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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 Nikolaevich 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 battery of the 3rd Guards and Grenadier artillery brigade (1st battery of the Life Guards of the 3rd artillery brigade) and 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

Got versatile home education. Famous historians S. M. Solovyov, K. N. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, music critic G. A. Laroche, 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. The classes were conducted according to the program Maritime School. In 1874 and 1876, as a midshipman, he made a long voyage to 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; 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 commitment 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, St. George Cavalier, 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

Diary entries of the Grand Duke, transferred to K. R. in the archive Russian Academy Sciences with the condition of publication no earlier than 90 years after his death (published in 1994), contain references to homosexual contacts of 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, a category of fine literature was established at the Department of the Russian Language and Literature, according to which honorary academicians famous writers were elected - 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 rescue on the waters, the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian 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 naval 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 (since 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 Brothers Cyril and Methodius Equal-to-the-Apostles. 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, in 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 army. Honorary Member of the Nikolaev Engineering Academy (since 1904), the Imperial military medical academy and 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 he 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. A song performed by Nadezhda Plevitskaya to the music of Yakov Prigozhey, recorded on a gramophone and distributed in the form of a gramophone record to the most remote corners 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 new rules for the burial of lower ranks were soon 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 dead, 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 tenement house(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 area of ​​​​the rivers Kherati and Kudebti 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 the 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 had been 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 did not 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.

I opened the window, it became unbearable stuffy,
He knelt before him.
And spring night smelled in my face
Fragrant breath of lilac.

And somewhere in the distance a nightingale sang wonderfully,
I listened to him with deep sadness,
And with longing for his homeland he remembered his,
I remembered the distant homeland,

Where native nightingale sings native song
And, not knowing earthly sorrows, -
Filled up all night long
Above the fragrant branch of lilac ...

Romanov Konstantin Konstantinovich

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. .

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 the 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 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, 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 Nikolaevich 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 enrolled in the lists of the life guards of the Cavalry and Izmailovsky regiments, the 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. Laroche, 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 commitment 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 to the archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences by K. R. 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 the 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 naval 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 (since 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 Brothers Cyril and Methodius Equal-to-the-Apostles. 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, in 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 he 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 all over 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 new rules for the burial of lower ranks were soon 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 dead, 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 area of ​​​​the rivers Kherati and Kudebti 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 the 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 had been 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 did not 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.

One of the versions why the adjective "blue" began to denote homosexuals says that earlier homosexuality was inherent only to the aristocratic strata of society. Those who have blue blood in their veins.
In the Russian Empire, there were births and “bluer” blood than the Romanovs, and maybe that’s why homosexuals among members of the Imperial House can be counted on the fingers. One well-known (largely thanks to Boris Akunin's book "Coronation, or the Last of the Romanovs") Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, uncle of Nicholas II and governor of Moscow.
He never hid his inclinations, although he was married, he preferred to sleep with his adjutants, and he did not see any sin in this. But there was another case.

"Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich" I.E. Repin, 1891

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Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov was born on August 22 (August 10, O.S.), 1858, and was the second son of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich Romanov. Among the ever-repeating Nikolaev, Alexandrov and Konstantinov Romanovs, you can get confused, so I can only say that Konstantin Konstantinovich was the younger brother of the more famous.
But unlike his scandalous brother, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich was a model for example. Being a midshipman Russian fleet, in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, in the battle near Silistria on the Danube, he sank a Turkish ship, for which he was awarded George cross IV degree. In 1882, due to illness, he was transferred to the guards and five years later became commander of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. He was president of the Academy of Sciences and one of the founders of the Pushkin House.
Konstantin Konstantinovich was also known as the most educated person of his time, an excellent pianist and the most famous poet of that era, who wrote under the pseudonym "K.R." All reading Russia knew his romantic poems, the girls copied them into their girlish diaries and albums, and Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Alyabyev and many other composers wrote romances on them. Here is a typical example of the work of the poet K.R.:
When I'm in a wave of cold
The vanity embraces the world,
A star will be my guiding
Love and beauty.

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He was successfully married to his distant relative (they were both great-great-grandchildren of Emperor Paul I), the German princess Elisabeth of Saxe-Altenburg. Upon arrival in Russia, she began to be called Elizaveta Mavrikievna, but did not accept Orthodoxy, remaining a Lutheran. The Grand Duchess loved her husband tenderly and selflessly, he answered her in return, in marriage they had nine children.

Konstantin Konstantinovich was lucky - he suffocated during an attack of angina pectoris in the Pavlovsk Palace in 1915, and became the last of the Romanovs who died before the revolution and were solemnly buried in the grand ducal tomb of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
He did not live to see the fall of the monarchy and the Russian Empire, the death of his sons John, Konstantin and Igor, who, the day after the execution of the royal family, were still alive thrown into a mine near Alapaevsk.
But his daughter, Grand Duchess Vera Konstantinovna, lived to be 94 years old, and died in 2001, becoming today the last of the Romanovs who remembered pre-revolutionary life (in this photo she is in her father's arms).

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Throughout his life, K.R. kept diary entries, which, according to his will, after his death, were transferred to the archive of the Academy of Sciences with the condition of publication no earlier than 90 years later.
Russian historians violated the will of the deceased, and these diaries were published 79 years after the death of K.R., in 1994, and plunged historians into some confusion - it turns out happy father family and an excellent family man Konstantin Konstantinovich was a secret homosexual all his life. And in his diaries he described his homosexuality with unusual frankness. Here are just a few records of the Grand Duke:

December 28, 1903 - St. Petersburg.
My life flows happily, I am truly a "darling of fate", I am loved, respected and appreciated, I am lucky in everything and succeed in everything, but ... there is no main thing: peace of mind.
My secret vice has completely taken 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.
Meanwhile, I, who is at the head of the upbringing of many children and young men, must be aware of the rules of morality.
Finally, I am no longer young, married, I have 7 children, the older ones are almost adults, and old age is not far off. But I'm definitely a weather vane: it happens, I accept firm intention I pray fervently, stand idle for a whole mass in fervent prayer, and immediately afterwards, when a sinful thought appears, everything is immediately forgotten, and I again fall under the power of sin.
Is it really impossible to change for the better? Am I really going to wallow in sin?

April 19, 1904 - St. Petersburg.
My soul is not feeling well again, again sinful thoughts, memories and desires haunt me. I dream of going to the bathhouses on the Moika or ordering the bathhouse to be flooded at home, I imagine familiar bath attendants - Alexei Frolov and especially Sergei Syroezhkin. My lusts have always been towards simple peasants, outside their circle I did not look for and did not find participants in sin. When passion speaks, the arguments of conscience, virtue, prudence fall silent.

June 23, 1904 - St. Petersburg.
I again refused to fight with my lust, not that I could not, but I did not want to fight. In the evening they heated our bathhouse for me; bath attendant Sergei Syroezhkin was busy and brought his brother, a 20-year-old guy Kondraty, who works as a bath attendant in the Mustache Baths. And I made this guy sin. Perhaps for the first time I forced him to sin, and only when it was too late, I remembered the terrible words: woe to him who seduces one of these little ones..

Konstantin Konstantinovich successfully concealed his secret sin all his life from those around him, who did not even suspect his homosexual inclinations (the Grand Duke sinned only with commoners). But why did he decide to publish all this, albeit 90 years after his death?
Either it was extremely important for him as a manifestation of the integrity of his personality, or as an edification to posterity, or just like that. I don't know... I have no explanation. Maybe you have them?

Konstantin Konstantinovich Romanov

Three hundred and four years on the Russian throne was the Romanov dynasty, one of the most ancient and noble Moscow dynasties. The first tsar proclaimed king in March 1613 was Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, the last was Nicholas II, who abdicated in March 1917.

The years of the Romanovs can be conditionally divided into three periods. The first group includes those Romanovs who were purely Russian both by name and by blood. It ends on the reign of Peter II, who died in 1730, who was the grandson of Peter I and the son of Tsarevich Alexei, the heir, who was killed by order of his father. Peter II became the last direct descendant in the male line of the boyar Romanov, who laid the foundation for the Romanov dynasty in the 16th century.

The next period of reign was started by representatives of the female line of the dynasty, and then they were replaced by the Germans - the Russian throne was taken by Peter III (Karl Peter Ulrich), the grandson of Peter I, the son of Anna Petrovna and the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. And if there was still some part of purely Romanov blood in him - after all, his mother was the daughter of Peter the Great, then his son, Paul I, had nothing to do with the Romanovs by blood. There were persistent rumors at court that his father was Sergei Saltykov, who belonged to an ancient Russian noble family. version of infertility Peter III is also confirmed by the fact that, apart from Paul, whose official father he was considered, he had no more children, and not only from the legal wife of Catherine II, but also from numerous mistresses.

But let us leave the intricacies of the 18th century and turn our gaze to the 19th century, which begins the third period in the history of the dynasty. On the Russian throne, Paul I was replaced by his eldest son Alexander I. In addition to Alexander, Paul I had three more sons - Konstantin, Nikolai and Mikhail. Alexander died suddenly in 1825, leaving no heir. The second son, Konstantin, renounced the throne and soon divorced his first wife and married a representative of non-princely blood, a Pole by origin. Thus, he deprived his children of the right to inherit the throne. The third son of Paul I, Nicholas I, was proclaimed emperor, from whom the current line of the Romanovs began. The youngest of four brothers, Michael, died childless.

In the 19th century, the Romanov dynasty grew greatly, and there was no shortage of male heirs. Even Paul I abolished the title of princes, replacing it with the title of grand dukes, which until 1885 was worn by members of the imperial family, starting with the sons and ending with the great-great-grandchildren of the emperor.

Emperor Nicholas I, like his father, had four sons - Grand Dukes Alexander, Constantine, Nicholas and Mikhail. As you can see, the names of the children are the same. But all the children of Nicholas I were able to give rise to their own branch of the family, dividing it into four lines: Alexandrovich (the reigning line), Konstantinovich, Nikolaevich and Mikhailovich.

Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich (1827-1892) was an Admiral General of the Russian Navy. During the reign of Alexander II, he headed the naval ministry, was the governor of the Kingdom of Poland in 1862-1863, and from 1865 to 1881 was chairman State Council. In 1848, he married the Princess of Saxe-Altenburg, who took the name of Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna in Russia. The wife gave Konstantin Nikolaevich four sons - Nikolai, Konstantin, Dmitry and Vyacheslav. The youngest of them, Vyacheslav, died young. The fate of Nikolai and Dmitry after October 1917 was tragic. Nikolai was shot in Tashkent in July 1918, and Dmitry was arrested and sentenced to death a year later. He was shot in January 1919.

The life of the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich was completely different. He did not live to see the tragic days of the Romanovs associated with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks. But his name, widely known to the reading public late XIX- the beginning of the 20th century, was forgotten for a long time after October 1917. The talent of this man manifested itself in many areas. It is difficult to say who he was more - a sailor, a guards officer, a teacher, a scientist, an organizer of science, an august poet, actor or composer. One thing is certain: Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich was a diversified and very gifted person. Being a representative of the royal family, according to the established tradition of that time, he did not publish under his own name, but signed the works with the monogram "K.R."

Konstantin Konstantinovich was born on August 23, 1858 near St. Petersburg, in Strelna. He received a characteristic for his position, that is, a broad education. Among his teachers were the historian S.M. Solovyov, K.I. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, famous musician G.A. Laroche and R.V. Kündinger.

FROM early childhood father prepared Konstantin for military service and at birth appointed him the chief of the 15th Tiflis Grenadier Regiment. But Konstantin Nikolayevich himself, having the rank of Admiral General and being the manager of the fleet, was a man passionately in love with the sea. Therefore, he decided that his son should follow in his footsteps.

From the age of 12, little Konstantin has been making training voyages with other pupils of the naval cadet corps. In 1876, he was promoted to the first naval officer rank - midshipman.

Since the beginning Russian-Turkish war in 1877, a 19-year-old officer (like many representatives of the royal family) takes part in hostilities against Turkish troops. Baptism of fire Konstantin Konstantinovich takes near Silistria, on the Danube. The first task for a young officer with no combat experience was very difficult and responsible, but he brilliantly completed it.

The fighting at sea was carried out with the help of artillery and boarding, which by the beginning of the 20th century had become a distant past. In addition, fire fighting was used during the naval battle as one of the most effective means against the enemy fleet. Its essence was that on a larger and significant ship enemy, a specially made ship was launched, stuffed with explosives, combustible mixtures, ready to flare up in an instant. This small ship could completely disable the enemy flagship, and if you're lucky, then several ships.

As a rule, only volunteers were assigned to the fireship, because the measure of danger was very great: it was necessary to control the ship, bring it close to the enemy, if possible, link them into a single whole, and only after that leave the ship. Naturally, as is customary on any ship, the commander was the last to leave the ship, for it was he who put the final end to this matter, setting fire to the fuses, after which an imminent explosion followed. It is not worth mentioning that the fire-ships were constantly hunted, and many ships did not manage to approach the enemy ships. For fire-branding, both officers and sailors were entitled to the highest military award - St. George Orders and Crosses.

Konstantin Romanov, midshipman and commander of the firewall, deserved such an award. On the orders of his immediate superior, Lieutenant Dubasov, whose name thundered throughout the Russian army after the heroic explosion of the Turkish battleship Khivzi Rahman, on the night of October 3, 1877, the Grand Duke personally launched a fire-ship onto a Turkish steamer standing near Goppo Island, depriving the enemy of the means of crossing Danube. In a report on this case, Dubasov wrote: “Assessing the behavior of each of the officers, most of whom were under enemy fire for the first time, I consider it my duty to first of all mention His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, whose composure and diligence are undoubtedly much higher than his years and experience. The assignment he carried out is best, however, speaks for itself.

And on October 17, “as a reward for the excellent courage and diligence shown in preventing the Turkish troops from crossing the Danube at Silistria,” Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree.

After Silistria there were other battles - Konstantin Konstantinovich remained in the theater of operations until the very end of the war.

The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of San Stefano. Midshipman Romanov leaves for the capital and soon receives the rank of lieutenant of the fleet. He spent several years in almost uninterrupted sea voyages.

In 1882 he was transferred to the guards infantry with the rank of staff captain and began serving in the Izmailovsky regiment. A few years later he will be transferred to the Preobrazhensky Regiment, and in 1894, with the rank of Major General, Konstantin Konstantinovich will become a regimental commander.

In 1882, the first poems appeared in print, signed with the letters "K.R." The Grand Duke began to write earlier - in 1879 he wrote the poem “Waves dozed off”. But only in the August issue of Vestnik Evropy for 1882, he presented his works to the reading public for the first time, publishing the poem "Psalmist David". His poetic gift immediately attracted attention, but for some time the signature "K.R." remained unrevealed.

The year 1883 was marked by the engagement of the Grand Duke to Princess Elisabeth of Saxe-Altenburg, daughter of Duke Moritz of Saxony. Konstantin Konstantinovich met his future wife while visiting her hometown of Altenburg. They immediately liked each other, but Elizabeth's parents did not want their daughter to leave for Russia, where the political situation was unstable. But the daughter said that life in Russia did not frighten her, and after long negotiations, permission to marry was received. It is noteworthy that Konstantin Konstantinovich received a message about this by a telegram containing two words: "The piano was bought." It was a conditional text, and the Grand Duke immediately went to the Duke of Saxony to make a formal proposal. The wedding took place in 1884, and the Princess of Saxe-Altenburg took the title and name of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna in Russia. The family of the Grand Duke was large - six sons and three daughters, of whom one (Natalya) died in infancy. They lived very friendly, and, as Konstantin Konstantinovich said, happy and full life his, that is, "family, military service and poetry", began after the wedding. He loved his family very much and paid much attention to them. But he paid no less attention to the service and charitable activities. And, of course, creativity. He corresponded with many famous writers and poets, the most beloved of which was A.A. Fet. And when in 1886 the first collection of “Poems of K.R.” was published, the first to receive it as a gift and whose opinion Konstantin Konstantinovich would like to hear was Fet.

Two years later, the Grand Duke would write in his diary: “I turned 30 on Wednesday. My life and activities are completely determined. For others, I am a military man, a company commander, in the near future a colonel, and so in 5-6 years - a regiment commander. For myself, I am a poet. This is my true calling."

In 1889, Konstantin Konstantinovich was appointed President of the Imperial Academy of Sciences by Alexander III, which gave him the opportunity to personally meet many outstanding figures of science and culture in Russia at that time. Conversations, and later advice from connoisseurs and researchers of literature F.E. Korsha, A.A. Shakhmatova, A.N. Veselovsky and others prompted the Grand Duke to begin work on the translation of W. Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. Finished in 1900 and dedicated Alexander III work, was recognized as a classic example of translation.

As president of the academy, Konstantin Konstantinovich did not leave military service. He became the commander of the Izmailovsky regiment, and from 1891 - the Preobrazhensky. But he did not forget the Izmailovites, and it was they who, at the literary regimental meeting in January 1899, hosted the first performance of scenes from Hamlet, where the role of the Prince of Denmark was played by the Grand Duke himself. The debut turned out to be so successful, and the tragedy itself captured the audience so strongly that the very next year the production was staged at the Hermitage Theatre, with the main role played by the tragedy's interpreter. At that time, Konstantin Konstantinovich wrote in his diary: “Only the role of Hamlet can stir me up even in the middle of the night. For his excellent translation of Shakespeare, he received an order from the Danish royal house.

A special place in the work of K.R. occupies the drama "King of the Jews", which tells about last days stay on earth of Jesus Christ. Spiritual censorship at first did not allow the staging of the drama on stage. And only after writing a detailed note by the author indicating the places where he deviated from the existing canons and why, The King of the Jews was staged on the stage of the Hermitage Theater in January 1914. The role of Joseph of Arimathea was played by the author himself, in addition, his three sons also participated in the production. Nicholas II, who was present at the performance that day, wrote in his diary: “... I went straight to the Hermitage. There was a drama by Kostya "King of the Jews". She makes an amazing impression. The staging is rare in its beauty.”

The Grand Duke commanded the Preobrazhensky regiment for six years, and in 1900 he was appointed to the post of chief commander, and then inspector general of military educational institutions. This position was the beginning of a new activity for him, and his pupils will remember his human qualities for many years. Konstantin Konstantinovich, over the years of service in this position, has visited all cadet corps and schools scattered throughout the country. He knew, if not all, then very many of the Cadets and Junkers by last name, treating the pupils of the schools without undue severity, benevolently, in a fatherly way.

With the outbreak of the First World War, all the eldest sons of Konstantin Konstantinovich went to the front. Age and health did not allow K.R. take part in hostilities. In an effort to benefit the country at this difficult time, he and his wife decided to purchase an equipped mobile infirmary from the Red Cross and transfer it to the 1st Army. At the very beginning of the war, the first tragic news came - on September 27, 1914, during the offensive, his son, Oleg Konstantinovich, was seriously wounded. He died two days later. In May 1915, a new grief - near Lvov, the husband of Tatyana Konstantinovna's eldest daughter, Prince Bagration-Mukhransky, died a heroic death.

All this had an extremely bad effect on the health of the Grand Duke. He went deeper into himself, not wanting to shift the bitterness of loss onto others. Until his last days, he remained in the service as an inspector general of military educational institutions.

Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich died on June 15, 1915 and was buried in the tomb of the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

There is a Russian cemetery not far from Paris, where many figures of the Russian emigration are buried. There are also several memorial monuments here. On one of the stones is the inscription: "To the father of all cadets." This is how the emigrant cadets honored their main mentor, who did a lot for their education, in a peculiar way.