Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich and the shadow of Pauline Bonaparte
Grand Duke Nicholas Konstantinovich and Fanny Lear
One of the numerous offspring of the imperial house of the Romanovs was Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich - the first child in the family of the younger brother of Emperor Alexander II, the grandson of Nicholas I and the elder brother of the famous poet of the Silver Age, who signed the initials K. R.
He was born in 1850, in 1868 he entered the Academy of the General Staff, from which he graduated with a silver medal - and became the first representative of the Romanov dynasty to receive a higher education.
N. K. Romanov in his youth
It seemed that this young man, who was born "with a silver spoon in his mouth", was provided with a bright future. However, in history he entered as one of the most scandalous representatives of this dynasty. It was necessary to try very hard to receive an offer to give a member of his clan as a soldier, or send him to hard labor, at a general meeting of the royal family, but Nikolai Konstantinovich easily solved this “problem with an asterisk”.
Life before scandals
So, after graduating from the Academy of the General Staff, Nikolai Konstantinovich went on a trip to Europe, where he made the first acquisitions in his collection of paintings. Returning, at the age of 21, he entered the Guards Cavalry Regiment, becoming the commander of one of the squadrons there. It was then at one of the balls that he met a femme fatale - American dancer Harriet Blackford, who was two years older than him.
This lady, the daughter of a Philadelphia Presbyterian minister, ran away at the age of 16 with a certain Calvin Blackford, and gave birth to a daughter by him, who died at an early age. After moving to Paris, she began her career as a dancer. She performed under the stage name Fanny Lear (this is the name of the heroine of one popular theatrical play at that time). Then she came to Petersburg.
Fanny Lear
So far, there has been nothing special in this regard, since the presence of mistresses (among whom there were many dancers and ballerinas) was a long tradition of men of the Russian imperial family. The same Matilda Kshesinskaya was called "the mistress of the Romanovs." From 1890 to 1894, this ballerina was the mistress of Tsarevich Nicholas (the future Emperor Nicholas II), but before the wedding with Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt, he handed her over to his cousin Sergei Mikhailovich, and he gave her to Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich, who was 6 years younger than this lady . This member of the Romanov dynasty in 1914 shot himself in a duel with a new admirer of Kshesinskaya (who was already over 40 years old) - ballet dancer Pyotr Vladimirov.
Peter Vladimirov, Matilda Kshesinskaya and Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich
Going into exile, Matilda said:
"What am I going to do now, when the new government - the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies - consists of 2 people?!"
Indeed, a bit too much even for this not too picky person.
However, the American adventuress Fanny Lear very quickly and deftly took Nikolai Konstantinovich into her hands, which worried his parents. And therefore, in 1873, they achieved his appointment to the Russian expeditionary force under the command of K. P. von Kaufmann, who was heading to conquer the Khiva Khanate (its rulers proudly called their state Khorezm).
Khiva campaign of 1873
Khanate of Khiva on the map
Khan of Khiva Seyid-Muhammed-Rahim
Map of the Khiva expedition in 1873
K. P. Kaufman
As part of the Mangyshlak detachment of Colonel Lomakin, Lieutenant Colonel M. D. Skobelev also took part in the Khiva campaign, who, going there, told his friends that he would either be killed or return as a general.
And already during the campaign, Skobelev said to the staff captain Kedrin:
“There are too many authorities in Petersburg, but here, in the sands, I am my own boss. Luck is not caught in the capital, it lives on the battlefields.
Lieutenant Colonel M. Skobelev
Skobelev is not the hero of our article, but let's say that he did not become a general, he received the rank of colonel only in 1874 - after a business trip to Spain, but was awarded the Order of St. George of the 4th degree.
The Khiva Khanate was not a serious opponent, the whole difficulty of this campaign was solely in the difficult conditions of the troops.
N. N. Karazin. Through the dead sands to the Wells of Adam-Krylgan. Khiva campaign of 1873
In Russia, this war was then called “operetta”, because the overly ambitious Lieutenant Colonel M. Skobelev and Major General N. Verevkin, contrary to Kaufman’s strictest order, “took by storm” the already surrendered capital of the Khanate, Khiva, while losing 11 people killed. And at this very time, Kaufman's troops peacefully entered the city from the opposite side. The commander appointed an internal audit of the activities of his subordinates, the members of the commission were inclined to blame Skobelev for this incident, but the investigation was quietly curtailed.
N. N. Karazin. Russian troops enter Khiva
Khan Seid-Muhammed-Rahim retained his power (and his descendants ruled until 1918), but Khorezm became a Russian protectorate, one of the first orders of the Russian authorities was the order to abolish slavery. About 10 slaves, mostly Persians, were immediately freed.
Medal "For the Khiva Campaign", which was awarded to all participants of this expedition, including medical workers, priests and civil officials
I must say that Nikolai Konstantinovich, who was then part of the Kazaly detachment of Colonel Golov, who joined the column that left Tashkent, showed himself from the best side and, upon returning to St. Petersburg, was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir 3rd degree. At the same time, the Grand Duke became seriously interested in the East and even took an active part in the work of the Russian Geographical Society, was elected its honorary member.
New meeting with Fanny Lear
In St. Petersburg, Nikolai Konstantinovich again met with Fanny Lear, with whom he went on another trip to Europe. The couple in love was accompanied by a certain cornet Savin, who was called the lover of the Grand Duke's passion, and he himself modestly called himself "His Highness's personal supplier of prostitutes." By the way, Nicholas himself often said:
“You can have any woman, it all depends on how much you need to give her: five rubles or five million.”
However, this self-confident playboy did not trust his American passion and therefore took a receipt from her with the following content:
“I swear by everything that is sacred to me in the world, never anywhere and with no one to speak or see without the permission of my august sovereign. I undertake faithfully, as a noble American woman, to keep this oath and declare myself, body and soul, the servant of the Russian Grand Duke. Fanny Lear.
In Rome, Nicholas and Fanny Lear saw the famous sculpture by Antonio Canova, which was a nude image of Pauline Borghese (Napoleon Bonaparte's sister), represented as Venus holding an apple in her hand. Nicholas liked this statue so much that he ordered the sculptor Tommaso Solari to make an exact copy of it, but with the face of Fanny Lear.
Sculpture by Antonio Canova
Sculpture by Tommaso Solari
Fortunately, His Highness did not count money, the same Fanny Lear recalled:
“Members of the imperial family do not carry money with them; when shopping, they leave a note in the store, which is paid by the palace office, and therefore they do not know the account of money; bargain for a penny and abandon thousands.
"Blue thief" of the Romanovs
In April 1874, a very unpleasant story happened in the imperial family.
Alexandra Iosifovna, Nikolai's mother, discovered that in the Marble Palace, three large diamonds were missing from the setting of the icon, which Emperor Nicholas I blessed his son Konstantin to marry her. The police were called, and very soon the stones were found in one of the St. Petersburg pawnshops.
It turned out that they were brought there by none other than the adjutant of their son Nikolai, E. P. Varnakhovsky, who stated that he was only fulfilling the order of the Grand Duke. All this caused bad associations with the notorious "Affaire du collier de la reine" of the French Queen Marie Antoinette.
The situation was so scandalous that Emperor Alexander II ordered the chief of the gendarme corps, Count P. Shuvalov, who was called “the second Arakcheev” and even “Peter IV”, to conduct further investigation. Nikolai was interrogated by Shuvalov in the presence of his father (the interrogation lasted 3 hours), he denied everything, but apparently too clumsily and implausibly, because Konstantin Nikolayevich wrote in his diary:
“No remorse, no consciousness, except when denial is no longer possible, and then we had to pull out vein after vein. Bitterness and not a single tear. They conjured with everything that was left to him as a saint, to alleviate the fate ahead of him with sincere repentance and consciousness! Nothing helped!"
The investigation came to an unequivocal conclusion: the diamonds were stolen by Nikolai Konstantinovich, and he planned to spend the proceeds on gifts for the American Fanny Lear.
It is curious that the American Ambassador M. Jewell took a lively part in the fate of Fanny, who sent a letter to the head of the St. Petersburg Police Department Trepov, which said:
“The United States Envoy Plenipotentiary has the honor to announce that this afternoon the police came to the apartment of Mrs. Blackford, an American citizen. The apartment was searched and many things were taken away. Mrs Blackford is under arrest. The messenger hopes that the general will tell him - tonight, if possible - what the police have arrested her for, what crime she is accused of, and where she is at the moment. The messenger does not intend to interfere in the affairs of justice, but he believes that Mrs. Blackford will not be deprived of the due protection of the law.
Trepov replied that
"Mrs. Blackford, with all due care and attention, has been transferred to a place where nothing will be lacking, and where she will be in good health and the best spirits."
After 5 days, the adventurer was expelled from Russia with a ban on re-entry into the territory of the empire. Before that, Fanny Lear was visited by the famous psychiatrist I. M. Balinsky (professor of the Medical and Surgical Academy and a real state adviser), who questioned her about possible mental abnormalities that the Grand Duke had. According to her, he stated that Nikolai demanded to deliver her to him "day and night with screams and screams."
Once in France, the enterprising American quickly wrote and published a memoir entitled "The Romance of an American Woman in Russia", which included the texts of letters addressed to her by Nikolai Konstantinovich. The Russian ambassador managed to get the French government to confiscate the circulation, but it was too late: some of the books had already been sold, excerpts were distributed in copies. And then the whole book was republished in Belgium.
About the scandalous incident at the Marble Palace, Fanny wrote the following:
“Having returned home, I began to calmly go over in my memory the various oddities of Nikolai, to which I had not paid much attention until now. At the same time, I remembered his mania to take various trinkets from my table. When I noticed them disappearing, he returned them to me, saying that he wanted to tease me. But they would have stayed with him if I hadn't remembered. And how did I not think of this before! I didn’t realize that my poor Nikolai was suffering from a terrible disease called kleptomania… why should a person with an income of more than a million francs a year resort to theft?.. I soon learned from my servants that the Grand Duke was arrested by his father, that he was scared annoyed that they put a straitjacket on him, poured cold water on him and even beat him.
And further:
“If such a loss happened in a family of ordinary people, it would be hidden; here, on the contrary, the police were raised to their feet.
However, the members of the medical commission, Professor I. M. Balinsky and the court physician N. F. Zdekauer, did not find “signs of the so-called kleptomania” in Nikolai, explaining his condition as “an obvious hereditary form of insanity”. The fact is that in the Romanov family, the mother of Nikolai Konstantinovich, Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna, was considered not quite normal and “slightly touched”. She was fond of spiritualism, they also talked about Alexandra's nervous attacks, which were often accompanied by hallucinations. A high-ranking patient was treated with quinine and sodium bromide.
The final medical report dated September 12, 1874 stated that, since the case concerned a representative of the ruling dynasty, the final recognition of his abnormal state of health "depends on the Sovereign will of the Sovereign Emperor." It was recommended "to place His Highness in the southern climate of Russia" and to assign "occupational therapy": to give him the management of "an extensive farm where you can engage in beekeeping, sericulture, cattle breeding, and experiments." A curious medical recommendation is the suggestion that a priest be with the patient at all times.
A family council was convened, at which some relatives offered to give Nikolai as a soldier, or exile him to hard labor. However, Alexander II still did not dare to take such radical measures, he also refused a public trial. As a result, Nikolai Konstantinovich was declared mentally ill and forever expelled from St. Petersburg. His name was forbidden to be mentioned in official documents relating to the imperial family, he was deprived of inheritance rights, titles and awards, his name was deleted from the lists of the Horse Life Guards Regiment.
In the next article, we will continue the story of Grand Duke Nikolai Konstantinovich, talk about his "treatment", folly, successful business activities and death in 1918. And also about his granddaughter, Natalya Androsova, a motorcycle racer and participant in the Great Patriotic War, who in the second half of the XNUMXth century was very famous in the artistic and literary environment, having been awarded the unofficial title of “Queen of the Old Arbat”.
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