Early Life and Marriage
Struve was born in Tartu in 1835, the son of Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve (1793–1864) and his second wife, Johannah H.F. Bathels. His father was a native of Altona, Germany, who emigrated in 1808 to avoid conscription in the Napoleonic armies, going first to Denmark and then Russia. The elder Struve was appointed professor of astronomy and mathematics at the University of Dorpat (now Tartu) in 1813 and director of the Dorpat Observatory in 1817. In 1835, the year of Karl's birth, he was asked by Tsar Nicholas I to supervise construction of the Pulkovo Observatory, of which he was director from 1839 to 1862.
Karl von Struve was a half-brother of the astronomer Otto Wilhelm von Struve (1819–1905) and the politician Bernhard Vasilyevitch Struve, Imperial Privy Councilor and Governor of Perm and Astrakhan. He was a grand-uncle of Otto Struve (1897–1963), the Russian-born director of the Yerkes, McDonald and Leuschner observatories in the United States.
He married Maria Nicolaevna Annenkova, daughter of General Nicholas Annenkov and sister of General Michael Nicolaivitch Annenkoff, Elizabeth, princess Galitzine, and Alexandra, Vicomtesse de Vogüé. The Struves were the parents of five children:
- Boris de Struve – served as Russian military attache in Washington and married Eleanor Slater, from a prominent New England family, and had issue:
- A) Boris de Struve Jr.
- B) Elena de Struve
- Vera de Struve – married Prince Peter N. Meschersky and ran a prominent finishing school in Paris. She also served as a trustee of the Russian Red Cross and later managed a retirement home for White Russian emigres. Had issue:
- A) Marina, Princess Mescherskaya, married 1) Count Michael Vorontsov-Dashkoff and 2) Count Ivan Shuvaloff
- Olga de Struve – married champagne heir Baron Peter Arnold Hermann Gottlieb Mumm von Schwarzenstein and had issue:
- A) Elena Mumm Thornton Wilson
- B) Olga Mumm, racing manager for Whitney heiress Dorothy Paget
- C) Baron Godefroy Hermann von Mumm ("Brat"), manager of Mumm family vineyards, married Madeleine Allen de Casabonne and had issue:
- a) Maria Magdalene Mumm married to Count Johan-Christian von Hatzfeldt-Doenhoff, and had issue:
- a1) Countess Maria Magdalena von Hatzfeldt- Doenhoff married Luca Trabattoni and had issue.
- a2) Countess Maria-Christiane von Hatzfeldt-Doenhoff married Archduke Andreas-Augustinus von Habsburg-Lothringen and had issue.
- a) Maria Magdalene Mumm married to Count Johan-Christian von Hatzfeldt-Doenhoff, and had issue:
- D) Kirill Mumm
- Helene de Struve – married 1) Hendrik, 2nd Baron Steengracht von Moyland, a descendent of Charlemagne; and 2) Count Orlov.
- Maria de Struve – married Major General Georg Ivanovitch Chevitch and had issue:
- A) Maria Georgievna Chevitch married to Nicholas Petrovich Balachov and had issue.
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