Duke of Holstein-Gottorp

In 1544, the so-called “Third Duchy” was transferred to Adolf , the third son of King Frederick I of Denmark . Thus, the surviving Holstein-Gotorp house is the youngest branch of the Oldenburg house . The Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp shared the difficult rules of Schleswig and Holstein with the kings of Denmark . Thus, they were often allies of the Swedes , enemies of the Danes . This long-standing alliance was sealed by several dynastic marriages: Christina Holstein-Gottorp and Charles IX , Gedwig Eleanor Holstein-Gottorp and Karl X Gustav , Duke Frederick IV married the eldest daughter of King Charles XI of Sweden , and eventually Prince Adolf Fredrick Holtstein-Holstein to the Swedish throne in 1751 , founded the Swedish dynasty Holstein-Gottorp (reigned 1751 - 1818 ).

Under the Treaty of Roskilde ( 1658 ) and the Copenhagen Treaty ( 1660 ), Denmark released Gottorp from its feudal lords and recognized the sovereignty of its dukes over Gottorp, Schleswig . In fact, these Schleswigers have been relatively independent for over a century. Although the duchy of Holstein remained officially the feudal lord of the Empire , in fact, by agreement of his duchies, they jointly ruled both duchies with their formal ruler, the Danish king .

Gottorp Question

In the Great Northern War, the duchy sided with Sweden and was defeated after Danish troops occupied the northern parts of Holstein-Gottorp. According to the Friedrichsborg Treaty of 1720, Gottorp's Swedish support ceased, making it impossible for the dukes to return to their lost territories in Schleswig and to extend their hostility with the king of Denmark . After a peace settlement of 1721 , the Duke Karl Friedrich fled to the court of Peter the Great in Russia , and for some time the Russians tried to restore Karl Frederick to influence in the land of Schleswig . Karl himself was married to Grand Duchess Anna , daughter of Peter . Peter 's successors renounced their political support for the Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp. In this marriage, Karl Peter Ulrich was born, who in 1739 succeeded in Holstein-Gottorp, adopted Orthodoxy and the name Peter Fedorovich , and became the heir to the Russian throne after the death of his childless aunt Elizabeth Pvetrovna in 1741 .

Karl Peter Ulrich, who ascended to the Russian throne as Peter III in 1762 , was determined to conquer Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark . When he became emperor in 1762 , he immediately signed a generous peace with Prussia and led Russia out of the Seven Years War in order to fully concentrate on the attack on Denmark . This move provoked opposition in Russia, as Prussia was considered already de facto defeated in the war. At the same time, the Danish army hastily crossed the border into Mecklenburg to avoid the invasion of Holstein and prepare for battle. The two armies stood less than 30 kilometers apart when news from St. Petersburg unexpectedly reached the Russian army that the Russian emperor was overthrown by his wife, who ascended the throne as Empress Catherine II . One of her first actions was to end the war against Denmark .

The son of Peter III , Paul I , the new Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, was a minor under the regency of his mother, the Empress. In accordance with the Tsarskoye Selo treaty of 1773, she agreed to cede the territorial claims of her son to the Holstein-Gottorpka lands, which were still in Denmark , receiving in return the German troops Oldenburg and Delmenhorst , built in 1776 in the Duchy of Oldenburg within the Holy Roman Empire . The duchy was given to the cousin of Grandfather Paul, the elder prince-bishop of Lubeck , the head of the Holstein-Gottorp family, Friedrich Augustus . This put an end to the Gottorp issue, which caused so many conflicts between the Scandinavian powers.

The Holstein-Gottorp dynasty joined several European thrones. The dynastic policies of the Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp led to its small branch, the Swedish line, ruling Sweden from 1751 to 1818 and Norway from 1814 to 1818 . In 1863, the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg house associated with it - descended from the King of Denmark Christian III - became kings of Denmark and Greece and in 1905 in Norway .

The Lübeck branch became the first dukes, and then the grand dukes of Oldenburg (from 1773 to 1918 ), and the senior branch ruled Russia in 1762 , and then again from 1796 to 1917 (while in 1762 - 1796 he ruled them widow and mother).

First point of view

lies in the fact that the heir is the son of the youngest brother of Alexander III ( Grand Duke Paul ) - Grand Duke Demetrius . This heir is not dynastic in the Russian sense, but the Danish branch of Oldenburg did not announce a ban on unequal marriages, and Schleswig, where Schleswig-Gottorp is located (once sovereign), was never part of the Holy Roman Empire or under its jurisdiction. These heirs live in the United States and did not make public claims for titles.

1992-2004: Prince Pavel Dmitrievich Romanov-Ilyinsky

2004 - present: Prince Dmitry Pavlovich Romanov-Ilyinsky (born 1954 )

Prince Dimitry Pavlovich Romanovsky-Ilyinsky has no sons. His only male heir, his brother Prince Mikhail Romanov-Ilyinsky , also does not have a male heir, and currently there are no male heirs from the Romanov-Ilyinsky to inherit this theoretical requirement for the Duchy. This statement could be transmitted through the line of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich to Andrei Andreyevich and his descendants.

Second point of view

determines that the refusal of Nicholas II on August 11, 1903 of all claims for the Oldenburg titles and duchy for himself and for the whole family and descendants did not allow any of the Romanov’s heirs to bear the dynastically correct names of Schleswig-Holstein independently.

Third Point of View

lies in the fact that by the end of the Holy Roman Empire it was the principle of German princely law that members of all princely families who held the Reichsstand were required in ebenbürtig status to transfer dynastic rights to their descendant. If the descendants of the marriage of Grand Duke Dmitry and Audrey Emery are considered unacceptable to achieve the ducal Holstein title, it is unclear which of them can claim the title, if any, from different branches of the male line, descending from the Romanovs , remain valid. If exiled marriages with Russian princes or counts meet the family standard, male heirs may exist. If, however, all marriages that were considered morganatic by Russian imperial standards were also not dynamic for the Gottorp sequence, the genealogically senior Holstein-Gottorp dynasty would be a Christian, the current Duke of Oldenburg , descending from August Holstein-Gottorp, Prince Yutin, the younger brother of the Herz . He already claims the nonexistent title of the Grand Duke of Oldenburg. In any case, the King of Denmark exercised sovereignty in the duchies and provided financial support to the younger branches of the Schleswig-Holstein dynasty of Oldenburg . The claim to Holstein , inherited by Emperor Paul I from Peter III , was exchanged in 1773 for the duchy of the Danish kings of Oldenburg (residual inheritance rights), whose rulers lost sovereignty in 1918 . King Christian IX lost Schleswig and Holstein in the Second Schleswig War in 1864 , after which both duchies were incorporated into the kingdom of Prussia , and then into the German Empire . Danish monarchs continued to use their traditional ducal titles in anticipation until the death of King Frederick IX in 1972 . In 1920, North Schleswig was returned to the Danish government after a plebiscite, the rest of the duchy remains part of Germany .

Holstein-Gottorp

· Romanovs

Glucksburgs

Oldenburgs

1. Zibmacher, Johann (1703). Erneuertes und vermehrtes Wappenbuch ... Nuremberg: Adolf Johann Helmers. pp. Part I, Table 6.