Alexandra Petrovna Golitsyna

Princess Alexandra Gallitzin (1774 - 1842) was a maid of honor, writer of the Russian noble family Protassov and grandmother of Roman Catholic missionary Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin.

The daughter of a senator, Lieutenant-General Peter Protasov Stepanovich (1730 - 1794) and his wife Anna Ivanovna (1750 - 1782).

Alexandra had four sisters:

• Catherine Rostopchin (1776 - 1859), married to Count Fedor Rostopchin
• Varvara Petrovna, who died unmarried
• Vera Vasilchikova (1780 - 1814), married for Hilarion Vasilyevich Vasilchikov, later Prince
• Anna Petrovna, the Count Bartholomew Vasilyevich Tolstoy.

Her sisters were orphaned early and brought up in the home of her aunt, Anna Protasova, chamber-maid of honor and a personal friend of the Empress Catherine II, under the care of Madame de Pont. Protasov gave his nieces brilliant, by the standards of the time, education, focused on foreign languages, including Latin and Greek, but also the Russian language, Russian history, and religion. At the request of those aunts, nieces who were not married at the time of the coronation of Alexander I of Russia, she got the title of count.

She granted to the maid of honor, and in 1791 married the Master of the Horse, a privy councilor of Prince Alexei Gallitzin (1767 - 1800). However, the marriage was not long; after 9 years Alexandra became widowed.

Princess officially converted to Catholicism on May 14, 1818. Her example was followed by two of her sons and her daughter even became a nun and missionary. Alexandra has also had an impact on some of the other Russian nobility to convert to Catholicism. Gallitzin censured Swetchine only for the fact that she lives abroad, while the true religion to serve at home.

In the 1830s, under the patronage of Princess took the blind poet Ivan Kozlov, who often mentions it in his diary, referring to her with great tenderness, as a mother. A few days before his death, January 18, 1840 he wrote: "This holy woman her strict positivity diminish the sweetness of Christian charity, but is she always has a holy influence on my soul, and I love her and I admire enormously." The princess died September 11, 1842 in Saint Petersburg, at his home in a million, and was buried in Paris, at Montmartre Cemetery.

Family

In marriage, had two daughters and four sons:

In 1820, Peter (1792 - 1842) converted to Catholicism. He was a retired captain in 1838 and a Bogorodsky county marshal of nobility, died in Paris in 1817, he was married to Elizabeth Antonovna Zlotnitskoy (1800 - 1866).

Vera (?- d. childhood)

Pavel (1796 - 1864), a Mason, a titular councilor and Bedchamber, died in Vienna in 1825, he was married to Countess Natalia Nikolaevna Zotov (1807 - 1873).

Elizabeth (1797 - 1844), at the insistence of the mother in 1826, adopted Catholicism and became a nun in Metz, a writer, died in the Catholic mission station of Saint. Michael in the State of Louisiana, USA.

Alexander (1798 - 1876), Lieutenant-Captain of the Cavalry Regiment, district marshal of the nobility in the Smolensk region, died unmarried in Moscow.

Alexey (1800 - 1876), Mason, converted to Catholicism, in 1870 Smolensk marshal, was married from 1824 to Countess Alexandra Pavlovna Kutaisov (1803 - 1881), daughter of Chamberlain Pavel Kutaisov and granddaughter of Paul's favorite .

Even after the death of Princess were published some of the remaining after the manuscript volumes. Excerpts from her written prayers and thoughts have been published by her grandson Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin in his book Vie d'une religieuse du Sacre-coeur. Her correspondence with Madame Swetchine and Russian Catholics in the book Lettres de Madame de Swetchine (Paris, 1862).

References

Russian portraits of XVIII-XIX centuries . Ed. Grand. Prince. Nikolai Mikhailovich. St. Petersburg. 1906. T. I Vol III. № 73.

Russian Biographical Dictionary: The 25 t / A. A. Polovtsov. - M., 1896-1918. Volume 7, p. 204