Monday, June 11, 2018

+Prince Georg-Constantin of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (1977-2018)

 HH Prince Georg-Constantin of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
(1977-2018)



The email was ominous..."Dear Arturo, I have just received a telephone call from Germany asking me something concerning an accident a prince had in London. Do you know anything about this?"

The writer of this note was none other than HRH The Margrave of Meißen, Head of the Royal House of Saxony.

I was busy with meetings at the institution where I teach, and it was not until later last night that I was able to look into this worrisome inquiry. A few hours later, I discovered in the German news a report on the passing of HH Prince Georg-Gonstantin of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, last male heir to his family's ancient legacy. He suffered an accident on 9 June, near Apethorpe Palace, Northamptonshire, where he was participating in a riding contest. ( http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/apethorpe-palace/ ) A report of the tragic accident mentioned that the Prince had died at the scene.

Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was created as a duchy in 1809 when the Ernestine duchies of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach where merged into a single political union. Since 1741, both duchies had been impersonal union in the senior male prince of the Ernestine branch of the Wetting Dynasty. Six years after the merger, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach was raised to a Grand Duchy at the Congress of Vienna. It helped that Tsar Alexander I's sister, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, had married Hereditary prince Carl Friedrich (1783-1853). Among the former remaining Ernestine duchies, only Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach received this elevation.

Carl Friedrich and Maria Pavlovna are best known for their efforts to make Weimar, the grand duchy's capital, a major cultural center in Central Europe. The couple were patrons of such luminaries as: Goethe, Hummel, Lizst, and Wagner.

 

Grand Duke Carl Alexander (1818-1901), Karl Friedrich and Maria Pavlovna's youngest son, succeeded his father in 1853 and reigned until his death in 1901. He was the brother of Empress Augusta, consort of German Emperor Wilhelm I. In 1842, Carl Alexander married his first cousin Princess Sophie of the Netherland, by whom he had four children: Hereditary Grand Duke Carl August, Princess Marie Reuß, Princess Anna Sophia, and Elisabeth, Duchess Johann Albrecht of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

His  only son having predeceased him in 1894, Carl Alexander was succeeded by his grandson  Wilhelm Ernst, who was reputed among Gotha circles to have been a rather difficult man. In fact, the german press at one point described him as, "the most unpopular prince in all Germany." In 1903 he married Princess Caroline Reuß-Greiz, but she died in mysterious circumstances (suicide has been alleged) two years later. In 1910, Wilhelm Ernst, in desperate need of an heir, married Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen. They had four children: Sophia (briefly married to Fürst Friedrich-Günther of Schwarzburg (last of his line), Carl August (who married Baroness Elisabeth von Wangenheim); Bernhard (who married Princess Felizitas of Salm-Horstmar); and Georg, who in 1953 renounced his rights and adopted the name Georg Brenna.

While Hereditary Grand Duke Carl August became the father of the present Head of House Saxe-Weimar-Eisenahc, Michael Benedict, his brother Bernhard became the father of, among others, Prince Wilhelm Ernst (b. 1946), who in 1973 married Eva Kovarcz (whom he divorced in 1985). This now heartbroken couple are the parents of Prince Georg-Constantin, who was born in Munich, and of his elder sister Princess Désirée, married since 2000 to Count Florian v.u.z. Hoensbroech. The former Princess Eva remarried the Fürst of Wrede.

Princess Désirée and Prince Georg-Constantin of Sazxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
 
Prince Georg-Constantin with his sister and her husband, Count Florian v.u.z. Hoensbroech.


After completing high school, Georg-Constantin enrolled at St. Andrews University, from where he graduated in 2000 with a Master's Degree in Business & Managerial Economics.


After graduating, Georg-Constantin embarked in a long and successful business career. He worked for Merrill Lynch, and then went to work in business development for H2O Capital Ltd. In 2010, he founded Belvedere Energy Group, "a renewable energy developer and advisory business. Belvedere worked across all renewable energy aspects with a global reach but had a particular focus on solar." Three years ago, Georg-Constantin became a founding partner of Sustainability Factory, "an independent incubator of sustainable technology projects and other such activities which are involved in sustainable food, water, and energy supplies."

Georg-Constantin was the designated heir to the Grand Ducal Family as his cousin Prince Michael Benedict only has a daughter, Leonie, and she cannot succeed to Headship of House Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.

In 2015, Prince Georg-Constantin married Ms. Olivia Rachelle Page, whom he had met four years prior. Their wedding was celebrated in Weimar, a city for which the prince held a special tenderness and interest. In fact, it was there that I met Georg-Constantin and Olivia on 4/26/2016 while we attended the opening ceremonies for the exhibition: Die Ernestiner – Eine Dynasytie Prägt Europa. I had traveled to Coburg just a few days earlier as Prince Andreas had requested that I accompany him and his children to the opening ceremonies in Weimar and Gotha. Georg Constantin was approachable, kind, and interested in his family's historical role in developing Weimar's cultural legacy. His untimely death is a great tragedy, not just for his wife and parents, but also for the future of his dynasty. The two remaining male Saxe-Weimar-Eisenachs are both in  their seventies.

Prince Georg-Constantin is survived by his widow, Princess Olivia, his parents, sister and her family.

May He Rest in Peace...

The New Yorker: What Happens When a Bad-Tempered, Distractible Doofus Runs an Empire?

A very interesting article comparing Mr. Trump and Kaiser Wilhelm II...

What Happens When a Bad-Tempered, Distractible Doofus Runs an Empire?

Saturday, June 9, 2018

Every time a new Eurohistory book is published, I spend the weekend before we begin shipping enjoying pour latest achievement!

I received on Thursday the advance copies of our latest productions, DEATH OF ROMANOV PRINCE – Prince Oleg Konstantinovich's Promising Life and Early Death and EUROHISTORY, Issue CXVI, Volume 20.4.




We have had a very busy weekend. On Friday, we had dinner guests at home, two frequent buyers of our books. Both got to peruse through DEATH OF ROMANOV PRINCE and loved it. They were impressed by the fact that we don't cheapen our quality, and that very new book is chock-full of amazing images. DEATH OF ROMANOV PRINCE has close to 325 pristine images of not only the Konstantinovich branch of the Romanov Dynasty, but also a healthy number of photos of the other branches of the Romanovs.

We know that copies have been dispatched to Galignani in Paris and Booksellers van Hoogstraten in the Netherlands. It is a matter of days before they start shipping to their own clients or offering to visitors to the bookstore, in the case of our friends at Galignani!

The books is currently on sale at AMAZON.com ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/0994583001 ) and will also be available through our store at AMAZON.co.uk within two weeks.

Those of you who have purchased advance copies will have them in your hands before the end of this coming week – thanks for your continue support!

Also, EUROHISTORY, Issue CXVI, Volume 20.4 completes our 21st year in publication!

Inside the magazine, subscribers will find a renewal notice and we hope that you will stay with us for yet another exciting and royalty-filled year. Inside this current issue, readers will have the pleasure of learning many interesting details in articles authored by some of our luminaries like: Marlene Eilers Koenig, Rick Hutto, Ilana Miller, Katrina Warne, Susan Symons, and Coryne Hall!

 

We are also working on EUROHISTORY, Issue CXVII, Volume 21.1, which will include articles on: Tsar Alexander II of Russia, the late King Michael of Romania and his grandson Nicholas de Roumanie, The Infante don Carlos (Nino) and his family, Bavarian Castles, Royal Jerusalem, and Grand Duke Adolf Friedrich of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, to namer a few!

 
Subscriptions to EUROHISTORY can be obtained by contacting us at:
 
Phone: +1 510.236.1730
 
Email: eurohistory@comcast.net or aebeeche@mac.com


Rates for 2018 remain the same as last year's!

USA                          $50.00
Canada                      $55.00
UK                            £50.00
Europe                      $75.00
Latin America          $75.00
Australia                   $75.00
New Zealand            $75.00
Rest of the World     $75.00


We accept Visa and MasterCard, as well as US checks payable to: Eurohistory. If paying in Sterling cheques, it must be payable to Ms. Katrina Warne

You can also write to us at:
 
EUROHISTORY
6300 Kensington Avenue
East Richmond Heights, CA 94805
USA


    

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

DEATH OF A ROMANOV PRINCE SELLING NOW ON AMAZON!

Death of a Romanov Prince - Prince Oleg Konstantinovich’s Promising Life and Early Death “The coffin was lowered into the grave...... 

 

“Soon there was a burial mound above. It was quickly covered with wreaths, flowers and crowned with a plain wooden cross. Prince Oleg’s promising life was finished.” 

 

Death of a Romanov Prince follows the brief life-journey of Prince Oleg Konstantinovich, one of the lesser-known members of the powerful and privileged Russian Imperial family. He was a talented young man of intellectual and artistic genius. Oleg was the gifted son of the talented Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, who wrote under the pseudonym of KR. The Grand Duke was a friend of Tchaikovsky, who set his numerous poems to music, and who established literary circles for his troops, translated Hamlet into Russian, and wrote The King of the Jews, an original play that he and his sons performed. 

 

The reader will follow Prince Oleg Konstantinovich, his family, and Imperial cousins, as his life takes him via the luxuries of the family’s four magnificent palaces of Pavlovsk, in Tsarskoye Selo, the Marble Palace in St Petersburg, the Konstantine Palace at Strelna; and the Ostashevo Estate near Moscow; as well as numerous holidays in the Crimea. 

 

The young prince enjoyed the most liberal program in literary, scientific, and artistic education. He was the first Romanov to be enrolled in a civilian school and graduated from the Imperial Lyceum in St Petersburg, where in 1913 he won the Pushkin Medal for his academic achievements. At the age of 21, Prince Oleg Konstantinovich was on the crest of a brilliant career and personal greatness when World War I began. Then tragedy struck ... 

 

Death of a Romanov Prince brings the reader into the battlefields of World War I’s Eastern Front. Bloody battles fought in northern Poland and Lithuania’s Masurian Lakes. It was while fighting there that Prince Oleg led his troops into heroic cavalry charges against the Germans.

 

AMAZON began selling the book this morning!

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0994583001

 

 

Friday, June 1, 2018

Newest Eurohistory Book: DEATH OF A ROMANOV PRINCE

 

DEATH OF A ROMANOV PRINCE

Prince Oleg Konstantinovich's Promising Life and Early Death
 
“The coffin was lowered into the grave...... Soon there was a burial mound above. It was quickly covered with wreaths, flowers and crowned with a plain wooden cross. Prince Oleg’s promising life was finished.” (by Oleg’s brother Prince Gabriel in Memories of the Marble Palace p.261)
 
Death of a Romanov Prince follows the brief life-journey of Prince Oleg Konstantinovich, one of the lesser-known members of the powerful and privileged Russian Imperial family. He was a talented young man of intellectual and artistic genius. Oleg was the gifted son of the talented Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, who wrote under the pseudonym of KR. The Grand Duke was a friend of Tchaikovsky, who set his numerous poems to music, and who established literary circles for his troops, translated Hamlet into Russian, and wrote The King of the Jews, an original play that he and his sons performed.
 
The reader will follow Prince Oleg Konstantinovich, his family, and Imperial cousins, as his life takes him via the luxuries of the family’s four magnificent palaces of Pavlovsk, in Tsarskoye Selo, the Marble Palace in St Petersburg, the Konstantine Palace at Strelna; and the Ostashevo Estate near Moscow; as well as numerous holidays in the Crimea.
 

The young prince enjoyed the most liberal program in literary, scientific, and artistic education. He was the first Romanov to be enrolled in a civilian school and graduated from the Imperial Lyceum in St Petersburg, where in 1913 he won the Pushkin Medal for his academic achievements. At the age of 21, Prince Oleg Konstantinovich was on the crest of a brilliant career and personal greatness when World War I began. Then tragedy struck ...

Oleg Konstantinovich shares with us via his diaries the brutality of war. Just six weeks into the war, he was shot and fatally wounded. He died at a hospital in Vilnius three days later. However, it is what happens to his remains after the death of this Romanov prince that is so shocking.
 
 
The author: Terry Boland is a retired teacher of Russian history in a number of independent schools in Melbourne, Australia. He has travelled regularly and extensively throughout Russia for the past 30 years, including a three-day visit to Ekaterinburg spent with David Avdonin, who discovered the Imperial remains in 1979. His visits to St Petersburg and Moscow are on an annual basis, and he is familiar with all the sites mentioned in this text. His passion for all things relevant to the Romanov dynasty knows no bounds. Death of a Romanov Prince is Terry’s first publication.
 
The book has 240 pages and contains more than 300 amazing photos of the Romanov Dynasty, with focus on the the Oleg Konstantinovich branch, while the other branches of the family are also featured, as are Oleg Konstantinovich's German relations.
 
Death of a Romanov Prince is $48.95 plus shipping...$8.00 USA – $33.00 International.
 
We expect that the book to be sold at our regular venues: Hoogstraten.nl, Librairie Galignani, AMAZON.co.uk, and MAJESTY!
 
The book will start selling on AMAZON on Tuesday, June 5, 2018!
 
 
You can also order the book directly from Eurohistory by calling us at: 510-236-1730 or emailing us at: aebeeche@mac.com or eurohistory@comcast.net
 
 

Featured Post

The House of Plantagenet: Secrets, Scandals, and the Kings Who Shaped England!

  The House of Plantagenet was a significant royal dynasty that ruled England from 1154 until 1485. This era was marked by notable kings,...

Popular Posts