His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke, Adjutant General, Infantry General, Inspector General c. educational zavny, 2nd son of His Emperor. Highness Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich and Her Emperor. Highness Princess Alexandra ... ... Big biographical encyclopedia

KONSTANTIN KONSTANTINOVICH, see ROKOSSOVSKY. Source: Encyclopedia Fatherland ... Russian history

His Imperial Highness Prince, the second son led. book. Konstantin Nikolaevich, b. August 10, 1858 Chief of the 15th Tiflis Grenadier Regiment, President of Akd. Sciences (since 1889), commander l. guards Preobrazhensky Regiment (since 1891), and before that ... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

Konstantin Konstantinovich- (1858 1915) Grand Duke, grandson of Nicholas I, general, president of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Poet (wrote under the pseudonym K.R.), author of several collections of poems and poetic tragedy King of the Jews ... Orthodox Encyclopedic Dictionary

Konstantin Konstantinovich- (1858 1915) led. book, 2nd son led. book. Konstantin Nikolaevich. Gene. Adjutant, Gen. from infantry. Military began his service in the navy. Member of the Russian tour. war of 1877 78, awarded the order. St. George. In 1878 he was enlisted in the Life Guards of the Izmailovsky Regiment in ... ... Russian humanitarian encyclopedic dictionary

Konstantin Konstantinovich- KONSTANTIN KONSTANTINOVICH, see K. R ... Biographical Dictionary

Konstantin Konstantinovich- (Romanov, 1858 1915) Grand Duke, poet, pseudonym. In 1889 1915. President of the Academy of Sciences. Published in Russian Bulletin, Bulletin of Europe. Compositions: collection. Poems K. R., New poems K. R. 1886 1888 (including the poem by Sebastian ... ... Dictionary of literary types

Konstantin Konstantinovich Jr. Konstantin Konstantinovich (December 20, 1890 (January 1, 1891), St. Petersburg July 18, 1918, near Alapaevsk) Russian prince of imperial blood, son of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich and Grand Duchess Elizabeth ... Wikipedia

Books

• Harpagonias, Konstantin Konstantinovich Vaginov. Konstantin Konstantinovich Vaginov was one of the smartest, kindest and noblest people I have ever met in my life. And perhaps one of the most gifted`, - Nikolai Chukovsky recalled. ...
• Harpagonias, Konstantin Konstantinovich Vaginov. Konstantin Konstantinovich Vaginov was one of the smartest, kindest and noblest people I have ever met in my life. And perhaps one of the most gifted, "recalled Nikolai Chukovsky. ...

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, poetic pseudonym K. R. (August 10, 1858, Strelna - June 2, 1915, Pavlovsk) - member of the Russian Imperial House, adjutant general (1901), infantry general (1907), inspector general of the Military Training institutions, president of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1889), poet, translator and playwright.

Leontovsky Alexander Mikhailovich. The chief head of military educational institutions, Lieutenant General Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich in 1901.
The second son of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich and Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna, grandson of Nicholas I. At baptism, he was awarded the orders of St. Apostle Andrew the First-Called, St. Alexander Nevsky and St. Anna 1st degree, appointed chief of the Tiflis Grenadier Regiment and enlisted in the lists of the life guards of the Cavalry and Izmailovsky regiments, life guards of battery No. 5 of the 3rd Guards and Grenadier artillery brigade (1st battery of the Life Guards of the 3rd artillery brigade) and the Guards crew. In 1859 he was enrolled in the lists of the Life Guards of the 4th Infantry Battalion of the Imperial Family. In 1865 he was promoted to warrant officer and awarded the orders of the White Eagle and St. Stanislav, 1st degree.


Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna with children.



Alexandra Iosifovna and Konstantin Nikolayevich with their daughter Olga. / Konstantin Konstantinovich in childhood.


Right - Photographer C. Bergamasco. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich as Mozart. 1880s
He received a comprehensive home education. Famous historians S. M. Solovyov, K. N. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, music critic G. A. Larosh, cellist I. I. Seifert, pianist Rudolf Kündinger, writers I. A. Goncharov and F. M. Dostoevsky. From childhood, the Grand Duke was prepared for service in the Navy. At the age of 7, Captain 1st Rank A.I. Zelenoy was appointed his tutor, who held this position until the age of the Grand Duke. Classes were conducted according to the program of the Naval School. In 1874 and 1876, as a midshipman, he made a long voyage to the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea on the frigate Svetlana. In August 1876, he passed the exam according to the program of the Naval School and was promoted to the rank of midshipman.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich.
Member of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. On October 17, 1877, he was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree: “In retribution for courage and diligence in dealing with the Turks on the Danube near Silistria, on October 2, 1877, where His Highness personally launched a fire-ship against a Turkish steamer.” In May 1878 he was promoted to lieutenant of the fleet. In August 1878 he was appointed adjutant wing. In January-September 1880 he commanded a company of the Guards crew. In September 1880 he was appointed officer of the watch on the ship "Duke of Edinburgh", on which until January 1882 he was sailing in the Mediterranean. During this voyage, in the summer of 1881, Konstantin Konstantinovich visited Athos; in a conversation with the elder, he expressed a desire to “be of great benefit” in the priesthood, but the elder said that “for now, another service, other duties await me, and in time, perhaps the Lord will bless the intention. God grant that the words of the holy elder come true.

Left - Photographer A. Pasetti. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich in the garden. 1880s
In 1882, due to illness, he was transferred to the land department and in August he was promoted to staff captain of the guard. In December 1883, Konstantin Konstantinovich was appointed commander of a company of His Majesty's Life Guards of the Izmailovsky Regiment. Until the end of 1883, he was on vacation abroad, during which he met his future wife, Elizabeth Augusta Maria Agnes, the second daughter of the Prince of Saxe-Altenburg, Duke of Saxony Moritz. This acquaintance was decisive in the choice of Constantine, and he "expressed a desire" to become the groom of Princess Elizabeth. However, the princess' parents disagreed. Konstantin showed enviable perseverance, and his parents agreed to their marriage. By that time, the Grand Duke had already left for Russia, and the bride sent him an encrypted telegram: "The piano has been bought." This meant that Konstantin could come to Altenburg to officially ask for her hand.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich./ Elizabeth and Konstantin. 1884-85

Princess Elizabeth.
In 1884, Konstantin Konstantinovich married Princess Elizabeth (Russian name Elizaveta Mavrikievna; she did not accept Orthodoxy). His wife was his second cousin (both were descendants of Emperor Paul I). The Romanovs gave her a contemptuous nickname - Mavra. It seemed to Konstantin that with this woman he would find family happiness, it would be warm and cozy in their house. He affectionately called her Lilinka and dreamed that he would find a spiritual friend in his wife. But the Grand Duke was cruelly mistaken. Mavra turned out to be a simple, down-to-earth creature, she was a little stupid and was not interested in anything other than everyday affairs, gossip and raising children. “She rarely has real conversations with me. She usually tells me common places. You need a lot of patience. She considers me much superior to herself and is surprised at my gullibility. It has the suspiciousness common to the Altenburg family, boundless timidity, emptiness and adherence to news that seems to me not worth any attention. Will I redo it in my own way someday? Konstantin asked. He struggled to captivate his wife with lofty themes, poetry, literature in general. Not in the stump of the deck! When Konstantin once read Dostoevsky to her (in German, she did not speak or understand Russian), trying to convey to her the meaning of Crime and Punishment, he noticed that she dozed off. For him it was a shock. After this incident, educational classes with Mavra ended. She didn't show any interest in them, and he didn't push anymore.



Leontovsky Alexander Mikhailovich. Portrait of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna.


Braz Osip Emmanuilovich. Portrait of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna. 1912
The marriage produced nine children:
* John (1886-1918), killed by the Bolsheviks;
* Gabriel (1887-1955), was arrested, saved from execution by Maxim Gorky, went to Finland, and then to Paris; author of memoirs;
* Tatyana (1890-1979), married Konstantin Bagration-Mukhransky, who died at the beginning of the First World War. In 1921 she married Alexander Korochentsov, who died a year later. She ended her life in a monastery;
* Konstantin (1891-1918), Lieutenant of the Life Guards of the Izmailovsky Regiment, Knight of St. George, killed by the Bolsheviks.
* Oleg (1892-1914), died at the front during the First World War;
* Igor (1894-1918), killed by the Bolsheviks;
*George (1903-1938), died in New York at the age of 35 after an unsuccessful operation;
*Natalia (1905), died in infancy;
* Vera (1906-2001), never married. Died in New York.


Children of Konstantin Konstantinovich (postcard).


Photo from the 1890s. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov, his wife Elizaveta Mavrikievna and their eldest children John, Gabriel, Tatyana, Konstantin, Oleg and Igor (George).


Family of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov. 1903




Family of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov. 1905


Family of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov. 1909
The diary entries of the Grand Duke, transferred by K. R. to the archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences with the condition of publication no earlier than 90 years after his death (published in 1994), contain references to homosexual contacts by Konstantin Konstantinovich: “My secret vice completely took possession of me. There was a time, and quite a long one, that I almost defeated him, from the end of 1893 to 1900. But since then, and especially since April of this year (just before the birth of our charming George), I again slipped and rolled and still roll, as if on an inclined plane, lower and lower.


In 1887 he was promoted to captain of the guard, and on April 23, 1891 - to colonel and was appointed commander of the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment. In 1894 he was promoted to major general, with approval as regiment commander. In 1898 he was appointed to the retinue of His Majesty. In 1887 he was elected an honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, and in 1889 he was appointed its President ("August President"). On his initiative, at the Department of Russian Language and Literature, a category of fine literature was established, according to which famous writers were elected to honorary academicians - P. D. Boborykin (1900), I. A. Bunin (1909), V. G. Korolenko (1900) , A. V. Sukhovo-Kobylin (1902), A. P. Chekhov (1900) and others. He headed the committee for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of A. S. Pushkin. With the assistance of the Grand Duke, a new building of the Zoological Museum in St. Petersburg was opened.


Repin Ilya Efimovich. Portrait of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov. 1891
In 1889 he was elected an honorary trustee of the Pedagogical Courses at the St. Petersburg women's gymnasiums. He was the chairman of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society (since 1892), the Imperial Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography, the Imperial Russian Society for Water Rescue, the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society and the St. Petersburg Yacht Club. Full member of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of Arts, the Imperial Russian Musical Society. Honorary member of the Russian Astronomical Society, the Russian Historical Society, the Russian Red Cross Society, the Russian Society for the Promotion of Merchant Shipping. The Grand Duke, in his youth himself a former navy sailor, patronized Baron E. V. Toll, equipped by the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Polar Expedition.

Right - Konstantin Konstantinovich in stage costume.
On March 4, 1900, he was appointed Chief Head of Military Educational Institutions (from March 13, 1910 - Inspector General of Military Educational Institutions), after which he traveled around all the institutions entrusted to him. As a result of the inspection, an order appeared in which the Grand Duke spoke about the tasks of military education: “A closed institution is obliged, as the moral growth of its pupils, to gradually raise in them the consciousness of their human dignity and carefully eliminate everything that can humiliate or offend this dignity. Only under this condition can senior pupils become what they should be - the color and pride of their institutions, friends of their educators and reasonable guides of public opinion of the entire mass of pupils in a good direction.




He twice visited Odessa to supervise the construction of the Cadet Corps, and on October 6, 1902, he was present at the consecration of the Corps Church in memory of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Brothers Cyril and Methodius. The next day, the Grand Duke got acquainted with the newcomers to the corps. In the hall of the 3rd company, in the presence of the Grand Duke, a musical and literary evening was held with the participation of a choir of singers, a brass corps orchestra and individual cadet performers. “I endure the most pleasant impression from the Odessa Cadet Corps, from the consecration of its temple and everything I have seen,” were the words of the Grand Duke before his departure. In memory of those events in 1999 in Odessa, on the territory of the former Cadet Corps, a bust of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich was erected. In December 2015, the monument was dismantled.

On the right is a monument in Odessa.
In January 1901, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed adjutant general. In 1907 he was promoted to general of infantry. On March 2, 1911, he was appointed to be present in the Governing Senate (with the remaining in other positions). In 1913, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 1st degree, for services in service (4th degree - 1883, 3rd degree - 1896, 2nd degree - 1903). He was also the chief of the 2nd battalion of the Life Guards of the 4th Infantry Imperial Family Regiment, on the lists of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, the Pavlovsk Military and Konstantinovsky Artillery Schools, the Corps of Pages and the Orenburg Cossack Host. Honorary member of the Nikolaev Academy of Engineering (since 1904), the Imperial Military Medical Academy and the Mikhailovskaya Artillery Academy.


Leontovsky Alexander Mikhailovich. Portrait of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, President of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. 1906
Konstantin Konstantinovich had a weakness for the "noble nests" near Moscow and in 1903 acquired the Ostashevo estate on the banks of the Ruza River, where the Decembrists once secretly gathered. He wrote about this to his eldest son: “Mom and I spent a very quiet and pleasant time in Ostashevo. It far exceeded Mom's expectations, to my great joy. She liked the area and the house very much, and she was not the only one - everyone is delighted with our new estate. Since then, the Grand Duke lived for a long time on the banks of the Ruza and raised children here; once the whole family made a trip along the "golden ring" up to Romanov-Borisoglebsk and Uglich.


Braz Osip Emmanuilovich. Portrait of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. 1912
He was a famous Russian poet, author of several collections. The first poetic works were published in the journal Vestnik Evropy in 1882. The first collection, which included poems from 1879-1885, was published in 1886. In 1888 he published the first poem, Sebastian the Martyr, then the collections New Poems by K. R., "The third collection of poems by K. R." (1900), "Poems of K. R." (1901). Belonged to the so-called old school, was the successor of classical traditions. The poet K. R. did not have a first-class talent, but he took his place in the history of Russian literature. Many of his poems were melodious and were set to music (the most famous is the romance "I opened the window ..." with music by P. I. Tchaikovsky, who also composed music for "I did not love you at first ...", "The separation has passed" and other poems K. R.). On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of A. S. Pushkin, he wrote the text of the Solemn Cantata in memory of the poet. The cantata was set to music by Alexander Glazunov and performed at the solemn emergency meeting of the Academy of Sciences in honor of the anniversary. The play by K. R. on the gospel story "The King of the Jews" and the author's notes to it M. A. Bulgakov used as material for the novel "The Master and Margarita". But the poems of K. R. “The poor man died in a military hospital” won a special, popular love. The song performed by Nadezhda Plevitskaya to the music of Yakov Prigozhey, recorded on a gramophone and distributed as a gramophone record in the most remote corners of the Russian Empire (and then Russian emigrants smashed it around the world), was popular among the soldiers of the First World War, not only because of its special penetration. Already as an official, Konstantin Konstantinovich took all measures to revise the regulations on soldier's funerals, and soon new rules for the burial of lower ranks were approved. As a result, in 1909, the "Rules for the burial of the lower ranks" were adopted - an example of the respectful attitude of the state towards the deceased, regardless of their social status and official rank.


K. R. translated into Russian the tragedy of F. Schiller "The Bride of Messina", the tragedy of J. W. Goethe, Shakespeare's "King Henry IV". Author of a successful translation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" into Russian, on which he worked from 1889 to 1898; translation with extensive comments in 3 volumes was published in 1899 and reprinted several times. In 1897 and 1899, excerpts from the play were staged in an amateur theater, and K.R. played the role of Hamlet. The play was staged in full in February 1900 on the stage of the Hermitage Theatre, and in the autumn of the same year in Alexandrinka.


Sofia Ivanovna Junker-Kramskaya. Grand Duke K.K. Romanov as Hamlet. 1887
He owned the Marble (Konstantinovsky) Palace and an apartment building (Spasskaya st., 21) in St. Petersburg, a palace in Pavlovsk, the Ostashevo estate in Mozhaisk and Ruzsky districts. Moscow province, part of the Uch-Dere estate in the Sochi district of the Black Sea province, plots of land in the region of the Kherati and Kudebti rivers in the Black Sea province (1287 dess, together with his brother Dmitry), two separate plots from the Mir state forest dacha of the Serpukhov forestry of Podolsky district. Moscow lips. The summer of 1914, Konstantin Konstantinovich with his wife and younger children spent in Germany, in his wife's homeland, where they were caught by the outbreak of the First World War; were arrested and deported from Germany. In the fall of 1914, the grand duke experienced a new, most difficult shock with the death of his son, Prince Oleg. These trials undermined the already fragile health of the Grand Duke.


Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich died on June 2, 1915, in his office in the palace in Pavlovsk, in the presence of his 9-year-old daughter Vera, and was buried in the palace church. He was the last of the Romanovs, who died before the revolution and was buried in the grand ducal tomb of the Peter and Paul Fortress.


Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov on his deathbed.
Memories of Prince Gabriel Konstantinovich.
“Father bequeathed to bury himself in the form of the 15th Grenadier Regiment. Arriving at the Alexander Palace, I asked to be reported to the Sovereign. He received me in his office and ordered me to dress my father in a tunic. From the Sovereign, I drove to the chief-marshal gr. Benckendorff, also on behalf of the uncle, to ask if the George Cross should be put on his father. Benckendorff said that the George Cross should not be worn. Father was embalmed in the mezzanine, next to the study of Emperor Paul. Doctors found an ulcer in the heart. Now the father’s words became clear that sometimes he feels “wounds in his heart.” However, he rarely complained about his suffering and kept everything to himself. After one of the memorial services in my father's office, my uncle, my brothers and myself, and the officials of our court, put my father in a coffin. The coffin was moved to the second floor, in a magnificent rotunda. Three flags were placed at the head of my father: admiral, vice admiral and rear admiral, since my father was in the Guards crew. On both sides of the coffin there was a watch from the military educational institutions, as well as from the units in which the father was listed. Unfortunately, the father's body was poorly embalmed and his expression changed.
It was covered with a golden brocade veil trimmed with ermine. Chandeliers with lighted candles stood around the coffin. The atmosphere was very solemn. During one of the funeral services, the horse guard, who was standing guard at the coffin with a rifle over his shoulder, fainted. A lot of people came to the funeral services. The Family stood in the rotunda itself, and the audience stood nearby, in the Greek Hall and on the landing of the stairs. The removal of the father's body from the Pavlovsk Palace and its transportation to Petrograd, to the Peter and Paul Fortress, took place on the eighth day after his death. The removal took place after breakfast, at three o'clock. The Sovereign arrived, Pavel Alexandrovich and Georgy Mikhailovich. Other members of the Family met the body of their father in Petrograd, at the Tsarskoselsky railway station, on the Tsarskaya branch. The sovereign followed the coffin through the courtyard of the palace and then left for Tsarskoye Selo. All the rest accompanied the coffin to the Pavlovsky station and went with him to Petrograd, in a special train.


There were many people standing along the highway along which the father's coffin was being transported in Pavlovsk. When we approached the station, the orchestra, which gave concerts in the hall of the station, began to play a funeral march. Our train approached in Petrograd the platform of the Tsarskaya Line, on which the meeting was prepared. The Emperor stood on the platform together with the two Empresses. They were in crepe black dresses and St. Andrew's ribbons. To the sounds of “Kol is glorious”, the coffin was taken out of the car and placed on the gun carriage of the Konstantinovsky Artillery School, in which the father was listed. The junkers of the school were the riders. On the sides of the coffin were pages with torches. Empresses and Grand Duchesses rode in ceremonial funeral carriages. Mother and nine-year-old sister Vera rode in the same carriage with Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Troops stood along the path of the sad procession. Ioanchik and I walked along the sides of the uncle.
The next day, after the transfer of the father's body to the Peter and Paul Fortress, there was a funeral service and funeral. The coffin stood high under a canopy. There was a watch all around him. To the right of the Family, next to Grand Duke Georgy Mikhailovich, stood the English ambassador Buchanan, the same one who contributed to our "great and bloodless" revolution.
Mother kept herself calm and, as always, with great dignity. When the lid of the coffin was slowly closed, mother leaned lower and lower to see the face of the deceased until the last moment. They buried my father in a new tomb, in the same place where my grandfather and grandmother, and my sister Natalya, are buried. The coffin was lowered into a very deep and narrow well. Thank God, my father's valet, Fokin, who was with his father since the Russian-Turkish war, remembered that his father always carried with him a box with the land of Strelna, where he was born. He brought it with him to the tomb and this earth was poured on the lid of the coffin when he was lowered to the resting place. On the lid of this metal box were engraved, in mother's handwriting, the words of Lermontov: "Is it possible not to remember your homeland?"
The well was covered with a slab, the same as on the other graves. Before my father's funeral, I didn't think that coffins were lowered into such deep and narrow wells. The tombstones are made flush with the stone floor. Previously, all persons of the Dynasty were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral itself, and tall white marble sarcophagi with a golden cross were placed over each grave. You could kneel in front of the sarcophagus, lean on it and pray like that. Thus, you felt close to your dear deceased. And in the tomb, the dead dear to you were somewhere under your feet. How to approach them and how to feel close to them?


Elizaveta Mavrikievna, having been widowed in 1915, after the February Revolution of 1917, first left for Sweden, and from there to Germany, to her native Altenburg, where she died in 1927.
In 2014, with the assistance of members of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society, a memorial plaque was installed in Orel to Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, who repeatedly visited the Oryol Bakhtin cadet corps.

Romanov Konstantin Konstantinovich - poetic pseudonym K. R. (August 10 (22), 1858, Strelna - June 2 (15), 1915, Pavlovsk) - Grand Duke, President of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, poet, translator and playwright.

The second son of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich and Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna, grandson of Nicholas I. He received a versatile home education. Famous historians S. M. Solovyov, K. I. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, music critic G. A. Larosh, cellist I. I. Zeifert, writers I. A. Goncharov and F. M. Dostoevsky took part in his training and education. . From childhood, the Grand Duke was prepared for service in the Navy. At the age of 7, Captain 1st Rank I.A. Zelenoy was appointed his tutor, who held this position until the age of the Grand Duke. Classes were conducted according to the program of the Naval School. In 1874 and 1876, as a midshipman, he made a long voyage to the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea on the frigate Svetlana. In August 1876, he passed the exam according to the program of the Naval School and was promoted to the rank of midshipman.

From 1877 to 1898, Konstantin Konstantinovich served in various naval and land units, participated in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. Since 1898 he was appointed to the retinue of His Majesty. In 1887, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich was awarded the title of honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, and in 1889 he was appointed its President ("August President"). This was the first and only case in the history of Russia when the Academy of Sciences was headed by a member of the royal house.

Since 1900 - Chief Head of Military Educational Institutions. Under the leadership of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, a lot of work was done to develop and improve education in military educational institutions. Honorary member of the Nikolaev Academy of Engineering (since 1904), the Imperial Military Medical Academy and the Mikhailovskaya Artillery Academy, and many others. others

Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov was also a well-known Russian poet, translator and playwright who published his poems under the initials K. R. It was impossible for him to sign his works with his full name to act as a professional poet, actor or musician, one of the members of the royal house was “out of order” .

The first works of poetry were published in the journal Vestnik Evropy in 1882. The first book, Poems by K. R. (1886) did not go on sale, was sent to those whom the poet considered close to himself in spirit (including Fet, Ap. Maikov, Polonsky). She evoked poetic dedications and responses in letters - enthusiastic and not entirely objective. Believing in his talent, the Grand Duke began to print everything that came out of his pen: love, landscape lyrics, salon poems, translations, and soon took a strong place in literature. In 1888, K. R. published the first poem, Sebastian the Martyr, then the collections New Poems of K. R., The Third Collection of K. R. Poems. (1900), "Poems of K. R." (1901).

The melodic stanzas of Konstantin Konstantinovich's poetry easily turned into romances (the most famous is the romance "I opened the window ..." with music by P. I. Tchaikovsky). They stayed in the vocal repertoire, as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Glazunov, Gliere wrote music for them. The poem "The poor man died in a military hospital" became a popular song. The most significant work of K. R. - the mystery "King of the Jews" (1913) was banned from staging by the Synod, which did not allow the gospel history of the Passion of the Lord to be brought down to the theatrical stage. By permission of the king, the play was staged by an amateur court theater, where the author played one of the roles.

I. A. Goncharov, Ya. P. Polonsky, A. A. Fet corresponded with the Grand Duke, who appreciated his taste and even instructed him to correct his poems. K. R. also translated a lot into Russian: the tragedy of F. Schiller "The Bride of Messina", the tragedy of J. W. Goethe, Shakespeare's "King Henry IV". K. R. - the author of a successful translation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" into Russian, on which he worked from 1889 to 1898; translation with extensive comments in 3 volumes was published in 1899 and reprinted several times.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich died on June 2, 1915. He was the last of the Romanovs who died before the revolution and was buried in the grand ducal tomb of the Peter and Paul Fortress.

When there is no urine to bear the cross,
When longing do not overcome
We to heaven raise our eyes
Praying days and nights
For the Lord to have mercy.
K. R.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich I.E. Repin

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov was the second son of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich Romanov.

Konstantin Konstantinovich was born on August 10, 1858. Like all Romanov children, Kostya received an excellent education at home. The father, himself a sailor, began to prepare his son for naval service. At the age of 16, he was promoted to midshipman and in 1876, on the frigate Svetlana, as part of the Russian squadron, he was sent on a two-year voyage to the shores of the New World, to Singapore, Japan and China.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich

When the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 began, Konstantin Konstantinovich sank a Turkish ship in the battle near Silistria on the Danube, for which he was awarded the St. George Cross of the IV degree. Then there were more voyages and long trips across the seas and oceans, until in 1882 he was transferred to the guard. The naval career of the Grand Duke ended. Why this happened is unknown. Maybe he had special plans for that. We do not know. One way or another, but in 1891 he became the commander of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. In 1900, Adjutant General Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich became the head of all military educational institutions in Russia, and a little earlier - in 1889 - he was appointed president of the Academy of Sciences.

Photographer A. Pasetti "Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich" 1878-82.

Konstantin Konstantinovich was the most educated person of that time, was an excellent pianist and was widely known as a poet. He signed his poems with the initials K. R. - Konstantin Romanov. At that time, his poems were popular in certain circles. So, the song "The poor man died in a military hospital" to the words of K. R. was considered folk.

Konstantin Konstantinovich was extraordinarily flattered by this. “They call me the best man in Russia,” he wrote smugly. “Meanwhile, my pride is an inexhaustible abyss. I keep dreaming that someday they will put me along with the great artists, ”the Grand Duke built castles in the air. He admired the work of Dostoevsky and even met with him several times. “He treated me with disposition, and I remember how he once predicted a great future for me,” boasted K. R. The undoubted merit of the Grand Duke is the creation of the Pushkin House in the system of the Academy of Sciences. He was also fond of music and was friends with the composer Tchaikovsky.

Alexander Leontovsky "Portrait of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich President of the Imperial Academy of Sciences" 1906

Konstantin Konstantinovich knew languages ​​​​excellently and tried himself in translation - he translated Shakespeare's Hamlet and Schiller's Messianic Bride. He worked on the first translation for more than ten years.

In 1897 and 1899, excerpts from the play were staged in an amateur theater, and K.R. played the role of Hamlet.

Sofia Ivanovna Junker-Kramskaya “Grand Duke K.K. Romanov as Hamlet" 1887

The play was staged in full in February 1900 on the stage of the Hermitage Theatre, and in the autumn of the same year in Alexandrinka.
It should be noted that before the translation of Pasternak's "Hamlet" in the translation of K.R. was the best. Although, as Ella Matonina and Eduard Govorushko write in their book "K.R." from the ZhZL series, he was "even ashamed to confess to himself, and not only to tell someone that he did not understand Shakespeare." In his diary, the Grand Duke wrote: “I began to read Othello. Some places conquer the mind and artistry. Wonderful! But otherwise I don't like it. Perhaps I have not grown up to Shakespeare, my underdevelopment is to blame for everything.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich as Mozart

In stage costume

The last major work of K.R. is a drama in verse "The King of the Jews" (1913), its content is a poetic presentation of the events of the last days of Christ's life, his entry into Jerusalem, execution and resurrection.However, permission was not given for its public showing, and Konstantin Konstantinovich himself staged it at the Hermitage Theater in 1914 and played in it himself along with his sons John, Konstantin and Igor.

In 1884, K. R. married Princess Elisabeth Augusta Maria Agnes of Saxe-Altenburg. She was the great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Paul I and, accordingly, was Konstantin's second cousin.

They met in Altenburg, where the Grand Duke came to her sister's funeral. Konstantin wrote in his diary: “I looked at her. Strange thing, I noticed in her that she looked like the Princess of Wales, whom I love so much. I thought it was impossible to approach her, and involuntarily said funny things in a sad voice. So, we said only two or three words with her. At parting, she again looked at me somehow especially and squeezed my hand tightly ... Uncle Ernest came in to me. I told him about the impression made on me by Elizabeth. He was pretty cool about it. However, he replied that he personally had nothing against my marriage to Elizabeth.

This acquaintance was decisive in the choice of Constantine, and he "expressed a desire" to become the groom of Princess Elizabeth. However, the princess' parents disagreed.

Princess Augusta of Saxe-Meiningen Skye and Prince Moritz (Mauritius) Saxe-Altenbourg gsky

Parents of Elizabeth Mavrikievna

They were afraid of the activities of terrorist organizations, one of which Emperor Alexander II was killed in this “barbarian country” (what good, and the groom will be swatted like a fly), they also had in mind the unsuccessful family life of Konstantin’s mother, Alexandra Iosifovna (Elizabeth was her cousin niece ). However, Konstantin showed enviable perseverance, and his parents agreed to their marriage. By that time, the Grand Duke had already left for Russia, and the bride sent him an encrypted telegram: "The piano has been bought." This meant that Konstantin could come to Altenburg to officially ask for her hand.

"You fell in love - I love you,
It is possible for me, O friend, to love you!
And now I will fill with such a song,
What you could only inspire.

Elizabeth and Constantine 1884-85

Elizaveta Mavrikievna in a wedding dress

Upon arrival in Russia, she began to be called Elizaveta Mavrikievna (the rest of the Romanovs gave her a contemptuous nickname - Mavra). Cousin of Constantine - Alexander (the future Emperor Alexander III) generally called her "ugly". She never converted to Orthodoxy and remained a Lutheran all her life. It seemed to Konstantin that with this woman he would find family happiness, it would be warm and cozy in their house.

He affectionately called her Lilinka and dreamed that he would find a spiritual friend in his wife. But the Grand Duke was cruelly mistaken. Mavra turned out to be a simple, down-to-earth creature, she was a little stupid and was not interested in anything other than everyday affairs, gossip and raising children. “She rarely has real conversations with me. She usually tells me common places. You need a lot of patience. She considers me much superior to herself and is surprised at my gullibility. It has the suspiciousness common to the Altenburg family, boundless timidity, emptiness and adherence to news that seems to me not worth any attention. Will I remake it in my own way someday? asked Konstantin.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich and Grand Duchess Elizaveta Mavrikievna

Konstantin struggled to captivate his wife with lofty topics, poetry, literature in general. Not in the stump of the deck! When Konstantin once read Dostoevsky to her (in German, she did not speak or understand Russian), trying to convey to her the meaning of Crime and Punishment, he noticed that she dozed off. For him it was a shock. After this incident, educational classes with Mavra ended. She didn't show any interest in them, and he didn't push anymore. Nevertheless, she gave birth to six sons to Konstantin - John, Gabriel, Konstantin, Oleg, Igor and George, as well as three daughters - Elena, Tatyana and Olga. There are nine children in total. This was the vocation of Elizabeth Mavrikievna - to give birth to children, and not to listen to her husband's abstruse speeches.

Family of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich

Children of Konstantin Konstantinovich (postcard).

Frame for photos of children, Faberge

Konstantin Konstantinovich could be called a happy father of a family and a good family man, but there was one shameful secret in his life - he was a homosexual! How do we know this, since he did not advertise his inclinations? From his diaries! He led them all his life and before his death bequeathed to the Academy of Sciences, so that they were made public no earlier than 90 years later. However, history decreed otherwise - in 1917, just two years after the death of the Grand Duke, the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, and the secret became clear.

Konstantin Konstantinovich wanted to be different from everyone else: he is an extraordinary lyric poet, he is a writer of plays based on biblical motifs, and a translator of Shakespeare, and the head of the Academy of Sciences, and so on and so forth. Let's remember his words: "They call me the best person in Russia." He quite sincerely considered himself so!

In his youth, Konstantin adhered to the belief that sexual contact with a woman was possible only after marriage. However, things did not go according to his rules. In 1877, he arrived in New York on the frigate Svetlana. Then Kostya visited a brothel and, in his incomplete 19 years, became a man. Konstantin did not like what happened in the brothel. "I did not feel any voluptuousness," he wrote in his diary. Since then, he has never touched a woman until his marriage at 26 years old.

He liked the men's company. Strong, strong-willed men evoked admiration and respect from him. Over the years, this attraction did not pass, Konstantin began to like men more and more, but already as possible sex partners. He knew it was not good and usually qualifies as sodomy. And yet, he couldn't resist. One night while circumnavigating the world, he "became closer than allowed" to an officer. In the Navy, during long voyages, due to the lack of women, if it was already unbearable, some people sinned with pederasty; it was acceptable, albeit bad. Constantine experienced remorse, his own sinfulness, and asked the Lord God to forgive him for this weakness.

When there is no urine to bear the cross,
When sadness cannot be overcome
We raise our eyes to heaven
Praying day and night
For the Lord to have mercy.

But if after grief
Happiness smiles upon us again
Thank you kindly
With all my heart, with all my mind
Are we God's mercy and love?

The fear of exposure forced Konstantin to "encrypt". He did not tell anything about his sexual preferences to relatives and comrades in the service. He secretly sinned with the young attendants of the city or regimental bath (recall that in 1891 he became the commander of the Preobrazhensky regiment). He sinned and repented at the same time. Here is his diary entry from March 1894: “For the last two months I have struggled more vigorously with temptations, abandoned bargains with my conscience and tried not to give myself a reason to sin. And this occasion for me was a bath; If you don’t go to the bath, don’t sin, or I only sin mentally. And at the mass in the regimental cathedral I saw my attendant. Noticing him, I quickly turned my eyes away and did not look at him again.

Teach me, God, to love
With all your mind, with all your thought,
To devote my soul to you,
And all my life with every heartbeat.

Teach me to keep
Only Your merciful will,
Learn to never complain
To your hard lot.

All who came to redeem
You, by Your Pure Blood,
Selfless, deep love
Teach me, God, to love!
1886

Once, one incident made the Grand Duke pretty worried. In February 1894, Colonel Katerininov came to him as the commander of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. He reported to him about the scandalous case - young lieutenants Rudanovsky and Saburov were involved in pederasty. Rudanovsky was certainly to blame, and only suspicion of unnatural inclinations fell on Saburov. According to the unwritten laws of that time, both of them had to be immediately removed from the regiment. Morals then were strict and uncompromising. The mere suspicion of a penchant for "Sodomy sin" was enough to say goodbye to a military career forever and become an outcast in the army. The stigma of this shame could not be washed away.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich suffered - the above-mentioned officers became victims of moral standards, and he, perhaps much more sinful, will have to punish them. Then he wrote in his diary: “And I, subject to the same inclinations, am forced to punish people who are no worse than me. It's hard. In addition, I love Saburov and, like many of his comrades, do not believe in his guilt: and now, as a regimental commander, protecting the honor of a society of officers, I must remove a person less guilty than myself. And I, only for the sake of the fact that nothing is known about my sin, being a judge in a case in which, perhaps, an innocent person accidentally got into. How painful! And meanwhile, I expressed to Katerininov my decision to remove both named officers from the regiment calmly, without a moment's hesitation, as if I myself were not guilty of anything.

They scold me when I'm sorry
I am the cause of sorrow
Me with my heartlessness;
I get scolded when I'm sorry
The one who is in involuntary weakness
Or he will sin in error ...
Though it hurts me and it hurts,
But don't let anyone say
That the good seed is powerless
Ascend good; that only evil
We have been edified.
It hurts more to listen to such judgments,
Than bear sadness and sorrow from those
To whom instant infatuation
It will happen to fall into an insignificant sin.
Are not all of us guilty in many ways,
Are not all brothers in Christ?
Are not all sinners before God,
For us crucified on the Cross?

In this act of his, one can see solidarity with the officers caught in pederasty, but nothing can be done for them - otherwise he himself may be suspected of this. And he made a deal with his conscience. He was terribly afraid of publicity. Konstantin was worried about himself, for the children, in front of whom he was ashamed, in front of the king, in front of acquaintances who respected him. And now, on the threshold of his fiftieth birthday, the threat of exposure of his double life became real.

In December 1905, he received a letter from Captain Sosnitsky, who had spent three thousand rubles from the treasury of the cadet school and, since he did not make up for the waste, was dismissed from the army without a uniform and pension. Recall that Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich was also the head of all the military educational institutions of the country, and this case concerned him directly. For this, Sosnitsky decided to blackmail him. He wrote that he squandered the money "out of dire need," adding that no sin happens to anyone, "at least to you." Further, the blackmailer wrote how one day in the summer of 1903 he arrived in the Krasnoselsky baths in the evening. “What happened there, you probably remember,” he wrote. The next day, he again visited the baths, asked the bath attendant who used the Grand Duke and learned from him that he received 20 rubles for the “service” rendered to Konstantin. The letter ended with a threat that for the time being he "keeps everything a secret", but if this circumstance appears in the press, then the Grand Duke "will be inconvenient to remain in his post." In conclusion, Sosnitsky demanded that he be received "for a personal conversation."

Konstantin Konstantinovich, as they say, precipitated. He could not come to his senses for a long time. Shame and embarrassment filled his soul. Here it is - the revelation! Having calmed down a little, the Grand Duke considered the situation. Then he checked Sosnitsky's story against his diaries. Yes, he visited the Krasnoselsky baths that day, but there was nothing like that this time, and he did not give 20 rubles to the attendant. So Captain Sosnitsky was lying. However, information about his unnatural inclinations was leaked somewhere. What to do?

Having suffered a night without sleep, the Grand Duke made a firm decision - in no case should he accept a blackmailer. “I didn’t receive Sosnitsky yesterday and I won’t accept it, I won’t take any measures. Come what may," he wrote. A day passed in agonizing expectation, another passed, a whole week passed, and the publication in the press accusing Konstantin Konstantinovich of homosexuality still did not appear. The Grand Duke was in terrible tension. Another month passed, and he realized that the blackmailer had abandoned his intentions and retreated. And this did him good - after the incident with Sosnitsky, who threatened him with exposure, Konstantin Konstantinovich never sinned.

Osip Braz "Portrait of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich"

He died in 1915, having not survived the death of his son Oleg at the front in the First World War. Oleg was the only offspring of the Romanovs who died defending the Fatherland.

Prince Oleg on his deathbed

In recent years, 1914

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, a talented man and a great sinner, died at the age of 57.

And what about his wife, Elizaveta Mavrikievna? She did not know about the bad inclinations of her husband and did not even guess. Widowed in 1915, after the February Revolution of 1917, she first left for Sweden, and from there to Germany, to her native Altenburg, where she died in 1927. Their daughter Vera died in the United States in 2001 at the age of 94. She was the last representative of the Konstantinovich branch, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Emperor Nicholas I. Konstantinovichi":
Part 1 - Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov.

Author - A-delina. This is a quote from this post.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, poetic pseudonym K. R. (August 10, 1858, Strelna - June 2, 1915, Pavlovsk) - member of the Russian Imperial House, adjutant general (1901), infantry general (1907), inspector general of the Military Training institutions, president of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1889), poet, translator and playwright.

Leontovsky Alexander Mikhailovich. The chief head of military educational institutions, Lieutenant General Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich in 1901.

The second son of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich and Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna, grandson of Nicholas I. At baptism, he was awarded the orders of St. Apostle Andrew the First-Called, St. Alexander Nevsky and St. Anna 1st degree, appointed chief of the Tiflis Grenadier Regiment and enlisted in the lists of the life guards of the Cavalry and Izmailovsky regiments, life guards of battery No. 5 of the 3rd Guards and Grenadier artillery brigade (1st battery of the Life Guards of the 3rd artillery brigade) and the Guards crew. In 1859 he was enrolled in the lists of the Life Guards of the 4th Infantry Battalion of the Imperial Family. In 1865 he was promoted to warrant officer and awarded the orders of the White Eagle and St. Stanislav, 1st degree.

Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna with children.

Alexandra Iosifovna and Konstantin Nikolayevich with their daughter Olga. / Konstantin Konstantinovich in childhood.

Right - Photographer C. Bergamasco. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich as Mozart. 1880s

He received a comprehensive home education. Famous historians S. M. Solovyov, K. N. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, music critic G. A. Larosh, cellist I. I. Seifert, pianist Rudolf Kündinger, writers I. A. Goncharov and F. M. Dostoevsky. From childhood, the Grand Duke was prepared for service in the Navy. At the age of 7, Captain 1st Rank A.I. Zelenoy was appointed his tutor, who held this position until the age of the Grand Duke. Classes were conducted according to the program of the Naval School. In 1874 and 1876, as a midshipman, he made a long voyage to the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea on the frigate Svetlana. In August 1876, he passed the exam according to the program of the Naval School and was promoted to the rank of midshipman.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich.

Member of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. On October 17, 1877, he was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree: “In retribution for courage and diligence in dealing with the Turks on the Danube near Silistria, on October 2, 1877, where His Highness personally launched a fire-ship against a Turkish steamer.” In May 1878 he was promoted to lieutenant of the fleet. In August 1878 he was appointed adjutant wing. In January-September 1880 he commanded a company of the Guards crew. In September 1880 he was appointed officer of the watch on the ship "Duke of Edinburgh", on which until January 1882 he was sailing in the Mediterranean. During this voyage, in the summer of 1881, Konstantin Konstantinovich visited Athos; in a conversation with the elder, he expressed a desire to “be of great benefit” in the priesthood, but the elder said that “for now, another service, other duties await me, and in time, perhaps the Lord will bless the intention. God grant that the words of the holy elder come true.

Left - Photographer A. Pasetti. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich in the garden. 1880s

In 1882, due to illness, he was transferred to the land department and in August he was promoted to staff captain of the guard. In December 1883, Konstantin Konstantinovich was appointed commander of a company of His Majesty's Life Guards of the Izmailovsky Regiment. Until the end of 1883, he was on vacation abroad, during which he met his future wife, Elizabeth Augusta Maria Agnes, the second daughter of the Prince of Saxe-Altenburg, Duke of Saxony Moritz. This acquaintance was decisive in the choice of Constantine, and he "expressed a desire" to become the groom of Princess Elizabeth. However, the princess' parents disagreed. Konstantin showed enviable perseverance, and his parents agreed to their marriage. By that time, the Grand Duke had already left for Russia, and the bride sent him an encrypted telegram: "The piano has been bought." This meant that Konstantin could come to Altenburg to officially ask for her hand.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich./ Elizabeth and Konstantin. 1884-85

Princess Elizabeth.

In 1884, Konstantin Konstantinovich married Princess Elizabeth (Russian name Elizaveta Mavrikievna; she did not accept Orthodoxy). His wife was his second cousin (both were descendants of Emperor Paul I). The Romanovs gave her a contemptuous nickname - Mavra. It seemed to Konstantin that with this woman he would find family happiness, it would be warm and cozy in their house. He affectionately called her Lilinka and dreamed that he would find a spiritual friend in his wife. But the Grand Duke was cruelly mistaken. Mavra turned out to be a simple, down-to-earth creature, she was a little stupid and was not interested in anything other than everyday affairs, gossip and raising children. “She rarely has real conversations with me. She usually tells me common places. You need a lot of patience. She considers me much superior to herself and is surprised at my gullibility. It has the suspiciousness common to the Altenburg family, boundless timidity, emptiness and adherence to news that seems to me not worth any attention. Will I redo it in my own way someday? Konstantin asked. He struggled to captivate his wife with lofty themes, poetry, literature in general. Not in the stump of the deck! When Konstantin once read Dostoevsky to her (in German, she did not speak or understand Russian), trying to convey to her the meaning of Crime and Punishment, he noticed that she dozed off. For him it was a shock. After this incident, educational classes with Mavra ended. She didn't show any interest in them, and he didn't push anymore.

Leontovsky Alexander Mikhailovich. Portrait of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna.

Braz Osip Emmanuilovich. Portrait of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna. 1912

The marriage produced nine children:
* John (1886-1918), killed by the Bolsheviks;
* Gabriel (1887-1955), was arrested, saved from execution by Maxim Gorky, went to Finland, and then to Paris; author of memoirs;
* Tatyana (1890-1979), married Konstantin Bagration-Mukhransky, who died at the beginning of the First World War. In 1921 she married Alexander Korochentsov, who died a year later. She ended her life in a monastery;
* Konstantin (1891-1918), Lieutenant of the Life Guards of the Izmailovsky Regiment, Knight of St. George, killed by the Bolsheviks.
* Oleg (1892-1914), died at the front during the First World War;
* Igor (1894-1918), killed by the Bolsheviks;
*George (1903-1938), died in New York at the age of 35 after an unsuccessful operation;
*Natalia (1905), died in infancy;
* Vera (1906-2001), never married. Died in New York.

Children of Konstantin Konstantinovich (postcard).

Photo from the 1890s. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov, his wife Elizaveta Mavrikievna and their eldest children John, Gabriel, Tatyana, Konstantin, Oleg and Igor (George).

Family of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov. 1903

Family of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov. 1905

Family of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov. 1909

The diary entries of the Grand Duke, transferred by K. R. to the archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences with the condition of publication no earlier than 90 years after his death (published in 1994), contain references to homosexual contacts by Konstantin Konstantinovich: “My secret vice completely took possession of me. There was a time, and quite a long one, that I almost defeated him, from the end of 1893 to 1900. But since then, and especially since April of this year (just before the birth of our charming George), I again slipped and rolled and still roll, as if on an inclined plane, lower and lower.

In 1887 he was promoted to captain of the guard, and on April 23, 1891 - to colonel and was appointed commander of the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment. In 1894 he was promoted to major general, with approval as regiment commander. In 1898 he was appointed to the retinue of His Majesty. In 1887 he was elected an honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, and in 1889 he was appointed its President ("August President"). On his initiative, at the Department of Russian Language and Literature, a category of fine literature was established, according to which famous writers were elected to honorary academicians - P. D. Boborykin (1900), I. A. Bunin (1909), V. G. Korolenko (1900) , A. V. Sukhovo-Kobylin (1902), A. P. Chekhov (1900) and others. He headed the committee for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of A. S. Pushkin. With the assistance of the Grand Duke, a new building of the Zoological Museum in St. Petersburg was opened.

Repin Ilya Efimovich. Portrait of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov. 1891

In 1889 he was elected an honorary trustee of the Pedagogical Courses at the St. Petersburg women's gymnasiums. He was the chairman of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society (since 1892), the Imperial Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography, the Imperial Russian Society for Water Rescue, the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society and the St. Petersburg Yacht Club. Full member of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of Arts, the Imperial Russian Musical Society. Honorary member of the Russian Astronomical Society, the Russian Historical Society, the Russian Red Cross Society, the Russian Society for the Promotion of Merchant Shipping. The Grand Duke, in his youth himself a former navy sailor, patronized Baron E. V. Toll, equipped by the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Polar Expedition.

Right - Konstantin Konstantinovich in stage costume.

On March 4, 1900, he was appointed Chief Head of Military Educational Institutions (from March 13, 1910 - Inspector General of Military Educational Institutions), after which he traveled around all the institutions entrusted to him. As a result of the inspection, an order appeared in which the Grand Duke spoke about the tasks of military education: “A closed institution is obliged, as the moral growth of its pupils, to gradually raise in them the consciousness of their human dignity and carefully eliminate everything that can humiliate or offend this dignity. Only under this condition can senior pupils become what they should be - the color and pride of their institutions, friends of their educators and reasonable guides of public opinion of the entire mass of pupils in a good direction.

He twice visited Odessa to supervise the construction of the Cadet Corps, and on October 6, 1902, he was present at the consecration of the Corps Church in memory of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Brothers Cyril and Methodius. The next day, the Grand Duke got acquainted with the newcomers to the corps. In the hall of the 3rd company, in the presence of the Grand Duke, a musical and literary evening was held with the participation of a choir of singers, a brass corps orchestra and individual cadet performers. “I endure the most pleasant impression from the Odessa Cadet Corps, from the consecration of its temple and everything I have seen,” were the words of the Grand Duke before his departure. In memory of those events in 1999 in Odessa, on the territory of the former Cadet Corps, a bust of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich was erected. In December 2015, the monument was dismantled.

On the right is a monument in Odessa.

In January 1901, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed adjutant general. In 1907 he was promoted to general of infantry. On March 2, 1911, he was appointed to be present in the Governing Senate (with the remaining in other positions). In 1913, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 1st degree, for services in service (4th degree - 1883, 3rd degree - 1896, 2nd degree - 1903). He was also the chief of the 2nd battalion of the Life Guards of the 4th Infantry Imperial Family Regiment, on the lists of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, the Pavlovsk Military and Konstantinovsky Artillery Schools, the Corps of Pages and the Orenburg Cossack Host. Honorary member of the Nikolaev Academy of Engineering (since 1904), the Imperial Military Medical Academy and the Mikhailovskaya Artillery Academy.

Leontovsky Alexander Mikhailovich. Portrait of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, President of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. 1906

Konstantin Konstantinovich had a weakness for the "noble nests" near Moscow and in 1903 acquired the Ostashevo estate on the banks of the Ruza River, where the Decembrists once secretly gathered. He wrote about this to his eldest son: “Mom and I spent a very quiet and pleasant time in Ostashevo. It far exceeded Mom's expectations, to my great joy. She liked the area and the house very much, and she was not the only one - everyone is delighted with our new estate. Since then, the Grand Duke lived for a long time on the banks of the Ruza and raised children here; once the whole family made a trip along the "golden ring" up to Romanov-Borisoglebsk and Uglich.

Braz Osip Emmanuilovich. Portrait of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. 1912

He was a famous Russian poet, author of several collections. The first poetic works were published in the journal Vestnik Evropy in 1882. The first collection, which included poems from 1879-1885, was published in 1886. In 1888 he published the first poem, Sebastian the Martyr, then the collections New Poems by K. R., "The third collection of poems by K. R." (1900), "Poems of K. R." (1901). Belonged to the so-called old school, was the successor of classical traditions. The poet K. R. did not have a first-class talent, but he took his place in the history of Russian literature. Many of his poems were melodious and were set to music (the most famous is the romance "I opened the window ..." with music by P. I. Tchaikovsky, who also composed music for "I did not love you at first ...", "The separation has passed" and other poems K. R.). On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of A. S. Pushkin, he wrote the text of the Solemn Cantata in memory of the poet. The cantata was set to music by Alexander Glazunov and performed at the solemn emergency meeting of the Academy of Sciences in honor of the anniversary. The play by K. R. on the gospel story "The King of the Jews" and the author's notes to it M. A. Bulgakov used as material for the novel "The Master and Margarita". But the poems of K. R. “The poor man died in a military hospital” won a special, popular love. The song performed by Nadezhda Plevitskaya to the music of Yakov Prigozhey, recorded on a gramophone and distributed as a gramophone record in the most remote corners of the Russian Empire (and then Russian emigrants smashed it around the world), was popular among the soldiers of the First World War, not only because of its special penetration. Already as an official, Konstantin Konstantinovich took all measures to revise the regulations on soldier's funerals, and soon new rules for the burial of lower ranks were approved. As a result, in 1909, the "Rules for the burial of the lower ranks" were adopted - an example of the respectful attitude of the state towards the deceased, regardless of their social status and official rank.

K. R. translated into Russian the tragedy of F. Schiller "The Bride of Messina", the tragedy of J. W. Goethe, Shakespeare's "King Henry IV". Author of a successful translation of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" into Russian, on which he worked from 1889 to 1898; translation with extensive comments in 3 volumes was published in 1899 and reprinted several times. In 1897 and 1899, excerpts from the play were staged in an amateur theater, and K.R. played the role of Hamlet. The play was staged in full in February 1900 on the stage of the Hermitage Theatre, and in the autumn of the same year in Alexandrinka.

Sofia Ivanovna Junker-Kramskaya. Grand Duke K.K. Romanov as Hamlet. 1887

He owned the Marble (Konstantinovsky) Palace and an apartment building (Spasskaya st., 21) in St. Petersburg, a palace in Pavlovsk, the Ostashevo estate in Mozhaisk and Ruzsky districts. Moscow province, part of the Uch-Dere estate in the Sochi district of the Black Sea province, plots of land in the region of the Kherati and Kudebti rivers in the Black Sea province (1287 dess, together with his brother Dmitry), two separate plots from the Mir state forest dacha of the Serpukhov forestry of Podolsky district. Moscow lips. The summer of 1914, Konstantin Konstantinovich with his wife and younger children spent in Germany, in his wife's homeland, where they were caught by the outbreak of the First World War; were arrested and deported from Germany. In the fall of 1914, the grand duke experienced a new, most difficult shock with the death of his son, Prince Oleg. These trials undermined the already fragile health of the Grand Duke.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich died on June 2, 1915, in his office in the palace in Pavlovsk, in the presence of his 9-year-old daughter Vera, and was buried in the palace church. He was the last of the Romanovs, who died before the revolution and was buried in the grand ducal tomb of the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Memories of Prince Gabriel Konstantinovich.

“Father bequeathed to bury himself in the form of the 15th Grenadier Regiment. Arriving at the Alexander Palace, I asked to be reported to the Sovereign. He received me in his office and ordered me to dress my father in a tunic. From the Sovereign, I drove to the chief-marshal gr. Benckendorff, also on behalf of the uncle, to ask if the George Cross should be put on his father. Benckendorff said that the George Cross should not be worn. Father was embalmed in the mezzanine, next to the study of Emperor Paul. Doctors found an ulcer in the heart. Now the father’s words became clear that sometimes he feels “wounds in his heart.” However, he rarely complained about his suffering and kept everything to himself. After one of the memorial services in my father's office, my uncle, my brothers and myself, and the officials of our court, put my father in a coffin. The coffin was moved to the second floor, in a magnificent rotunda. Three flags were placed at the head of my father: admiral, vice admiral and rear admiral, since my father was in the Guards crew. On both sides of the coffin there was a watch from the military educational institutions, as well as from the units in which the father was listed. Unfortunately, the father's body was poorly embalmed and his expression changed.

It was covered with a golden brocade veil trimmed with ermine. Chandeliers with lighted candles stood around the coffin. The atmosphere was very solemn. During one of the funeral services, the horse guard, who was standing guard at the coffin with a rifle over his shoulder, fainted. A lot of people came to the funeral services. The Family stood in the rotunda itself, and the audience stood nearby, in the Greek Hall and on the landing of the stairs. The removal of the father's body from the Pavlovsk Palace and its transportation to Petrograd, to the Peter and Paul Fortress, took place on the eighth day after his death. The removal took place after breakfast, at three o'clock. The Sovereign arrived, Pavel Alexandrovich and Georgy Mikhailovich. Other members of the Family met the body of their father in Petrograd, at the Tsarskoselsky railway station, on the Tsarskaya branch. The sovereign followed the coffin through the courtyard of the palace and then left for Tsarskoye Selo. All the rest accompanied the coffin to the Pavlovsky station and went with him to Petrograd, in a special train.

There were many people standing along the highway along which the father's coffin was being transported in Pavlovsk. When we approached the station, the orchestra, which gave concerts in the hall of the station, began to play a funeral march. Our train approached in Petrograd the platform of the Tsarskaya Line, on which the meeting was prepared. The Emperor stood on the platform together with the two Empresses. They were in crepe black dresses and St. Andrew's ribbons. To the sounds of “Kol is glorious”, the coffin was taken out of the car and placed on the gun carriage of the Konstantinovsky Artillery School, in which the father was listed. The junkers of the school were the riders. On the sides of the coffin were pages with torches. Empresses and Grand Duchesses rode in ceremonial funeral carriages. Mother and nine-year-old sister Vera rode in the same carriage with Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Troops stood along the path of the sad procession. Ioanchik and I walked along the sides of the uncle.

The next day, after the transfer of the father's body to the Peter and Paul Fortress, there was a funeral service and funeral. The coffin stood high under a canopy. There was a watch all around him. To the right of the Family, next to Grand Duke Georgy Mikhailovich, stood the English ambassador Buchanan, the same one who contributed to our "great and bloodless" revolution.

Mother kept herself calm and, as always, with great dignity. When the lid of the coffin was slowly closed, mother leaned lower and lower to see the face of the deceased until the last moment. They buried my father in a new tomb, in the same place where my grandfather and grandmother, and my sister Natalya, are buried. The coffin was lowered into a very deep and narrow well. Thank God, my father's valet, Fokin, who was with his father since the Russian-Turkish war, remembered that his father always carried with him a box with the land of Strelna, where he was born. He brought it with him to the tomb and this earth was poured on the lid of the coffin when he was lowered to the resting place. On the lid of this metal box were engraved, in mother's handwriting, the words of Lermontov: "Is it possible not to remember your homeland?"

The well was covered with a slab, the same as on the other graves. Before my father's funeral, I didn't think that coffins were lowered into such deep and narrow wells. The tombstones are made flush with the stone floor. Previously, all persons of the Dynasty were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral itself, and tall white marble sarcophagi with a golden cross were placed over each grave. You could kneel in front of the sarcophagus, lean on it and pray like that. Thus, you felt close to your dear deceased. And in the tomb, the dead dear to you were somewhere under your feet. How to approach them and how to feel close to them?

Elizaveta Mavrikievna, having been widowed in 1915, after the February Revolution of 1917, first left for Sweden, and from there to Germany, to her native Altenburg, where she died in 1927.

In 2014, with the assistance of members of the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society, a memorial plaque was installed in Orel to Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, who repeatedly visited the Oryol Bakhtin cadet corps.