Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia (; 22Gregorian calendar date. The Russian (Julian) calendar date is 10 April. See Comte Paul Vasili, La Sainte Russie : la cour, l'armée, le clergé, la bourgeoisie et le peuple, Libraire de Firmin-Didot et Cie, Paris, 1890 April 1847 – 17 February 1909) was a son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia, a brother of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and the senior Grand Duke of the House of Romanov during the reign of his nephew, Emperor Nicholas II.
Grand Duke Vladimir followed a military career and occupied important military positions during the reigns of the last three Russian Emperors. Interested in artistic and intellectual pursuits; he was appointed President of the Academy of Fine Arts. He functioned as a patron of many artists and as a sponsor of the Imperial ballet.Perry & Pleshakov, The Flight of the Romanovs , p. 35
During the reign of his father, Emperor Alexander II, he was made Adjutant-General, senator in 1868 and a member of the Council of State in 1872. His brother, Alexander III, also promoted his career. He became a member of the Council of Ministers, Commander of the Imperial Guards CorpsAlexander, Once a Grand Duke, p. 139 and Military Governor of Saint Petersburg. He tried to exert some influence over his nephew Tsar Nicholas II, but had to content himself with holding a rival court with his wife Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna at his palace in Saint Petersburg. The events of Bloody Sunday in 1905, while he was Military Governor of St Petersburg, tarnished his reputation. During the last years of his life, the rift between his family and that of Nicholas II widened.Zeepvat, Romanov Autumn, p. 98 He died after a stroke in 1909.
Early life Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich was born on 22 April 1847 at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg.Chavchavadze, The Grand Dukes, p. 103 He was fourth among the eight children of Alexander II of Russia and his wife Maria Alexandrovna, born Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine.
He was eight years old when at the death of his grandfather Nicholas I, his father became Russian tsar. Grand Duke Vladimir was well educated and through his life he was interested in literature and the arts. However, as all male members of the Romanov family he had to follow a military career. As only the third son in a numerous family, he was far from the succession to the Russian throne. Nevertheless, in 1865, the early death of his eldest brother, the Tsarevich Nicholas, left Vladimir unexpectedly close to the throne as heir presumptive after his second brother Alexander. Unlike Alexander, the new heir, Vladimir was witty and ambitious. Rumors circulated at the time, that Alexander II would have his eldest surviving son removed from the succession placing Vladimir as his heir. Alexander himself would have preferred to step aside from the succession hoping to marry morganatically, but eventually he yielded to family pressure and married a suitable bride.Chavchavadze, The Grand Dukes, p. 105 Relations between the two brothers, although cordial, were never warm.
A Russian Grand Duke In 1867 Grand Duke Vladimir was named honorary president of the Russian ethnographic society, the same year he accompanied his father and his brother Alexander to the World Fair in Paris, where his father was shot by a Polish nationalist. In 1871 he visited the Caucasus region, Georgia, Chechnya and Dagestan with his father and his brothers. In 1872 he accompanied his father to Vienna at the reunion of the three emperors: Russia, Germany and Austria.
A member of the European beau monde, he made frequent trips to Paris. He became portly as a young man, although in later life he slimmed down. He was a skillful painter and gathered an important book collection. He was a well known gourmet, accumulating a collection of menus copied after meals, adding notations with his impressions about the food.
Marriage
While traveling through Germany with his family in June 1871, Grand Duke Vladimir met Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (14 May 1854 – 6 September 1920), daughter of Grand Duke Frederick Francis II and of Augusta of Reuss-Köstritz.Zeepvat, Romanov AutuDuchess mn, p. 94 She was seventeen years old and was already engaged to a distant relative, Prince George of Schwarzburg. Grand Duke Vladimir was then twenty four. The two were smitten with each other. Vladimir was a second-cousin of Maria's father, who was also a grandson of Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna of Russia. They were also second-cousins in descent from Frederick William III of Prussia (1770-1840). In order to marry Vladimir, Maria broke off her previous engagement, but she refused to undergo the expected conversion to the Orthodox religion.Zeepvat, Romanov Autumn, p. 95 This delayed the couple's engagement for almost two years. Finally, Emperor Alexander II consented to Marie's continued adherence to her Lutheran faith, allowing Vladimir to marry her without loss of his rights to the Russian throne. The engagement was announced in April 1874.
The wedding took place on 28 August 1874 at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. Vladimir's wife adopted the patronymic Pavlovna upon her marriage and became known as Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia - or as Miechen within the Romanov family. Decades later on 10 April 1908, shortly before the death in 1909 of Vladimir Aleksandrovich, she converted to the Russian Orthodox confession; on 13 April 1908 Emperor Nicholas II commanded the use of the style "the Orthodox Grand Duchess".Compare; - «именовать Ея Императорское Высочество Благоверною Великою Княгинею»«Правительственный вестник», 13 (26) апреля 1908, № 84, стр. 1.
The Grand Duke Vladimir and his wife were described as witty and ambitious. They enjoyed entertaining and their residence in Saint Petersburg became popular among the Imperial capital's socialites.Van der Kiste, The Romanovs 1818–1959, p. 68
Vladimir's palace
By the time of his marriage, construction had already been completed on Vladimir's own residence and he moved there with his wife. Named the Vladimir Palace, it was one of the last imperial palaces constructed in Saint Petersburg. Grand Duke Vladimir appointed architect Aleksandr Rezanov to head the project because of his knowledge of ancient Russian architecture.Belyakova, The Romanov Legacy , p. 158 A team of architects assisted Rezanov: Vasily Kenel, , and Vladimir Shreter. The foundation stone was laid on 15 July 1867.Belyakova, The Romanov Legacy , p. 160 Construction work lasted five years, from 1867 to 1872. The furniture was designed by architect Victor Schröter.
The site chosen for the palace was the Embankment near the Winter Palace in the center of St Petersburg. It had previously been occupied by the house of Count which had been bought by the treasury. The lot was enlarged by purchasing the neighboring house of Madame Karatinga. The total construction and furnishing cost of Vladimir Palace was 820,000 rubles, a much more modest amount than the one spent building previous palaces for other grand dukes a decade earlier.
The Vladimir palace stands, like the Winter Palace and the Marble Palace, by the Neva on the Dvorstsovaya Embankment.Perry & Pleshakov, The Flight of the Romanovs , p. 36 The façade, richly ornamented with stucco rustication, was patterned after Leon Battista Alberti's palazzi in Florence. The main porch is built of Bremen sandstone and adorned with griffins, coats-of-arms, and cast-iron lanterns. Other details are cast in Portland cement.
The palace and its outbuildings contain some 360 rooms, all decorated in eclectic historic styles: Neo-Renaissance (reception room, parlor), Gothic Revival (dining room), Russian Revival (Oak Hall), Rococo (White Hall), Byzantine style (study), Louis XIV, various oriental styles, and so on. This interior ornamentation, further augmented by Maximilian Messmacher in 1881–1891, is considered by art historians, such as Nikolay Punin, a major monument to the 19th-century passion for historicism.Belyakova, The Romanov Legacy , p. 172 Grand Duke Vladimir decorated his apartments with his collection of Russian paintings by the best artists of his time, such as Ilya Repin, Ivan Aivazovsky, Feodor Bruni, Vasili Vereshchagin, Ivan Kramskoy, Mikhail Vrubel, Nikolai Sverchkov and .Belyakova, The Romanov Legacy , p. 162
Issue Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich and his wife Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna had five children: Grand Duke Alexander Vladimirovich of Russia (31 August 1875 – 16 March 1877). He died in infancy. Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia (12 October (N.S.), 1876 – 12 October 1938). He married his first cousin Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. They had three children. Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich of Russia (24 November 1877 – 9 November 1943). He married his mistress Zinaida Rashevskaya. He did not leave legitimate descendants. Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich of Russia (14 May (N.S.) 1879 – 30 October 1956). He married his mistress Matilda Kchessinska. They had one son. Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia (29 January 1882 – 13 March 1957). She married Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, third son of George I of Greece and Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia. They had three daughters.
During three reigns
Grand Duke Vladimir occupied important military positions during three reigns. He experienced battle in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, taking part in the campaign alongside his father and his brothers Alexander and Sergei.Van der Kiste, The Romanovs 1818–1959, p. 72 He fought against the Turkish troops as the commanding officer of the XII Corps of the Russian army. However, his military career interested him less than art and literature.Alexander, Once a Grand Duke, p. 138 In 1880 his father appointed him President of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. He also became a member of the Academy of Science and an agent of the Rumyantsev Museum.Zeepvat, The Camera and the Tsars, p. 136 Grand Duke Vladimir was in the Imperial capital when his father was assassinated and succeeded by Alexander III in 1881. It fell upon Vladimir, who regained his composure more quickly than his brother, to announce their father's death to the public.Van der Kiste, The Romanovs 1818–1959, p. 91 Vladimir inherited his father's personal library, which the Grand Duke added to his large book-collection that was arranged in three libraries at the Vladimir Palace.Perry & Pleshakov, The Flight of the Romanovs , p. 37 (After the Russian Revolution of 1917 these books were sold off randomly by weight and currently form part of several American university-collections.)
Although Alexander III was not close to Vladimir and there was a rivalry between their wives, he promoted his brother's career. The day after their father's death he appointed Vladimir as Military Governor of St Petersburg, a post previously held by their uncle Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich. Vladimir served on the State Council and chaired the official commission that supervised the building of the Church of the Savior on Blood, built between 1883 and 1907 on the site of the assassination of his father, Emperor Alexander II of Russia.
Grand Duke Vladimir was a keen philanthropist. A talented painter himself, he became a famous patron of the arts. He frequented many artists and gathered a valuable collection of paintings and old icons.Alexander, Once a Grand Duke, p. 137 He later took a great interest in ballet. He financed the tour of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.