page_title: Grand Duchess Vera Konstantinovna of Russia
section_title: Last years
hierarchical_section_title: Grand Duchess Vera Konstantinovna of Russia / Last years
caption_attribution_description: English: source: Jacuqes Ferrand collection Grand Duchess Vera Konstantinovna withher daughter and grandchildren
context_page_description: Grand Duchess Vera Konstantinovna of Russia was a daughter of Grand Duke Konstantine Nicholaievich of Russia. She was a granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I and first cousin of Tsar Alexander III of Russia.
  She had a difficult childhood marked by illness and tantrums. In 1863, while her father was Viceroy of Poland, she was given away to be raised by her childless uncle and aunt, King Karl and Queen Olga of Württemberg. Vera's condition improved in their home and she outgrew her disruptive behavior. In 1871 she was legally adopted by Karl and Olga, who arranged her marriage in 1874 to Duke Eugen of Württemberg, a member of the Silesian ducal branch of the family. Her husband died suddenly three years later. Vera, only twenty-three years old, did not remarry, dedicating herself to her twin daughters. At the death of King Karl in 1891, Vera inherited a considerable fortune and she turned her home into a cultural gathering place. She was a popular figure in Württemberg, notable for her charitable work.
  Grand Duchess Vera was known in royal circles as an eccentric both in appearance and behavior.
context_section_description: Grand Duchess Vera visited Russia often and was present with her daughters in May 1896 during the coronation  ceremonies of Tsar Nicholas II. The elder of the twins, Elsa, was first engaged in January 1895 to Hereditary  Prince Alfred of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a grandson of Queen Victoria. The engagement was quickly broken off, and Elsa married a distant cousin, Prince Albert of Schaumburg-Lippe, brother of Queen Charlotte of Württemberg. The following year, Vera's other daughter, Olga, married her brother-in-law's younger brother, Prince Maximilian of Schaumburg-Lippe.  Olga's fate was similar to Vera's; she had three children and within a few years of her marriage, she lost a child and her husband, becoming a widow at an early age and never marrying again.
  Aged beyond her years, Grand Duchess Vera was now in poor health. Some authorities now speculate that she suffered from Sydenham's chorea or Saint Vitus Dance, a neurological movement disorder characterized by abrupt, involuntary movements.  In Stuttgart Vera was assigned an officer to follow her about, to make sure that if she had an attack she would not fall and injure herself.
  By the turn of the century, Vera Constantinova appeared small and dumpy with a fat, round face. She wore her hair very short, which gave her a masculine look.   Extremely nearsighted, she wore a pince-nez. She was considered rather eccentric, but she had a good sense of humor and her funny remarks were remembered by her nephews and nieces. She was well liked by her family.
  After living in Württemberg for so long, she was at odds politically and religiously with her Russian relatives. Her political sympathies lay with Germany and she did not share the increasingly anti-German view of the Romanovs. Vera Konstantinovna was very religious, but had never understood the Orthodox faith and eventually abandoned it to convert to Lutheranism in 1909, to the consternation of the Romanov family. She then commissioned the building of a Protestant church on the grounds of Villa Berg.
  In 1903, during the wedding dinner for Princess Alice of Battenberg to her nephew Prince Andrew of Greece in Darmstadt, Prince Christopher recalled "My brother George sat next to her, and at a pause in the proceedings, snatched off her tiara and put it on his own head. Everybody laughed, Aunt Vera included, although she vowed vengeance on the culprit. Her turn came, as she thought, a little later, when the bride and bridegroom started on their honeymoon. We were all gathered at the door, throwing rice at them, when someone knocked off poor Aunt Vera's glasses, which were smashed to atoms on the stone steps."  An unfortunate man who happened to be standing next to the Grand Duchess, then became the object of her wrath. She knocked the man's hat off and began to hit him over the head with it.
  Grand Duchess Vera Constantinovna suffered a stroke in October 1911. She had a slow recovery and she died in Stuttgart on 11 April 1912 of an acute renal failure, aged fifty-eight. She was deeply mourned as she was the most popular princess of the Royal house of Württemberg.
caption: Grand Duchess Vera Constantinovna of Russia (center) with her daughters, Olga (left), Elsa (right) and grandchildren.
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