Charlotte Christine of Brunswick-Lüneburg

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Princess Charlotte Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel

Charlotte Christine Sofie also known as Sofie Charlotte or simply Charlotte (29 August 1694, Brunswick – 2 November 1715, Saint Petersburg), was the wife of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich of Russia. She is daughter of Louis Rudolph, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Princess Christine Louise of Oettingen-Oettingen.

On 25 October 1711 at Torgau, Charlotte Christine married Tsarevich Alexei, son and heir of Peter I of Russia and his first wife Eudoxia Lopukhina. She was allowed to keep her Lutheran faith, but any children would be raised as Russian Orthodox. She gave birth to a daughter, Natalia, and a son, later Peter II of Russia. She died a few days after the birth of her son.

Later, a legend developed, according to which Charlotte did not die in 1715 and instead fled to North America, and later Mauritius. Heinrich Zschokke developed this legend into a novella; Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer wrote a libretto about it.