Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia (; 3 October 1860 – 28 January 1919) was the sixth son and youngest child of Emperor Alexander II of Russia by his first wife, Empress Maria Alexandrovna. He was a brother of Emperor Alexander III and uncle of Nicholas II, Russia's last monarch.
He entered the Imperial Russian Army, was a general in the cavalry and adjutant general to his brother Emperor Alexander III, and a Knight of the Order of St. Andrew. In 1889, he married Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark, his paternal first cousin once removed. The couple had a daughter and a son, but Alexandra died after the birth of their second child. In his widowhood, Grand Duke Paul began a relationship with Olga Valerianovna Karnovich, a married woman with three children. After obtaining a divorce for Olga and in defiance of strong family opposition, Grand Duke Paul married her in October 1902. As he contracted a morganatic marriage with a divorcée in defiance of the Tsar's prohibition, Grand Duke Paul was banished from living in Russia and deprived of his titles and privileges. Between 1902 and 1914, he lived in exile in Paris with his second wife, who gave him three children. In the spring of 1914, he settled back in Russia with his second family.
With the outbreak of World War I, Grand Duke Paul was appointed in command of the first corps of the Imperial Guard. Afflicted with ill health, he served only intermittently. During the last days of the Tsarist period, he was one of the few members of the Romanov family who remained close to Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna. It fell upon Grand Duke Paul to inform Alexandra of Nicholas II's abdication.
After the fall of the Russian monarchy, Grand Duke Paul initially remained at his palace in Tsarskoe Selo during the period of the provisional government. With the Bolsheviks ascending to power, his palace was expropriated, and eventually he was arrested and sent to prison. In declining health, he was shot by the Bolsheviks with other Romanov relatives in the courtyard of the Peter and Paul Fortress in January 1919, and his remains were thrown into a common grave.
Early life
Grand Duke Paul was born on at the Catherine Palace, in Saint Petersburg.Lee & Davidson, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, p. 149.Zeepvat, Romanov Autumn, p. 195. He was the eighth and youngest child of Tsar Alexander II of Russia and his first wife, Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, née Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine.
As the youngest child in a large family, he was much loved by his parents and siblings. His early years were spent with his two siblings closest in age: his sister Marie, and his brother Sergei, from whom he was inseparable.Zeepvat, Romanov Autumn, p. 196. By the time of Paul's birth, his mother was afflicted with tuberculosis and the doctors advised her not to have more children. Relations between Paul's parents ceased.Van der Kiste, The Romanovs 1818–1959, p. 42.Lee & Davidson, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, p. 153. The family was struck by tragedy in 1865 with the death of Paul's eldest brother, Nicholas Alexandrovich, Tsesarevich of Russia, when Paul was four years old.Lee & Davidson, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, p. 152. The following year, his father, Alexander II, started an affair with Princess Catherine Dolgorukova, who gave him three children.
Grand Duke Paul's early years were spent at Tsarskoye Selo and at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, with vacations at Livadia, the family's Crimean retreat. As time passed and the Empress’ health dictated her to avoid the harsh Russian climate, the Tsarina spent long sojourns abroad with her three youngest children in Jugenheim outside Darmstadt, and the winters in the south of France. Paul was a protected delicate child; he never had a robust constitution.Zeepvat, Dear, Unforgettable Alix, p. 7.
Education
Grand Duke Paul was educated at home by private tutors. From the 1870s, Paul and his brother Sergei were kept in Russia by their studies. They were destined to follow a military career. From 1864 to 1885, their tutor was Admiral Dmitri Arsenyev, who encouraged his pupils to have a broad artistic education as well. Grand Duke Paul became a good amateur actor and an excellent dancer.Chavchavadze, The Grand Dukes, p. 127. He was widely liked due to his gentle character, very different from his boisterous elder brothers.Alexander, Once a Grand Duke, p. 140.
He was from birth a Guard cornet in an Infantry Regiment. However, his career advanced more slowly than that of his elder brothers. He became a Lieutenant in January 1874, but as he was still too young, he was the only one of Tsar Alexander II's sons not to take part in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78).
Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich was known as a gentle person, religious and accessible to people. In June 1880, he was afflicted by the death of his mother, whose slim figure and delicate health he inherited. Shortly after, his father married his mistress Catherine Dolgorukova.Lee & Davidson, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, p. 154. Grand Duke Paul, overprotected by his brother Sergei, did not know of the affair. Emotionally distraught by the news, he had to travel abroad to recuperate. Grand Duke Paul was on a trip to Italy with his brother Sergei when their father Alexander II was assassinated on 13 March [O.S. 1 March] 1881. Paul's eldest surviving brother, Alexander III, ascended to the Russian throne.Lee & Davidson, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, p. 155.
Since childhood, Paul was very attached to his brother Sergei, their closeness remaining even after Sergei's engagement and later marriage to Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine. Paul accompanied the couple to England to meet Elisabeth's British grandmother, Queen Victoria, who was favorably impressed by Paul. After Sergei's marriage, Paul moved in with his brother and his new sister-in-law, who also became very close to him. The trio shared the same household for some time, and they made a trip together to Jerusalem in 1888.Zeepvat, Romanov Autumn, p. 197. Grand Duke Paul suffered from weak lungs and spent periods abroad to recuperate. On medical advice, he visited Greece in 1887.Van der Kiste, The Romanovs 1818–1959, p. 126.
First marriage
During his visits to Greece, in the family atmosphere of his first cousin Queen Olga of Greece, Grand Duke Paul grew closer with Olga's eldest daughter, Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark.Zeepvat, The Camera and the Tsars, p. 49. Alexandra's father, King George I of Greece, was a brother of Tsarina Maria Feodorovna, Paul's sister-in-law. During the silver wedding anniversary of King George and Queen Olga, Paul asked for Alexandra's hand and he was accepted. Alexandra had come to Russia several times during visits to her maternal relatives. She was lively and mischievous, while he was reserved.Zeepvat, Dear, Unforgettable Alix, p. 8. Their engagement was announced on 10 November 1888. The wedding took place on in St. Petersburg, at the chapel of the Winter Palace. Grand Duke Paul was 29 years old and his wife ten years younger.Van der Kiste, The Romanovs 1818–1959, p. 140.
Paul settled with his wife in his own palace in St. Petersburg on the English Embankment, No. 68.Belyakova, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna and her palace in St Peterburg , p. 14. The mansion was located behind the Church of the Annunciation and faced the Corps de la Marine in the very center of Saint Petersburg. It was built in the Florentine renaissance revival style by the architect Alexander Krakau between 1859 and 1862 for Baron Alexander von Stieglitz, a prominent financier and the first Governor of the State Bank of the Russian Empire. After Stieglitz's death in 1884, the mansion was inherited by his adopted daughter, Nadezhda Polovtsova. She sold the property to the Treasury in 1887, and Grand Duke Paul bought it the same year. In 1889, he had the architect Maximilian Messmacher redesign some of the interiors, creating a Moorish Hall. The treasures of the house included the white marble staircase, the sitting room decorated with caryatids, the oak-paneled library, and the concert hall with portraits of great composers and panels depicting The Four Seasons.
Grand Duke Paul's marriage was happy, but brief. Alexandra, after a difficult first pregnancy, gave birth to a daughter on , Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia Alexandra was of a frail constitution and she was also homesick for her native Greece. In autumn of that same year, Grand Duke Paul took his wife for a holiday in Greece. At their return to Russia, he was appointed commander of the imperial house guards at Krasnoye Selo and, therefore, he was usually away fulfilling his military duties. Paul and his wife were given rooms at the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, but they saw each other only on weekends. Although Grand Duke Sergei and his wife Elizabeth moved to Moscow in May 1891, the two couples remained very close.Lee & Davidson, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, p. 156. In the summer of 1891, Paul and Alexandra decided to spend some time with them at Ilinskoie, Sergei's country estate outside Moscow. While there, Alexandra, seven months pregnant with her second child, carelessly stepped into a waiting boat, causing premature labor and the following day gave birth prematurely to a son, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia. Alexandra did not recover consciousness and died six days later on .
Grand Duke Paul was deeply affected by Alexandra's death.Zeepvat, Romanov Autumn, p. 198. During this period, his brother Sergei and Sergei's wife took care of Paul's motherless children in a pattern of behavior that would be repeated in the years to follow.Perry & Pleshakov, The Flight of the Romanovs, p. 43.Van der Kiste, The Romanovs 1818–1959, p. 141. In his widowhood, the grieving grand duke moved to Tsarskoye Selo, leaving his palace in St Peterburg that had been his home with Alexandra to never return. For a long time, the palace stood vacant. After that, the building changed many hands over time. When the revolution ended, the mansion was sold to the Russian Society for the Production of Equipment and Military Supplies. Eventually it became home to various Soviet institutions. The palace has survived to the present and today it is at the disposal of Saint Petersburg State University.
Grand Duke Paul's brother, Tsar Alexander III, died on and Paul's nephew, Nicholas II, became the new tsar. There was only an eight-year gap between uncle and nephew and Paul had known Nicholas II's wife, Alexandra Feodorovna, since she was a little girl, when in his youth he made many visits to his mother's native Darmstadt. Therefore, Grand Duke Paul was well-liked by the new Tsar and Tsarina.Lee & Davidson, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, p. 162.
Second marriage
In 1895, Paul began an affair with a commoner, Olga Valerianovna Karnovich.Zeepvat, Romanov Autumn, p. 199. Olga was married with three young children, a son and two daughters. Her husband, Eric von Pistohlkors, was an aide de camp of Paul's brother, Grand Duke Vladimir, and a captain in Paul's regiment.Van der Kiste, The Romanovs 1818–1959, p. 165. The affair initially remained secret, but it became public knowledge at court when Olga attended a court ball wearing a diamond necklace that had belonged to Paul's mother, Empress Maria Alexandrovna.Perry & Pleshakov, The Flight of the Romanovs, p. 71.Van der Kiste, The Romanovs 1818–1959, p. 166. The Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna recognized the jewels and had Olga removed from the ball.Papi, Jewels of the Romanovs: Family & Court, p. 162. In the subsequent scandal, Paul was moved to a different regimental command and Eric von Pistohlkors was sent away, but it was already too late. Olga was pregnant with Paul's child. She gave birth to a son, Vladimir, in January 1897, and Eric von Pistohlkors asked for a divorce.Lee & Davidson, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, p. 158.