1876).
*Catherine Alexandrovna Yurievskaya (9 February, 1878 - 22 December, 1959). She was married to Alexander Vladimirovich, Prince Baryatinsky and later to Sergei Platonovich, Prince Obolensky.

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 Tourneur, 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 may have been the basis for the movie of 1938. The English translation by Priscilla Bibesco was published in 1939.

Notes

References

*Bergamini, John (1969). "The Tragic Dynasty: A History of the Romanovs". Konecky and Konecky. ISBN 1-56852-160-X
*Lincoln, W. Bruce (1981). "The Romanovs: Autocrats of All the Russias". Anchor Press/Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-27908-6.
*Mager, Hugo (1998). "Elizabeth: Grand Duchess of Russia". Carroll & Graf Publishers Inc. ISBN 0-7867-0678-3
*Mironenko, Sergei and Maylunas, Andrei (1997). "A Lifelong Passion: Nicholas and Alexandra: Their Own Story". Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-48673-1
*Perry, John Curtis and Pleshakov, Constantine (1999), "The Flight of the Romanovs". Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02462-9
*Radzinsky, Edvard (2005). "Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar". Free Press, a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7432-7332-9
*Tarsaidze, Alexandre (1970). "Katia: Wife Before God". Macmillan. ISBN B000J1KZAU

External links

* [http://rurik.genealogia.ru/pages/Dolgoruk.htm Genealogy of Dolgorukov Family] (in Russian)
* [http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php/topic,2181.0.html Alexander II and Princess Dolgorukaya, a thread at Alexanderpalace.org]

Persondata
NAME= Dolgorukova, Catherine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Princess Catherine Yurievskaya
SHORT DESCRIPTION=A long-time mistress of Tsar Alexander II of Russia and later, his morganatic wife.
DATE OF BIRTH=14 November 1847
PLACE OF BIRTH= Russia
DATE OF DEATH= 15 February 1922
PLACE OF DEATH= Riviera, France