Princess Vera Constantinovna of Russia
Encyclopedia
Princess Vera Constantinovna of Russia, , was the youngest child of Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia
and his wife Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna. A great-granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia
, she was born in Imperial Russia and was a childhood playmate of Nicholas II
’s younger children. She lost much of her family during World War I and the Russian Revolution. At age twelve, she escaped revolutionary Russia, fleeing with her mother and brother George to Sweden
. She spent the rest of her long life in exile, first in Western Europe and from the 1950s in the United States.
on 24 April 1906. She was the youngest child among the ten children of Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia
and his wife Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna, born Princess Elizabeth of Saxe-Altenburg. She was going to be named Marianne in honor of her mother's favorite sister, Princess Marie Anne of Saxe-Altenburg
, but her paternal aunt Grand Duchess Vera Constantinovna of Russia
insisted that her niece should be named after her. Her godparents were her brother Prince Constantine Constantinovich of Russia and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Vera Constantinovna spent her first year in fabulous splendor on the last period of Imperial Russia. Her father, a respected poet, was a second cousin of Tsar Nicholas II.
Princess Vera was eight years old when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated and World War I broke out, in the summer of 1914. Vera was with her parents and her brother George in Germany visiting her maternal relatives in Altenburg
at the start of the war. The conflict took them by surprise, trapping them in Germany, an enemy country. It was thanks to the intervention of the German Empress, Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein
that they were allowed to return to Russia. Vera’s older siblings joined the Russian army in the military effort, and her favorite brother Oleg
was killed in action. She was considered too young and was not allowed to attend her brother's funeral. Her brother’s death was just the first of many family misfortunes.
The following year, her father died of a heart attack in her presence. In a letter to her brother, she later described how she was sitting with her father in his study, when Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich began gasping. Princess Vera managed to push open a heavy door between her parents' studies, pushing aside several heavy plants that stood in front of the door, and ran to her mother crying that her father couldn't breathe. Her mother ran after her, but the grand duke had already died.
in Petrograd, leaving Pavlovsk to her eldest brother Prince Ivan Constantinovich. During the chaotic rule of the Provisional Government
, and after the October Revolution
, Princess Vera, her mother, and her brother George
, remained at Pavlovsk. For a time, they lived a precarious existence, and her mother was forced to secretly sell family heirlooms to provide for the family. They stayed in the palace until the summer of 1918, when the revolution forced them to leave it and to take an apartment in the city.
During the Russian revolution, four of Vera’s brothers were imprisoned by the Bolsheviks. Only Prince Gabriel was eventually released. Three of her brothers (Ivan, Constantine and Igor) were killed at Alapaevsk, along with other Romanov relatives, in July 1918.
Initially, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna was reluctant to leave Russia remembering her late husband's words, that if Russia was in need, it was a Romanov's duty to help. However, with their situation becoming increasingly dangerous, she accepted an offer made by her friend, Queen Victoria of Sweden
, through the Swedish Ambassador Brandstrem, to travel to Sweden
.
From Kronstadt
twelve-year-old Princess Vera escaped to Sweden
aboard the Swedish vessel Ångermanland in October 1918 with her mother, her brother George, and her young nephew, (Prince Teymuraz Constantinovich) and niece (Princess Natalia Constantinovna Bagration-Mukhransky) when they were permitted by the Bolsheviks to be taken by ship to Sweden
, via Tallinn
to Helsinki
and via Mariehamn
to Stockholm
, at the invitation of Queen Victoria of Sweden
. At Stockholm
harbor, they met Prince Gustaf Adolf
, who took them to the royal palace
.
, first in Stockholm
and then in Saltsjöbaden
. As Sweden proved too expensive to live in, Elizabeth Mavrikievna wrote a letter to Albert I of Belgium
, asking him to allow them to move to his country. In 1920 they relocated to Brussels
were they were frequently ill. In 1922, Vera's uncle, Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Altenburg invited them to move to Germany. Elizabeth Mavrikievna settled in the ancestral castle of her family near Leipzig
, in the small town of Altenburg
. Princess Vera followed her mother half a year later after spending sometime in Oberstdorf
in the Allgäu
region of the Bavarian Alps recuperating from tuberculosis.
Her mother died of cancer on 24 March 1927 in Leipzig. Left alone and without sufficient means of subsistence, Vera Constantinovna moved to Bavaria
, with friends and shortly after relocated to London with her brother George. When two years later, George moved to the United States, she returned to Altenburg. Princess Vera lived there for thirty years. Prince George died in New York City in 1938. Princess Vera lived in Germany through the difficult years of World War II. During the War, she worked as a translator in a camp for prisoners of war. But German officials soon removed her from that position because she had tried to help fellow prisoners.
For many years, as she later recalled, she was haunted by the events of the Revolution. "I used to have the same dream, as if I stood with my back to a pit and they were going to shoot me...my awakening was not less terrible than the dream itself, because I was constantly afraid to open my eyes and see that they had really come to take me to the execution ".
At the end of World War II, in early 1945, American troops arrived in Altenburg. On hearing that, according to the Potsdam Conference
, Altenburg was going to be part of the zone of Soviet occupation, Princess Vera fled on foot. With her cousin, Prince Ernst-Friedrich Saxe-Altenburg, she had to walk 240 kilometers in 12 days, fleeing the advancing Soviet troops. Once safe, Princes Vera settled in Hamburg
on 5 January 1946. Until 1949 she worked as a translator in the British branch of the Red Cross and later in the DP Medical Center. When this one was closed, she worked at the reception in another British institution. She belonged to no country, as she only had an ambiguous Nansen passport
, which gave her the ability to travel but no protections of statehood. Despite this, she refused to take the protection offered to her by various European countries, considering herself Russian. " I didn't leave Russia", she once declared, " Russia left me "
, which provided aid to Russians in need. For the next decades she lived in New York, and was very active in charities. In November 1952 Vera Constantinovna became involved in the work of the Society of Russian aid for children abroad, she continued her work there until 1969. At the same time, she assisted in the care of the needs of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. She retired in April 1971. She regarded some of the émigré community, and some of their pretensions, with skepticism. She did not have the nostalgic idyll of many émigrés, but rather the memories of her childhood and her lost family. The constant stream of visitors she regarded with some amusement and found rather trying. She did not care for those who would speak in awe-struck tones of the late Imperial family; she would often relate stories of their humanness and misbehavior. For her, the children of the last Tsar remained her childhood playmates, not distant figures for adoration. She also regarded the canonization of the Romanovs, including her brothers and uncle, as a puzzling, peculiar move by the Church. Princess Vera wrote four short articles about her life for a magazine "Kadetskaya pereklichka" published by Union of the Russian Kadets in New York in 1972.
Princess Vera retained a certain aura of living history, being the last surviving member of the Romanov family who could remember Imperial Russia. Her two brothers and sister who managed to escape Russia all predeceased her. Prince Gabriel died in 1955, leaving no heirs, as did her brother Prince George, the victim of an early death at the age of 33 in 1938. Her sister, Princess Tatiana, eventually took holy orders and became an Orthodox Nun. She died in Jerusalem in 1979.
Princess Vera died at the Tolstoy Foundation
's elderly care
home in Nyack
, New York on 11 January 2001, at the age of 95. She was buried next to her brother Prince George Constantinovich at the cemetery of the Russian Orthodox Monastery of Novo-Diveyevo in Nanuet, New York. Of all the members of the Romanov family in Imperial Russia, only her niece Princess Catherine Ivanovna outlived her. Princess Vera never married and left no children. In the spring of 2007 the Pavlovsk Palace
, where she was born, held an exhibit about her and her family, commemorating what would have been her 101st birthday.
Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia
Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia was a grandson of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, and a poet and playwright of some renown...
and his wife Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna. A great-granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
, she was born in Imperial Russia and was a childhood playmate of Nicholas II
Nicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official short title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until...
’s younger children. She lost much of her family during World War I and the Russian Revolution. At age twelve, she escaped revolutionary Russia, fleeing with her mother and brother George to Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. She spent the rest of her long life in exile, first in Western Europe and from the 1950s in the United States.
Early life
Princess Vera Constantinovna of Russia was born at PavlovskPavlovsk Palace
Pavlovsk Palace is an 18th-century Russian Imperial residence built by Paul I of Russia near Saint Petersburg. After his death, it became the home of his widow, Maria Feodorovna...
on 24 April 1906. She was the youngest child among the ten children of Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia
Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia
Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia was a grandson of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, and a poet and playwright of some renown...
and his wife Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna, born Princess Elizabeth of Saxe-Altenburg. She was going to be named Marianne in honor of her mother's favorite sister, Princess Marie Anne of Saxe-Altenburg
Princess Marie Anne of Saxe-Altenburg
Princess Marie Anne of Saxe-Altenburg was the consort of Georg, Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe. As the eldest daughter of Prince Moritz of Saxe-Altenburg and his wife Princess Augusta of Saxe-Meiningen, and a sister of Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg, Marie Anne was a member of the Ducal House of...
, but her paternal aunt Grand Duchess Vera Constantinovna of Russia
Grand Duchess Vera Constantinovna of Russia
Grand Duchess Vera Constantinovna of Russia was a daughter of Grand Duke Konstantine Nicholaievich of Russia. She was a granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I and first cousin of Tsar Alexander III of Russia.-Early life:...
insisted that her niece should be named after her. Her godparents were her brother Prince Constantine Constantinovich of Russia and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Vera Constantinovna spent her first year in fabulous splendor on the last period of Imperial Russia. Her father, a respected poet, was a second cousin of Tsar Nicholas II.
Princess Vera was eight years old when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated and World War I broke out, in the summer of 1914. Vera was with her parents and her brother George in Germany visiting her maternal relatives in Altenburg
Altenburg
Altenburg is a town in the German federal state of Thuringia, 45 km south of Leipzig. It is the capital of the Altenburger Land district.-Geography:...
at the start of the war. The conflict took them by surprise, trapping them in Germany, an enemy country. It was thanks to the intervention of the German Empress, Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein
Augusta Viktoria of Schleswig-Holstein
Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein was the last German Empress and Queen of Prussia. Her full German name was Auguste Victoria Friederike Luise Feodora Jenny von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg.She was the eldest daughter of Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein and Princess...
that they were allowed to return to Russia. Vera’s older siblings joined the Russian army in the military effort, and her favorite brother Oleg
Prince Oleg Constantinovich of Russia
Prince Oleg Konstantinovich of Russia , was a son of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich.He died of wounds suffered in battle against the Germans during World War I.-Early life:...
was killed in action. She was considered too young and was not allowed to attend her brother's funeral. Her brother’s death was just the first of many family misfortunes.
The following year, her father died of a heart attack in her presence. In a letter to her brother, she later described how she was sitting with her father in his study, when Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich began gasping. Princess Vera managed to push open a heavy door between her parents' studies, pushing aside several heavy plants that stood in front of the door, and ran to her mother crying that her father couldn't breathe. Her mother ran after her, but the grand duke had already died.
Revolution
After the death of her father, in 1916, Vera moved with her mother and her brother George to the Marble PalaceMarble Palace
Marble Palace is one of the first Neoclassical palaces in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is situated between the Field of Mars and Palace Quay, slightly to the east from New Michael Palace....
in Petrograd, leaving Pavlovsk to her eldest brother Prince Ivan Constantinovich. During the chaotic rule of the Provisional Government
Russian Provisional Government
The Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II . On September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire was officially dissolved by the newly created Directorate, and the country was...
, and after the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, Princess Vera, her mother, and her brother George
Prince George Constantinovich of Russia
Prince Georgy Konstantinovich of Russia , was the youngest son of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich of Russia and his wife Grand Duchess Yelizaveta Mavrikiyevna....
, remained at Pavlovsk. For a time, they lived a precarious existence, and her mother was forced to secretly sell family heirlooms to provide for the family. They stayed in the palace until the summer of 1918, when the revolution forced them to leave it and to take an apartment in the city.
During the Russian revolution, four of Vera’s brothers were imprisoned by the Bolsheviks. Only Prince Gabriel was eventually released. Three of her brothers (Ivan, Constantine and Igor) were killed at Alapaevsk, along with other Romanov relatives, in July 1918.
Initially, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna was reluctant to leave Russia remembering her late husband's words, that if Russia was in need, it was a Romanov's duty to help. However, with their situation becoming increasingly dangerous, she accepted an offer made by her friend, Queen Victoria of Sweden
Victoria of Baden
Victoria of Baden was a Queen consort of Sweden by her marriage to King Gustaf V of Sweden. She was politically active in a conservative fashion during the development of democracy and known as a pro-German during the First World War.-Birth:Princess Viktoria was born on 7 August 1862 at the castle...
, through the Swedish Ambassador Brandstrem, to travel to Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
.
From Kronstadt
Kronstadt
Kronstadt , also spelled Kronshtadt, Cronstadt |crown]]" and Stadt for "city"); is a municipal town in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal city of St. Petersburg, Russia, located on Kotlin Island, west of Saint Petersburg proper near the head of the Gulf of Finland. Population: It is also...
twelve-year-old Princess Vera escaped to Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
aboard the Swedish vessel Ångermanland in October 1918 with her mother, her brother George, and her young nephew, (Prince Teymuraz Constantinovich) and niece (Princess Natalia Constantinovna Bagration-Mukhransky) when they were permitted by the Bolsheviks to be taken by ship to Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, via Tallinn
Tallinn
Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...
to Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
and via Mariehamn
Mariehamn
Mariehamn is the capital of Åland, an autonomous territory under Finnish sovereignty. Mariehamn is the seat of the Government and Parliament of Åland, and 40% of the population of Åland live in the city...
to Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, at the invitation of Queen Victoria of Sweden
Victoria of Baden
Victoria of Baden was a Queen consort of Sweden by her marriage to King Gustaf V of Sweden. She was politically active in a conservative fashion during the development of democracy and known as a pro-German during the First World War.-Birth:Princess Viktoria was born on 7 August 1862 at the castle...
. At Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
harbor, they met Prince Gustaf Adolf
Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden
Gustaf VI Adolf - Oscar Fredrik Wilhelm Olaf Gustaf Adolf - was King of Sweden from October 29, 1950 until his death. His official title was King of Sweden, of the Goths and of the Wends. He was the eldest son of King Gustaf V and his wife Victoria of Baden...
, who took them to the royal palace
Stockholm Palace
The Stockholm Palace is the official residence and major royal palace of the Swedish monarch. . Stockholm Palace is located on Stadsholmen , in Gamla Stan in the capital, Stockholm...
.
Exile
Princess Vera lived with her mother and her brother George for the next two years in SwedenSweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, first in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
and then in Saltsjöbaden
Saltsjöbaden
Saltsjöbaden is a locality situated in Nacka Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden with 8,937 inhabitants in 2005. It is located on the coast of the Baltic Sea.- History :...
. As Sweden proved too expensive to live in, Elizabeth Mavrikievna wrote a letter to Albert I of Belgium
Albert I of Belgium
Albert I reigned as King of the Belgians from 1909 until 1934.-Early life:Born Albert Léopold Clément Marie Meinrad in Brussels, he was the fifth child and second son of Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders, and his wife, Princess Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen...
, asking him to allow them to move to his country. In 1920 they relocated to Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
were they were frequently ill. In 1922, Vera's uncle, Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Altenburg invited them to move to Germany. Elizabeth Mavrikievna settled in the ancestral castle of her family near Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, in the small town of Altenburg
Altenburg
Altenburg is a town in the German federal state of Thuringia, 45 km south of Leipzig. It is the capital of the Altenburger Land district.-Geography:...
. Princess Vera followed her mother half a year later after spending sometime in Oberstdorf
Oberstdorf
Oberstdorf is a municipality and skiing and hiking town in southwest Germany, located in the Allgäu region of the Bavarian Alps.At the center of Oberstdorf is a church whose tall spire serves as a landmark for navigating around town. The summits of the Nebelhorn and Fellhorn provide...
in the Allgäu
Allgäu
The Allgäu is a southern German region in Swabia. It covers the south of Bavarian Swabia and southeastern Baden-Württemberg. The region stretches from the prealpine lands up to the Alps...
region of the Bavarian Alps recuperating from tuberculosis.
Her mother died of cancer on 24 March 1927 in Leipzig. Left alone and without sufficient means of subsistence, Vera Constantinovna moved to Bavaria
Bavaria
Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, with friends and shortly after relocated to London with her brother George. When two years later, George moved to the United States, she returned to Altenburg. Princess Vera lived there for thirty years. Prince George died in New York City in 1938. Princess Vera lived in Germany through the difficult years of World War II. During the War, she worked as a translator in a camp for prisoners of war. But German officials soon removed her from that position because she had tried to help fellow prisoners.
For many years, as she later recalled, she was haunted by the events of the Revolution. "I used to have the same dream, as if I stood with my back to a pit and they were going to shoot me...my awakening was not less terrible than the dream itself, because I was constantly afraid to open my eyes and see that they had really come to take me to the execution ".
At the end of World War II, in early 1945, American troops arrived in Altenburg. On hearing that, according to the Potsdam Conference
Potsdam Conference
The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from 16 July to 2 August 1945. Participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States...
, Altenburg was going to be part of the zone of Soviet occupation, Princess Vera fled on foot. With her cousin, Prince Ernst-Friedrich Saxe-Altenburg, she had to walk 240 kilometers in 12 days, fleeing the advancing Soviet troops. Once safe, Princes Vera settled in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
on 5 January 1946. Until 1949 she worked as a translator in the British branch of the Red Cross and later in the DP Medical Center. When this one was closed, she worked at the reception in another British institution. She belonged to no country, as she only had an ambiguous Nansen passport
Nansen passport
Nansen passports were internationally recognized identity cards first issued by the League of Nations to stateless refugees.-Origins:Designed in 1921 by Fridtjof Nansen, in 1942 they were honored by governments in 52 countries and were the first refugee travel documents...
, which gave her the ability to travel but no protections of statehood. Despite this, she refused to take the protection offered to her by various European countries, considering herself Russian. " I didn't leave Russia", she once declared, " Russia left me "
Last years
In 1951 she moved to the United States, where her main activity was to work for the Tolstoy FoundationTolstoy Foundation
The Tolstoy Foundation is a non-profit charitable, philanthropic organization. It was established on April 26, 1939 by Alexandra Tolstoy, youngest daughter of the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. Its headquarters are in Rockland County, New York in Valley Cottage....
, which provided aid to Russians in need. For the next decades she lived in New York, and was very active in charities. In November 1952 Vera Constantinovna became involved in the work of the Society of Russian aid for children abroad, she continued her work there until 1969. At the same time, she assisted in the care of the needs of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. She retired in April 1971. She regarded some of the émigré community, and some of their pretensions, with skepticism. She did not have the nostalgic idyll of many émigrés, but rather the memories of her childhood and her lost family. The constant stream of visitors she regarded with some amusement and found rather trying. She did not care for those who would speak in awe-struck tones of the late Imperial family; she would often relate stories of their humanness and misbehavior. For her, the children of the last Tsar remained her childhood playmates, not distant figures for adoration. She also regarded the canonization of the Romanovs, including her brothers and uncle, as a puzzling, peculiar move by the Church. Princess Vera wrote four short articles about her life for a magazine "Kadetskaya pereklichka" published by Union of the Russian Kadets in New York in 1972.
Princess Vera retained a certain aura of living history, being the last surviving member of the Romanov family who could remember Imperial Russia. Her two brothers and sister who managed to escape Russia all predeceased her. Prince Gabriel died in 1955, leaving no heirs, as did her brother Prince George, the victim of an early death at the age of 33 in 1938. Her sister, Princess Tatiana, eventually took holy orders and became an Orthodox Nun. She died in Jerusalem in 1979.
Princess Vera died at the Tolstoy Foundation
Tolstoy Foundation
The Tolstoy Foundation is a non-profit charitable, philanthropic organization. It was established on April 26, 1939 by Alexandra Tolstoy, youngest daughter of the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. Its headquarters are in Rockland County, New York in Valley Cottage....
's elderly care
Elderly care
Elderly care or simply eldercare is the fulfillment of the special needs and requirements that are unique to senior citizens. This broad term encompasses such services as assisted living, adult day care, long term care, nursing homes, hospice care, and In-Home care.-Cultural and geographic...
home in Nyack
Nyack, New York
Nyack is a village in the towns of Orangetown and Clarkstown in Rockland County, New York, United States, located north of South Nyack; east of Central Nyack; south of Upper Nyack and west of the Hudson River, approximately 19 miles north of the Manhattan boundary, it is an inner suburb of New...
, New York on 11 January 2001, at the age of 95. She was buried next to her brother Prince George Constantinovich at the cemetery of the Russian Orthodox Monastery of Novo-Diveyevo in Nanuet, New York. Of all the members of the Romanov family in Imperial Russia, only her niece Princess Catherine Ivanovna outlived her. Princess Vera never married and left no children. In the spring of 2007 the Pavlovsk Palace
Pavlovsk Palace
Pavlovsk Palace is an 18th-century Russian Imperial residence built by Paul I of Russia near Saint Petersburg. After his death, it became the home of his widow, Maria Feodorovna...
, where she was born, held an exhibit about her and her family, commemorating what would have been her 101st birthday.
Ancestors
External links
- Вера Константиновна in Russian