page_title: Aurora Karamzin
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: Aurora Karamzin / Life
caption_attribution_description: Čeština: Vila v Hakasalmi, Finsko
context_page_description: Eva Aurora Charlotta Karamzin, was a Finnish-Swede philanthropist. Her better-known names are Princess Aurora Demidova and Aurora Karamzin, titles that were acquired after her first and second marriages, respectively.
context_section_description: Aurora was appointed as a lady-in-waiting to Empress Alexandra Fedorovna the elder (consort to Tsar Nicholas I of Russia), and a lady of the bedchamber of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna the younger and Empress Maria Feodorovna. She was made a dame of the Order of Saint Catherine, the highest honour for ladies in Imperial Russia. Evgeny Baratynsky dedicated a poem to her, both in Russian and French ("Go and breathe inspiration into us, you the namesake of dawn... for whom you will become the sun of happiness?"), as he did to her sister Countess Emilia.
  In Helsinki on 9 January 1836, she married Pavel Nikolayevich Demidov (1798 - 1840). In 1846, after Demidov's death, she remarried to Andrei Karamzin. After the death of Aurora's second husband, she occupied herself with the practical matters of her Järvenperä manor in  Espoo, Finland and with her growing interest in charity. Karamzin used the immense wealth inherited from her first husband to create benevolent institutions in Helsinki, such as schools, public kitchens and the Deaconess Institution of Helsinki. She was considered a great benefactor in many cities such as Saint Petersburg and Florence.
  Karamzin's only child was Pavel Pavlovich Demidov (9 October 1839 – 26 January 1885). In 1870, Pavel succeeded his childless uncle, Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov, as the 2nd Prince of San Donato.
  Her granddaughter and namesake Princess Aurora Pavlovna Demidova married Arsen Karađorđević, Prince of Serbia and became the mother of the Yugoslav regent, Prince Paul of Yugoslavia. Demidova's granddaughter is Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, now living in Serbia, and the mother of Catherine and Christina Oxenberg.
  She died aged 93 in Helsinki on 13 May 1902.
caption: The Hakasalmi manor house was in the centre of Helsinki where Aurora Karamzin lived most of her life. Now a museum
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