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Count of Merenberg (German:Graf von Merenberg) is ahereditary title of nobility that was bestowed in 1868 by thereigning Prince ofWaldeck and Pyrmont,George Victor, upon themorganatic wife andmale-line descendants ofPrince Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau (1832–1905), who marriedNatalia Alexandrovna Pushkina (1836–1913), former wife of Russiangeneral Mikhail Leontievich von Dubelt.
Nikolaus was a son ofWilliam, Duke of Nassau, and his second wife,Princess Pauline of Württemberg. He was also a younger half-brother ofAdolphe, who wasdeposed byPrussia aslast reigning Duke ofNassau in 1866 but succeeded asGrand Duke of Luxembourg in 1890.
Natalia was a daughter ofAlexander Pushkin, the most renowned Russian writer. However, he ranked only as astolbovoy dvoryanin, an untitled member of the ancientlanded nobility. As such, she was not legally permitted to share her husband's princely title or rank, even though his family had ceased to be hereditary rulers when thekingdom of Prussiaannexed Nassau. By family law, members of the Nassau family could only marry into thereigning orformer reigning families ofEurope. Therefore, Natalia was createdGräfin von Merenberg (Countess of Merenberg), a title without any territory. The name refers to the community ofMerenberg in what is nowHesse, Germany.
Through Pushkin, Natalia descended fromPeter the Great's Africanprotégé,Abram Petrovich Gannibal. Through her mother, Natalia descended from theCossack leaderVoivodePetro Doroshenko.
Their surviving children were:
Georg Nikolaus' male line became extinct with the death of his son Georg Michael Alexander, Count von Merenberg (1897-1965). Georg Michael's only child,Countess Clothilde von Merenberg (born 1941), who married Enno vonRintelen, is the last surviving member of the Merenberg family and of the Nassau male line in total.
When Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm died in 1905, his nephewGrand Duke William IV of Luxembourg (or Guillaume IV) became the lastdynastic male of theHouse of Nassau (after 2 months). If Nikolaus Wilhelm's children had been deemed dynastic, then his son Georg Nikolaus, Count of Merenberg would have succeeded as Head of theHouse of Nassau upon William IV's death. Georg Nikolaus would have thus become the reigningGrand Duke of Luxembourg.
However, his morganatic birth was deemed insurmountable, despite the fact that he had married a daughter of TsarAlexander II of Russia. In 1907, William IV, obtained passage of a law in Luxembourg confirming the exclusion of the Merenbergs from succession to the grand ducal throne. Georg Nikolaus's protests against the LuxembourgDiet's confirmation of the succession rights of William IV's daughter,Princess Marie-Adélaïde, were expected to be taken up by the Netherlands and by theGreat Powers which had guaranteed Luxembourg's neutrality in 1867.[1] Nonetheless, Marie-Adélaïde did succeed her father, to become Luxembourg's first female monarch, in 1912. In 1919 she, in turn, abdicated in favour of her sisterCharlotte, whose descendants have reigned over Luxembourg since then.
The heads of the house of Merenberg after 1912 were:
