Peter of Oldenburg (1812–1881)

Duke Peter of Oldenburg

Peter of Oldenburg

Konstantin Friedrich Peter (born August 14 ^{. Jul} / 26. August  1812 ^greg. In Yaroslavl , † May 2 ^jul. / 14. May  1881 ^greg. In Saint Petersburg ) was a prince of the Russian branch line from the house of Gottorp's Oldenburg .

origin

Peter was the son of Duke Georg von Oldenburg (1784-1812) and Grand Duchess Katharina Pawlowna (1788-1819), who later became Queen of Württemberg (in his second marriage) . Since his father died shortly after his birth and his mother often accompanied her brother Tsar Alexander I on trips after the death of her husband , Peter and his older brother Alexander were first brought up by the Tsar's mother Maria Feodorovna .

At the beginning of 1816 the mother remarried Katharina Pavlovna. Her husband was her first cousin Wilhelm von Württemberg , who shortly afterwards became King of Württemberg on October 30, 1816 . Katharina Pavlovna died in 1819. Peter and his brother had accompanied their mother to her stepfather in Stuttgart , but after their death they first came to Oldenburg to see their grandfather Peter Friedrich Ludwig , the regent of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg . In 1829 both his grandfather and Peter's brother Alexander died and his mother's brother, Tsar Nicholas I , called Peter back to Russia. At the time, Peter was a candidate for the Greek throne, but Tsar Nicholas insisted that Peter return to Russia and do his military service there. In 1832, Otto from Wittelsbach became King of Greece and later married Amalie von Oldenburg , a cousin of Peters.

Career

Peter began his military service on December 27, 1830 with the Preobrazhensky body guard regiment of the Tsar, in which he had held the honorary rank of colonel from his birth . As a result, he made it to the Russian military until his departure in 1834 as lieutenant general . He then worked in civil Russian state services, where he worked as a member of the governing senate and later as a council for military educational institutions. After discovering that there was a lack of well-trained lawyers in Russia, he founded the Imperial Law School in Saint Petersburg in 1835 with private funds , and was subsequently appointed curator by the Tsar.

Social activity

Peter was particularly involved in the social and educational environment and was particularly committed to the education of girls and women . As early as 1836 he had founded a higher girls' school in Oldenburg , from which the Cäcilienschule Oldenburg later emerged. In 1838 he asked to be dismissed from the government senate in order to move to the fourth department of the Imperial Private Chancellery, which dealt with the social issues of the empire. Before that, Peter was a member of advisory boards, boards and curator of educational institutions, orphanages and hospitals. In 1839 he became head of the Mariinsky Hospital in Saint Petersburg, which his grandmother had founded. In 1841 he founded a house of children's art for the children of poor families, which Peter’s wife Therese took over the patronage. In 1845 Peter took over the chairmanship of the main council of all women's educational institutions in Russia and thus became head of all girls' schools in the country. In March 1845 he received the title of Imperial Highness from Tsar Nicholas as a sign of belonging to the Imperial family. In 1858, on the initiative of Tsarina Marija Alexandrovna, who was also of German descent, Peter founded Russia's first public high school for girls, which was open to all classes. In 1859 he founded together with his daughter, Alexandra von Oldenburg , wife of the Czar's son Nikolai , the hospital Pokrovskaja-Bolniza . Furthermore, in 1860 he took over the main administration of all charitable and educational institutions in Russia, which was organized as the Tsarina's foundation. In 1869 Peter appeared as the founder of a children's hospital for children from poor families, which bore his name until the October Revolution in 1917 and where the famous pediatrician Karl Rauchfuss was chief physician. Under Peter's direction, the number of institutions in the social department grew nationwide from 104 to a total of 496.

Commitment to peace

Already after the Franco-Prussian War , Peter wrote letters to Kaiser Wilhelm I and the French President calling for disarmament and the transfer of armaments to education and science. In 1880, together with leading Russian lawyers, including Friedrich Fromhold Martens , he initiated the founding of the Russian Society for International Law, which subsequently worked out the principles of international jurisdiction. These foundations formed the basis for Tsar Nicholas II's initiative for the Hague Peace Conference in 1899, which led to the establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration according to a concept drawn up by Martens.

As a poet and composer

In addition to these activities, Peter also emerged as a poet and composer. He was also in contact with some important artists of his time. As early as 1837 he visited Alexander Pushkin just before his death. Clara Schumann , Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , Franz Liszt and others visited his palace on the Neva to make music there, and Peter's own compositions were also played. In 1878 he published a volume of his poems, which were written in German and then translated into Russian .

Peter died in 1881 of pneumonia, which he had apparently contracted shortly before at the funeral of the poet Dostoevsky , whom he admired . Dostoyevsky's widow then looked after Peter until his death.

family

Duke Peter married on April 23, 1837 in Biebrich Princess Therese von Nassau (born April 17, 1815 in Weilburg , † December 8, 1871 in Prague ), the daughter of Duke Wilhelm von Nassau (1792-1839) and his first wife Princess Luise von Sachsen-Hildburghausen (1794-1825). The couple had eight children:

• Alexandra (1838–1900) ⚭ 1856 Grand Duke Nikolai
• Nikolaus (1840–1880) ⚭ 1863 Maria Bulatzelly, "Countess of Easter Castle"
• Cäcilie (1842–1843)
• Alexander (1844–1932) ⚭ 1868 Princess Eugenia von Leuchtenberg
• Katharina (1846–1866)
• Georg (1848–1871)
• Constantine (1850–1906) ⚭ 1882 Agrippina Japaridze (1855–1927), "Countess of Zarnekau"
• Therese (1852–1883) ⚭ 1879 Duke Georg von Leuchtenberg

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  Therese of Nassau

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  Alexandra of Oldenburg

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  Nikolaus von Oldenburg with his wife Marie

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  Alexander von Oldenburg with his wife Eugenia

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  Catherine of Oldenburg

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  Constantine of Oldenburg

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  Agrippina Japaridze, Countess of Zarnekau

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  Therese von Oldenburg

literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

• VI Fedortschenko: The House of the Romanovs: Biographical Encyclopedia (Дом Романовых: энциклопедия биографий), Olma-Press, 2003, ISBN 5-7867-0097-6 , pages 56-58 (Russian)
• Natalia Glânzeva (Natalia Keil-Zenzerova): Peter Prince of Oldenburg (1812–1881). A statesman with musical talent . In: "Mitteilungsblatt der Oldenburgische Landschaft", No. 91, 1996, pp. 6-7
• Natalia Glânzeva (Natalia Keil-Zenzerova): Peter Prince von Oldenburg as a musician (based on materials from the St. Petersburg Archives). In: Music history between Eastern and Western Europe. Symphonics - music collections. Conference report. Chemnitz 1995, ed. v. Helmut Loos. Sankt Augustin 1997, pp. 283-286
• Mutzenbecher:  Peter . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 25, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1887, p. 469.
• Huno von Oldenburg: The Russian branch of the House of Oldenburg and other members of the House in Russian service. Published in: Jörg Michael Henneberg u. a. (Ed.): History of the Oldenburger Land. Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Aschendorff Verlag, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-402-12942-5 , p. 171 ff.
• Friedrich Willett: Trip to Italy with Peter von Oldenburg and Therese zu Nassau 1838/39. The travel diary of the Duke of Nassau Medical Council Dr. Fritz Willett . Pierre Even (ed.). Historical commission for Nassau, Wiesbaden 2ß18. ISBN 978-3-930221-37-0

Web links

Commons : Peter von Oldenburg  - Collection of images

• Pedigree
• Biographies , Chronos (Russian)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Klaus Klattenhoff: Ramsauer, Johannes. In: Hans Friedl u. a. (Ed.): Biographical manual for the history of the state of Oldenburg . Edited on behalf of the Oldenburg landscape. Isensee, Oldenburg 1992, ISBN 3-89442-135-5 , p. 580 ( online ).