Princess of Russia Vera Constantinovna
Born: 11 APR 1906  Pavlovsk      Sex: F
Died: 11 JAN 2001  New York City, RUSSIA

Relationship: 19. cousin, etc.
Ancestors:
Father: Grand Duke of Russia Constantine GD of Russia Constantine Nikolaievich
Pss von Saxe-Altenburg Elisabeth Alexandra
Child: Princess of Russia Vera Constantinovna
Mother: Princess von Saxe-Altenburg Elisabeth Prince von Saxe-Altenburg Moritz
Pss v Saxe-Meiningen+Dss v Saxony Auguste
Marriage(s) and Relationships:
Notes:
Source: Leo van de Pas. Last surviving member of the Russian Imperial Family born before the Revolution has died. Princess Vera was able to escape the revolution along with her mother, Grand Duchess Elisabeth Mavrikievna of Russia (born a Princess of Saxe-Altenburg) and some of her siblings. She lost her father, the erudite Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantionovich of Russia (1858-1915) during the Great War to illness. Some historians have argued that he suffered from coronary disease. The death of his son Prince Oleg Konstantinovich at the front in 1914 and that of his son-in-law Prince Konstantin Alexandrovich Bagration-Moukhranski while fighting in Galicia in 1915, certainly contributed to the Grand Duke's malaise. At least he did not have to witness the outright obliteration of his line at the hands of the Bolsheviks. Three of Konstantin Konstantinovich's sons (Princes Ivan, Konstantin and Igor) were killed at Alapaievsk along with other Romanov cousins in July 1918, one of them being Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodrovna (nee Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine), widow of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who had been assassinated in Moscow in 1905. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich was the last Romanov buried at the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral before the Revolution. Grand Duchess Elisabeth Mavrikievna managed to escape Russia, as did her remaining children: Princes Gabriel and Georgi and Princesses Tatiana and Vera. Elisabeth Mavrikievna and Vera Konstantinovna settled in Altenburg, Germany, the former duchy of her brother Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Altenburg (the maternal grandfather of my dear friend Prince Alfred of Prussia). Grand Duchess Elisabeth Mavrikievna died at Leipzig on March 24, 1927. She is bruied at the Ducal Plot near Schloss Frohliche Wiederkunft, a quiet and serene sight I visited last year during our Euro Tour 2000, along her brother Ernest II and is second wife, as well as his unmarried youngest daughter. Princess Vera eventually moved to America. She was living at the Tolstoy Foundation for many years. Among many descendants of Russian emigres I know, she retained a certain aura of living history, being the last living Romanov born before the tragic collapse and ignominy that consumed her family in 1917-1918. Princess Vera Konstantinovna never married and leaves no direct descendants. Her two brothers and sister who managed to escape Russia all predeceased her. Prince Gabriel died in 1955, living no heirs, as did her brother Prince Georgi, the victim of an early death at the age of 33 in 1936. Her sister Princess Tatiana Konstnatinovna eventually took holy orders and became an Orthodox Nun in the Holy Land. She died in Jerusalem in 1970. With the death of Princess Vera Konstasntinovna a chapter in the sad history of the Russian Imperial Family is closed. One can only hope that her later years in exile in New York served to ameliorate the sadness she experienced at such an early age. Source: Arturo Beeche, ERHJ-Publisher
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