Who would be interested in some kind of princess Dolgorukova (were there a lot of princesses in Russia?), if not for the great love that intertwined her fate with the life of Emperor Alexander II? Not a favorite who would have twisted the Sovereign as she wanted, Ekaterina Mikhailovna became his only love, created a family for him, whom he dearly loved and protected.
First meeting
Princess E. M. Dolgorukova was born in 1847 in the Poltava region. There, in the estate of her parents, when she was not yet twelve years old, she first saw the emperor. Moreover, he honored the girl with a walk and a long conversation.
And a forty-year-old adult did not get bored in the company of a child, but he was entertained by the simplicity of communication. Later, two years later, having learned about the disastrous financial situation of Prince Dolgorukov, he helped ensure that both sons of the prince received military education, and sent both princesses to the Smolny Institute.
Second meeting
CatherineMikhailovna, Princess Dolgorukova, while studying at Smolny, received a good education. At the institute for noble maidens, they taught languages, secular manners, housekeeping, music, dancing, drawing, and very little time was devoted to history, geography, and literature. On the eve of Easter 1865, the emperor visited Smolny, and when the seventeen-year-old princess was introduced to him, he remembered her, oddly enough, but even more strange that he did not forget her later.
And the girl was in the prime of her youthful and innocent beauty.
Third meeting
After graduating from the Institute of Noble Maidens, Ekaterina Mikhailovna lived in the house of her brother Mikhail. She loved to walk in the Summer Garden and dream that she would meet Alexander II in it. And her dream came true. They met by chance, and the emperor uttered a lot of compliments to her. She, of course, was embarrassed, but from that time on they began to take walks together. And there it was close to the words of love. While the novel developed platonically, Ekaterina Mikhailovna thought more deeply about her situation and flatly refused to get married: every single young person seemed uninteresting to her.
And the girl decided her own fate. She wanted to make a lonely man happy, like the Sovereign.
Family of Alexander II
Empress Maria Alexandrovna was a cold and dry person even at home. Alexander Nikolaevich did not have a family warm hearth. Everything was strictly regulated. He had not a wife, but the Empress, not children, but the Grand Dukes. Etiquette was strictly observed in the family, and liberties were not allowed. A terrible case with the eldest son, Tsarevich Nicholas, dying of tuberculosis in Nice. The time of daytime sleep has changed for the patient, and Maria Fedorovna stopped visiting him, since during his wakefulness she had walks according to the schedule. Did such a family need a middle-aged man who wants warmth? The death of the heir, with whom he was close, was a huge blow to the emperor.
Secret family
Open and challenging public opinion, which later developed not in her favor, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova surrounded the aging, but still full of strength and ideas, Sovereign with warmth and affection. When their relationship began, she was eighteen, and her lover was thirty years older.
But nothing, except the need to hide from others, overshadowed their relationship. Maria Fedorovna, ill with tuberculosis, did not get up, and the entire Romanov family expressed an extremely negative attitude towards the young woman, especially the heir, Tsarevich Alexander. He himself had a very strong and friendly family, and he refused to accept and understand his father's behavior. He expressed his dislike so clearly that Alexander II sent his wife, for whom he considered Catherine Dolgoruky, first to Naples and then to Paris. It was in Paris in 1867 that their meetings continued. But not a single step of the emperor went unnoticed. The French police were watching him. Their extensive correspondencefull of genuine passion, has survived to this day. Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova was an ardent lover and did not skimp on tender words. All this, apparently, was not enough for Alexander Nikolayevich in his frozen and shackled official family.
Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova and Alexander II
The one whom the Sovereign immediately promised to make his married wife at the first opportunity had to show feminine patience and wisdom. She humbly waited for this happy day for her for fourteen years. During this time, they and Alexander had four children, but one of the sons, Boris, died as an infant. The rest grew up, and the daughters got married, and the son George became a military man, but died at the age of forty-one, outliving his crowned father by many years.
Morganatic wedding
The Empress had not yet died when Alexander Nikolaevich moved his family to the Winter Palace and settled right above the chambers of Maria Feodorovna. There were whispers in the palace. When Maria Feodorovna died in 1880, even before the end of official mourning, less than three months later, a modest, almost secret wedding took place. And five months later, Ekaterina Mikhailovna was granted the title of the Most Serene Princess Yuryevskaya, their children also began to bear this surname. Alexander Nikolayevich was distinguished by fearlessness, but he was afraid of attempts on his life, because he did not know how this would affect the Yuryevsky family. More than 3 million rubles were assigned to the name of the princess and her children, and five months later he was killed by the Narodnaya Volya. His last breath was taken by the completely heartbroken Ekaterina Mikhailovna.
Existence inNice
She was advised to leave the country, and she and her children went to the south coast of France.
In the villa, the Most Serene Princess lived with memories. She kept all the clothes of a loved one down to her dressing gown, wrote a book of memoirs and died in 1922, forty-one years after the death of her beloved husband and lover. She lost her husband at the age of 33 and was faithful to his memory for the rest of her life.
This concludes the description of the life that Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova led. Her biography is both happy and bitter at the same time.
