Duke Georg Alexander of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Duke Georg Alexander of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (; 6 June 1859 – 5 December 1909) was the eldest of the two surviving sons of Duke Georg August of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and of Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna of Russia. He was a great-grandson of Emperor Paul and a cousin of Emperor Alexander III of Russia. Although he was a German prince of the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, he was raised in Imperial Russia, where he lived all his life. He followed a career as an officer in the Russian army and was Major General, Commander of the Life Guard Dragoon Regiment. Georg Alexander was a music lover, a skillful cellist and composer. In 1896 he formed a private string quartet called the Mecklenburg Quartet. He contracted a morganatic marriage and his rights and inheritance passed to his younger brother Charles Michael, Duke of Mecklenburg. His four children received the title of Counts of Carlow, but after Duke Georg Alexander's death, his unmarried brother adopted his son Georg, Count of Carlow, who became the heir to the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in 1934. Early life Georg Alexander Michael Friedrich Wilhelm Franz Carl of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was born on at Remplin, a family estate acquired by his parents in Mecklenburg shortly before his birth. His father, Duke Georg August of Mecklenburg (1824–1876), was the second son of Grand Duke Georg of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. His mother, Grand Duchess Catherine Mikhailovna of Russia, was a granddaughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia. Although Duke Georg Alexander was, by birth, a German prince of the house of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, his father had settled in Russia within his wife’s family. Georg and his siblings were raised in Russia, but kept the Lutheran religion of his paternal ancestors. He was known in Russia as George Georgievich jr, to distinguish him from his father who had the same name and patronymic.