Ksenia Chernogorskaya

Princess Ksenia was born on April 22, 1881 in the capital of the Montenegrin principality, Cetinje . Her father was the Montenegrin prince (from 1910 the king) of Nicholas I of the Petrovichi-Negosh dynasty, her mother was Milena Petrovna Vukotich, the daughter of a local governor. Ksenia was 10 children in the family and 8 daughter. She also had a younger sister Vera and brother Peter.

Nikolai Negosh held the post of ruler for almost sixty years and became a well-known political figure in Europe. He was a monarch in a small, remote principality. The center of the principality was the city of Cetinje . Fame and influence of the Montenegrin prince brought the marriages of his children. He and Milena had twelve of them. For some, the father found such marriage parties, which some could only dream of. Crown Prince Danilo in 1899 married the Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz Jutta , who adopted the name Milena in Orthodoxy. The eldest daughter of Zorka was married in 1883 to the Serbian prince Peter I Karageorgievich , since 1903 - the king of Serbia. Daughter Elena, in 1896, married the Crown Prince of Italy, who became king in 1900 under the name Victor Emmanuel III . Other daughters, Militsa and Anastasia , married the grandchildren of Emperor Nicholas I and became members of the imperial house of the Romanovs .

Unlike her sisters, who studied at the Smolny Institute , Ksenia, together with her younger sister Vera, was educated at home. The sisters father also wanted the youngest daughters to marry representatives of the Russian Imperial House, in particular one of the sons of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich or Alexander Mikhailovich .

In 1898, Nicholas I tried to marry Ksenia to the Serbian prince Alexander. However, when he arrived in Cetinje to ask for Xenia’s hands, she, seeing him, was disgusted and horrified by his appearance and manners, which, despite her father’s requests, refused to marry him. After this incident, diplomatic relations between Montenegro and Serbia were ruined.

At the wedding of her brother, Crown Prince of Montenegro Danila and the Duchess of Jutta Mecklenburg-Strelitzkaya, the princess met Prince Nicholas of Greece , who represented his father, King George I , at the wedding. In 1899, their engagement was announced. But unexpectedly for unknown reasons, she was terminated. Later Nikolai married Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna . ^{[3] [4]}

In 1902, rumors spread about the possible marriage of Xenia and the Grand Duke of Hesse, Ernst Ludwig , the brother of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna , who had recently divorced Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg from her first wife. It was just a rumor that was spread for the reason that Ksenia visited her sister Anna , who was in Darmstadt , where Ernst lived. This was followed by a rumor about the marriage of Xenia and Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich , who wanted to marry Victoria Saksen-Koburgskaya, but was refused due to close relationship. The marriage did not take place, and Cyril, having gone abroad, entered into a secret marriage with Victoria, which only a few years later was recognized in Russia. ^[five]

Another rumor was the marriage of the princess with the heir of the Russian Empire, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich . ^{[6] [7]} In the years to come, many will argue that the princess was engaged to a number of foreign princes such as Victor Emmanuel, Count of Turins, Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of Abruzzi , Ferdinand I , Prince of Bulgaria, and the widowed husband of her sister, King Serbia Peter I. ^[eight]

Despite numerous rumors, Ksenia remained unmarried.

In 1910, her father was crowned king of Montenegro. In 1917 , according to the Declaration of Corfu , the merger of Montenegro with Serbia was announced. ^[9] November 26, 1918 Montenegro officially became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes . (At the same time, this state-legal act was one-sided and meant the overthrow of the Montenegrin monarchy.). During the war, Princess Xenia, along with her sister Vera, actively helped Montenegrin soldiers, organized medical camps. ^[ten]

Nicola and his family were forced to leave for France, but continued to lay claim to the throne until his death in Antibes three years later. Ksenia remained to live in Paris, where she died in 1960.

After her death, a collection of her personal photographs will be exhibited in 2010 at the Slovenian exhibition Galerija Fotografija . Exhibition Content:

The originals of Xenia’s diaries can be seen in the Museum of Marine Heritage ( Tivat , Montenegro).