Aurora Stjernvall
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Aurora Stjernvall (1 August 1808 – 13 May 1902) was a Finnish philanthropist; founder and supporter of charities. She was best known as Aurora Karamzin, the name she acquired after her second marriage.
She was born in Pori, Finland, as daughter of Lord Carl Johan Stjernvall, a high official of the Grand Duchy of Finland's administration, ultimately Governor of the Viipuri province. Her mother, Baroness Eva Gustava von Willebrand (a remote niece of Gustaf I, King of Sweden), was soon widowed, and became the wife of Carl Johan Walleen, Lord Procurator of Finland. Aurora had an older brother Emil (1806-?) and two sisters, Emilie (1811-?, married Vladimir Musin-Pushkin) and Alexandra (Aline) (1812-1851, married in 1839 José Maurício Correia Henriques, 1st Baron, 1st Viscount and 1st Count de Seisal (November 5, 1802-February 7, 1874), a Portuguese Diplomat, by whom she had issue). She had also three half-brothers from mother's second marriage.
Aurora was the only Finnish woman appointed a lady-in-waiting of Empress Alexandra Fedorovna the elder, consort to Emperor Nicholas I of Russia. An impoverished beauty, she was in 1836 married to Prince Paul Demidov (1798-1840), a scion of a Russian family whose immense wealth was derived from mines in Nizhni Tagilsk, Ural. Her husband died in 1840, and six years later, she married a Russian officer, Colonel Andrey Karamzin, who died in the Crimean War in 1854.
After the death of her second husband, she occupied herself with the practical matters of her Järvenperä manor in Espoo, Finland, and with her growing interest in charity. Aurora used her immense wealth, inherited from her first husband, to create benefactory institutions in Helsinki, such as schools, public kitchens, and the Deaconess Institution of Helsinki. She was a great benefactor in many cities such as St. Petersburg and Florence.
Aurora's only child was Prince Paul Demidov (9 October 1839 – 26 January 1885). In 1870, he succeeded his childless uncle, Anatole Demidov, as the 2nd Prince of San Donato.
Her granddaughter and namesake Princess Aurora Demidov de San Donato married Prince Arsen of Yugoslavia and became the mother of the Yugoslav Regent, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia. Aurora of Yugoslavia's granddaughter is Elisabeth Karadjordjevic, a politician in Serbia and the mother of actress Catherine Oxenberg.
She died in Helsinki.
