Grand Duke Vyacheslav Konstantinovich of Russia

Grand Duke Vyacheslav Konstantinovich
Born(1862-07-13)13 July 1862
Warsaw, Warsaw Governorate, Congress Poland
Died27 February 1879(1879-02-27) (aged 16)
Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Burial
HouseHouse of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
FatherGrand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia
MotherPrincess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg

Grand Duke Vyacheslav Konstantinovich of Russia, (13 July 1862 – 27 February 1879), was a Romanov grand duke and the youngest son of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia and his wife Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg. The English form of his first name is Wenceslas.

Biography

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Grand Duke Vyacheslav's monument in Pavlovsk.

Vyacheslav, who was nicknamed "Slava," was the baby of the family and a family favorite. He was tall and used to joke that, when he is dead, his coffin would be stuck in a doorway of the Marble Palace. It really happened so when he died. At age sixteen, he complained suddenly of a splitting headache and violent illness. He lay with a Russian Orthodox icon on his pillow as his family surrounded him, urging him to breathe. He died within a week of brain inflammation. His mother later reported that she had seen the ghost of a white lady in the art gallery at Pavlovsk on the day before Vyacheslav became ill. She took the apparition as a portent of death. His brother Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia later recalled, as he walked in Vyacheslav's funeral procession, how much Vyacheslav enjoyed drawing funeral processions in great detail.[1]

Orders and decorations

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Ancestry

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Notes

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  1. ^ Zeepvat (2004), p. 182
  2. ^ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Königreich Württemberg (1877), "Königliche Orden" p. 23

References

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  • Pchelov, E.V. (2003). The Romanovs: history of the dynasty. Archive. Moscow, OLMA-PRESS. ISBN 5-224-01678-9
  • Zeepvat, Charlotte (2004). The Camera and the Tsars. Sutton Publishing. ISBN 0-7509-3049-7