Sheremetyevskaya, Natalya Sergeevna

Daughter of Moscow lawyer Sergey Alexandrovich Sheremetyevsky and Yulia Vyacheslavovna Sventsitskaya.

At 16, she married Sergei Ivanovich Mamontov (nephew of Savva Mamontov ), an accompanist at the Mamontov Opera, and then at the Bolshoi Theater . She gave birth to a daughter, Natalia, who was called "Tata." Realizing that Sergei was “socially boring” for her, she soon divorced and married Lieutenant Vladimir Vladimirovich Wulfert, who served in the “blue cuirassier” regiment, whose life squadron was commanded by Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich , the younger brother of Nicholas II .

Madame Wulfert was twenty-eight years old when she met Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, in whose subordination her husband was serving. The position of the lieutenant’s wife, no less boring than that of the modest pianist’s wife, could not stand any comparison for the charming Natalya Sergeevna with the prospect of an alliance with the Grand Duke of the Romanov’s reigning house. Honest and decent, but at the same time cheerful and charming, inclined to follow the "dictates of the heart" and generous to human feelings (in his youth he almost married secretly married the maid of honor of his younger sister Olga - Alexandra Kossikovskaya; according to the recollections of Grand Duchess Olga, this careless a youthful plan was discovered and at the last moment upset by their mother, Empress Maria Fedorovna), Prince Mikhail could not help but notice the beautiful eyes of Natalya Sergeevna that flashed at their first meeting, her gentle and relentless Iman, which she did not hide at each subsequent meeting. Prince Mikhail was very carried away by the wife of his subordinate - a delightful and experienced woman, an almost classical beauty born to conquer, but not satisfied with life, and “vegetating” in the unenviable status of the wife of a junior officer. For her part, Natalya Sergeevna sincerely believed that for the third time “love came from her at first sight”. Lieutenant Wulfert, in order to prevent the scandal from being an officer shameful for honor, was forced to give his wife in love a divorce, and the Grand Duke began to beg his brother king to allow their marriage. Not only because of the unacceptably low origin of the “bride”, but also because Mrs. Wulfert was twice divorced (both times - church wedding marriages, and both times - on her initiative), the king categorically refused. According to Russian law, Mikhail was the second in the line of succession to the throne : if the seriously ill Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich died, Mikhail would have real chances to take the throne. However, in case of marriage without the king’s consent, he lost the right to ascend to him.

July 24 ( August 6 ), 1910 Natalia gave birth to a son, who was named George in honor of the deceased Grand Duke George , brother Michael.

In the end, Grand Duke Mikhail ignored his brother’s ban and secretly entered into an organic marriage with Mrs. Wulfert. The combination took place in Vienna on October 17 (30), 1912 in the Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Sava . Upon learning of the incident, Nicholas II wrote to their mother Maria Fedorovna :

Between me and him now it's over because he broke his word. How many times did he tell me himself, not I asked him, but he himself promised that he would not marry her. And I believed him endlessly! He does not care about Your grief, nor our grief, nor the scandal that this event will produce in Russia ...

Mikhail was dismissed from all posts and posts, he was forbidden to return to Russia, and the couple who were married lived in Europe.

After the outbreak of World War I, Mikhail Alexandrovich asked Nikolai for permission to return to his homeland and serve in the army. After a positive response, he took command of the Caucasian native cavalry division , formed on August 23, 1914 from Muslim volunteers, natives of the Caucasus and Transcaucasia , which, under Russian law, were not subject to military draft.

In the mansion of Mikhail Alexandrovich in Petrograd, a hospital was arranged for one hundred lower ranks and twenty-five officers. In their house in Gatchina there is a hospital for thirty lower ranks. Natalya Sergeevna was engaged in arranging these hospitals and supplying them with all the necessary materials, as well as searching and hiring medical personnel. The opening of such hospitals and the formation of ambulance trains were the responsibility of representatives of the highest society of the Russian Empire at that time, and the family of Mikhail Alexandrovich was in no way behind the imperial family in this ^[1] .

On March 26, 1915, the son of Natalya and Mikhail received the title of Count Brasov from the emperor (in honor of one of the estates of the grand duke in the Oryol province ) and middle name Mikhailovich, Nicholas II recognized George as a nephew, but he still did not have the right to the throne. September 29, 1915 the marriage was recognized, Natalia received the title of Countess Brasova.

In March 1917, after Nicholas II abdicated the throne in his favor, Mikhail Alexandrovich determined his decision by the will of the Constituent Assembly . Mikhail and his family first lived in his Gatchina house (24 Nikolayevskaya St.), then ( August 21, 1917) Mikhail was placed under house arrest, but was soon released. March 7, 1918 - again arrested, already by the Gatchina Council , and by decision of the Council of People's Commissars sent to Perm . He persuaded Natalya Sergeevna to stay in Gatchina. She tried to secure the return of Mikhail, went to Moscow for this, even met with Lenin , but to no avail. In March 1918, she managed to send her son to Denmark under the guise of the son of her governess - when the family of the Danish monarch agreed to accept little George, the Danish embassy in Petrograd granted asylum to him and the English governess who served in the house of Mikhail Alexandrovich. With the help of false documents, the governess, already as the wife of a Danish subject, was sent to Denmark together with her “son” ^[2] .

In April 1918, Natalia went to her husband in Perm. Returning to Petrograd in June 1918, she immediately began to pack herself on her second trip to her husband, but, just before departure, she received a telegram from Perm about his “disappearance” from Perm. At a meeting with M. S. Uritsky, she accused him of killing “native Misha,” and she was placed in prison. A few months later, she pretended to have a severe cold, so she was transferred to a prison hospital, from where she fled with the help of her daughter. With a false passport, disguised as a Red Cross nurse, she reached Kiev , which was under German occupation. Then, through Odessa, she left Russia with her daughter.

She lived in Paris, selling those jewelry that she could take with her from Soviet Russia; at the end of life, already in great poverty, without money. Son George (Count Brasov) died at the age of 20 in a car accident on July 21, 1931, 150 km from Paris.

In 1928, the self-proclaimed Emperor, the All-Russian Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich granted her the title of Princess Brasova, and on July 28, 1935, the Most Holy Princess Princess Romanovskaya-Brasova.

Died of cancer at Laennec city hospital in Paris on January 26, 1952 in complete poverty and alone, buried in the Paris cemetery Passy with her son.

1. Brasov, Georgy Mikhailovich
2. Mamontova, Natalya Sergeevna , Tata (1903-1969). I was married three times:
   1. Val Gielgud . In 1921, at the age of 18, Tata married, against the wishes of her mother, and in secret from her, for Val Henry Gilgud, the future writer, actor, editor and host of productions on the BBC , brother of the famous John Gilgud . But they divorced already in 1923.
   2. Gray, Cecil . She was later married to composer and music critic Cecil Gray; they divorced in 1929.
      1. Pauline Gray (Pauline Gray, Holdrup) - daughter. She had three children, she died in 2013 ^[3] . In 1976, she published the book Grand Duke's Woman about the love of her grandmother and grand duke.
   3. Michel Majolier ( fr. Michael Majolier ) - naval officer.
      1. Alexandra (Alexandra Majolier) - daughter ^[4] .

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