His Serene Highness Princess Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Yuryevskaya is the youngest daughter of Alexander II and Princess Ekaterina Dolgorukova (Yuryevskaya). She was married twice. At 45, she made a career as a singer.
Biography
Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Yurievskaya was born in 1878. The princess was named after her mother, Ekaterina Dolgorukova. Her childhood was spent in the luxury of the Winter Palace with her brother George and sister Olga. Ekaterina Alexandrovna, like her brother and sister, were illegitimate children, but after the marriage of Alexander II to Princess Dolgoruka, on June 6, 1880, the emperor wanted to equalize the rights of his morganatic children from Princess Ekaterina Mikhailovna. Ekaterina Alexandrovna received the title of Most Serene Princess Yurievskaya.
When the People's Will blew up the carriage of Emperor Alexander II and he died of wounds, Ekaterina Alexandrovna was not even four years old.
After the murder of her father, the Most Serene Princess Yekaterina Yuryevskaya, together with her sister Olga, brother George and mother Princess Yekaterina Dolgoruka, left for France.
The princess returned to Russia after the accession of Emperor Nicholas II.
Personal life
Ekaterina Yurievskaya was married twice.
At 23, Catherine married a representative of a noble and very wealthy family, 30-year-old Alexander Baryatinsky. By that time, the prince had been an adorer of the Italian singer Lina Cavalieri for five years and even asked for permission from Emperor Nicholas II to marry the singer. Baryatinsky did not marry Lina, but did not end the relationship.
Ekaterina Yurievskaya, loving her husband, tried to win his attention from Lina Cavalieri, but it was all in vain. The three of them went everywhere - performances, operas, dinners, some even lived together in a hotel.
At the age of 40, the spouse had a blow, right at the card table. And Catherine, at the age of 32, was left with two sons, eight-year-old Andrei (1902-1944) and five-year-old Alexander (1905-1992).
Since the beginning of the First World War, Ekaterina Yuryevskaya left Bavaria and moved with her children to the Baryatinsky family estate in Ivanovsky. In the summer, she traveled to the sea in the Crimea, where she met the irresistible handsome Sergei Obolensky, 12 years younger than her. On October 6, 1916, in Yalta, Ekaterina Alexandrovna married him.
During the revolution (1917), the spouses lost all their funds and got out to Kiev with false passports, they managed to emigrate to England.
In 1922, Prince Sergius Obolensky left his wife Ekaterina Yuryevskaya for another rich lady, Miss Alice Astor, daughter of millionaire John Astor.
Career and creativity
After the death of her mother in 1922 and a divorce from her second husband (1923), Yekaterina Yurievskaya was left without means of subsistence.
Singing lessons came in handy for Catherine: she earned a living performing at private concerts.
At the age of 45, Catherine made a career as a singer. She sang everywhere, even in the music halls. She performed as Obolenskaya-Yuryevskaya, in her repertoire there were about two hundred songs in four languages: English, French, Russian and Italian.
Subsequently, in 1932, she managed to buy a house on Hayling Island, Hampshire, which Ekaterina Yurievskaya chose because of the climate, as she suffered from asthma. Visited Westminster in 1934.
For many years she lived on an allowance from Queen Mary, widow of George V, but after her death in 1953 she was left without a livelihood. Ekaterina Yurievskaya sold her property.
She lived for six years in a nursing home on Hayling Island, where she died in 1959. The princess was buried at the local cemetery of St. Peter.
