Grand Duchess Vera Constantinovna of Russia - Marriage

Marriage

King Karl and Queen Olga legally adopted Grand Duchess Vera in 1871. They arranged her marriage to a member of the Silesian branch of their family, Duke Eugen of Württemberg (b. 20 August 1846 – 27 January 1877), as in this way she would not have to leave the country after her marriage.

The engagement took place in January 1874, pleasing both families. Grand Duke Konstantine wrote to the King and Queen profusely thanking them for the help they had given to his daughter. Queen Olga wrote to her friend Marie von Kinderlen-Waechter, "My problem child is now a happy bride, loving and beloved. I never dreamed that such happiness could exist. Eugen is already like a son to the King. I fold my hands and thank God day and night for such a blessing". Even the heir to the Württemberg throne, Prince William, wrote that Vera was the luckiest bride in the world. "While she is very ugly and will always remain so, compared to how she was as a child she is unbelievably improved. I consider her not to be without accomplishments, and, I believe, not without heart."

Vera was nineteen and Eugen twenty-eight. The wedding was celebrated with great pomp in Stuttgart on 4 May 1874 in the presence of Vera's uncle, Tsar Alexander II, who, noticing the unattractiveness of his niece, remarked ungallantly, "I confess that I do not envy the young husband". He did, however, arrange for Vera's father to settle a million rubles on her as a dowry.

The couple settled in a large house, the "Akademie" in Stuttgart. The following year, Vera gave birth to a son, Karl Eugen, who died only seven months later. In 1876, Vera had twin daughters, Elsa and Olga.

However, the Grand Duchess' married life was to be short-lived. Her husband, an officer in the Württemberg army, took charge of a command in Düsseldorf, where he died unexpectedly on 27 January 1877. The cause of death was officially given as, alternately, a fall from a horse, and a respiratory illness. However, many believed the Duke, a well-known bon vivant, had actually been killed in a duel, which was hushed up. The marriage had lasted three years. Only twenty-three years old, Vera never married again. She reacted to the death of her husband in practical, not grief-stricken terms.

Rather than returning to her native country, the young widow decided to stay in Württemberg, the country she felt to be her own, where she had the protection of the King. However, she traveled frequently to visit her relatives in Russia as well as her only sister, Queen Olga of the Hellenes, in Greece.

At the death of King Karl in 1891, Vera inherited a considerable fortune, and when Queen Olga died a year later, she received Villa Berg in Stuttgart, where she lived in considerable style. She also wrote poetry, and her home was the scene of many cultural as well as family gatherings

Bright and talkative, Grand Duchess Vera was popular in Württemberg, where she dedicated herself to charitable work. Refuges for fallen women, called "Vera's Homes"; the Benevolent Institution; the Olga Clinic in Stuttgart; the Nicholas nursing station for the blind, the Mariaberg Institute near Reutlingen, the dragoon regiment of her late husband, and a Russian regiment, were among the more than thirty institutions and organizations under her patronage. She was also involved in the construction of the Orthodox Church of St Nicholas in Stuttgart..