Princess Juliane | |
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Tsesarevna of Russia Grand Duchess Anna Feodorovna of Russia |
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La Grande Duchesse Anna Feodorovna", Portrait by Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun, painted shortly after her wedding (ca.1795-1796). This portrait was destroyed by bombs during World War II | |
Spouse | Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia |
House | House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov House of Wettin |
Father | Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld |
Mother | Countess Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorf |
Born | 23 July 1781 Coburg |
Died | 15 August 1860 Elfenau, near Bern, Switzerland |
(aged 79)
Princess Juliane Henriette Ulrike of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (Coburg, 23 September 1781 – Elfenau, near Bern, Switzerland, 15 August 1860), also known as Grand Duchess Anna Feodorovna of Russia, was a German princess of the ducal house of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (after 1826, the house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) who became the wife of Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia of Russia.
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She was the third daughter of Franz Frederick Anton, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Countess Augusta Caroline Reuss of Ebersdorf. King Leopold I of the Belgians was her younger brother, while Queen Victoria of United Kingdom was her niece and King Ferdinand II of Portugal was her nephew.
Juliane, along with her two elder sisters, Sophie and Antoinette, traveled to Saint Petersburg at the request of Empress Catherine II of Russia, who wanted a bride for her second grandson, Grand Duke Constantine. The young Grand Duke chose Juliane.[1] This union, in connection with the wedding of her brother Leopold with Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, made the little Duchy of Saxe-Coburg the dynastic heart of Europe. In addition, thanks to relations with the Russian Empire, Saxe-Coburg was relatively safe during the Napoleonic Wars.
Juliane, who was not yet fifteen years of age, took the name of Anna Feodorovna in a Russian Orthodox baptismal ceremony and married Constantine (who was only seventeen years old at the time) in St.Petersburg on 26 February 1796. The Empress died nine months later, on 6 November. By virtue of her wedding, she was awarded with the Grand Cross of the Imperial Order of Saint Catherine and the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem.[2]
The marriage was deeply unhappy. Constantine, known to be a violent boy,[3] made his young wife intensely miserable.[4] After three years, in 1799, Anna left her husband and returned to Coburg.
Shortly thereafter, however, she returned to Russia in an unsuccessful attempt at reconciliation. In 1801, Anna, who had become involved in several frivolous intrigues, was sent home permanently to Coburg.
On 28 October 1808 Anna gave birth to an illegitimate son, named Eduard Edgar Schmidt-Löwe. The father of this child may have been Jules Gabriel Emile de Seigneux, a minor French nobleman. Eduard was ennobled by his mother's younger brother, Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and assumed the surname von Löwenfels by decree on 10 January 1818.
Later, Anna moved to Bern, Switzerland, and gave birth to a second illegitimate child in 1812, a daughter, named Louise Hilda Agnes d'Aubert. The father was Rodolphe Abraham de Schiferli, a Swiss surgeon, professor and chamberlain (French:Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, German:Oberhofmeister) of Anna's household from 1812 to 1837. In order to cover another scandal in Anna's life, the baby was adopted by Jean François Joseph d'Aubert, a French refugee.
Two years later, in 1814, Constantine, accompanied by her brother Leopold, tried to get Anna to return to him but her firm opposition prevented this attempt from succeeding. That year, Anna acquired an estate on the banks of Aare River and gave it the name of Elfenau.[5] She spent the rest of her life there, and, as a lover of music, made her home a center for domestic and foreign musical society of the era.
Finally, on 20 March 1820, after nineteen years of separation, her marriage with the Grand Duke Constantine was formally annulled. He remarried two months later and died on 27 June 1831. Anna survived her former husband by twenty-nine years.
Later, her son Eduard married his cousin Bertha von Schauenstein, an illegitimate daughter of the Duke Ernst I, and descendants of that marriage are still alive today. Her daughter Louise married Jean Samuel Edouard Dapples in 1834, but died three years later in 1837 at the age of twenty-five.
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