Who was Catherine Dolgorukova?
Catherine Dolgorukova was born on the 14th of November 1847 as the daughter of Prince Michael Dolgorukova and Vera Vishnevskaya. She grew up a Russian aristocrat and later became the notorious mistress of Alexander II.
She met Alexander in 1859 when he visited her father’s estate and, later on, after her father died and she and her sister were sent to a school for young ladies, her mother encouraged her to seize the opportunity with the tsar to better her family’s conditions. She was originally brought to court in 1864 as a lady-in-waiting to Alexander II’s wife, who was suffering from tuberculosis at the time, and did not form any sort of relationship with the tsar until 1866, when she was moved for him after the death of his son. Together, Catherine and Alexander had four children, three of whom survived to adulthood, and they seemed to truly love each other.
Their relationship continued until the end of Alexander’s life, with the pair getting married in 1880 after the death of his wife Marie. However, their marriage was morganatic, meaning that the two partners were of unequal social class. Due to this, even after Catherine and Alexander married, it was stipulated that their three children, although legitimised, would never inherit the throne.
Marie was well aware of Catherine and Alexander’s relationship and actually met two of the children they had together, apparently kissing them and blessing them before she died. After Marie died, Catherine was apparently somewhat glad that her and Alexander could now be married.
Why was she significant?
One main reason for the significance of Catherine Dolgorukova was that it was her relationship with Alexander that cause alienation between him and his legitimate children and heirs he shared with Marie. Even his favourite daughter, Maria Alexandrovna, wrote to him that she ‘prays myself and my junior brothers, who were particularly close to mama, would one day be able to forgive you‘.
Another reason was that her marriage to the Tsar, especially so soon (less than 40 days) after the passing of the Tsarina, was wildly unpopular – people really hated them for it. The Priest who had married Alexander and Marie, Father Bazhenov, refused to perform a second wedding. His friend from childhood, Alderberg, tried to dissuade him from marrying her so soon. One of Marie’s ladies-in-waiting resigned from Imperial Court because she ‘could not promise not to spit in the face of [Catherine]’. Catherine was dubbed a ‘scheming adventuress‘ by Alexander’s former sister-in-law. Alexander III’s wife Maria refused to let her children stay with Catherine. Their marriage was so widely hated that it caused genuine unrest at court and amongst the Russian people.