Struve was born in Tartu in 1835, the son of Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve and his second wife, Johanna H.F. Bartels. His father was a native of Altona, Hamburg, who emigrated in 1808 to avoid conscription in the Napoleonic armies, going first to Denmark and then Russia. The elder Struve was appointed professor of astronomy and mathematics at the University of Dorpat in 1813 and director of the Dorpat Observatory in 1817. In 1835, the year of Karl's birth, he was asked by Tsar Nicholas I to supervise construction of the Pulkovo Observatory, of which he was director from 1839 to 1862. Karl von Struve was a half-brother of the astronomer Otto Wilhelm von Struve and the politician Bernhard Vasilyevitch Struve, Imperial Privy Councilor and Governor of Perm and Astrakhan. He was a grand-uncle of Otto Struve, the Russian-born director of the Yerkes, McDonald and Leuschner observatories in the United States. He married Maria Nicolaevna Annenkova, daughter of General Nicholas Annenkov and sister of General Michael Nicolaivitch Annenkoff, Elizabeth, princess Galitzine, and Alexandra, Vicomtesse de Vogüé. The Struves were the parents of five children:
Boris de Struve – served as Russian military attache in Washington and married Eleanor Slater, from a prominent New England family, and had issue:
Vera de Struve – married Prince Peter N. Meschersky and ran a prominent finishing school in Paris. She also served as a trustee of the Russian Red Cross and later managed a retirement home for White Russian emigres. Had issue:
*A) Marina, Princess Mescherskaya, married 1) Count Michael Vorontsov-Dashkoff and 2) Count Ivan Shuvaloff
*A) Maria Georgievna Chevitch married to Nicholas Petrovich Balachov and had issue.
*B) Ivan Chevitch
*C) Kirill Chevitch
Diplomatic career
Struve's first posting as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary was to Tokyo, capital of the Japanese Empire, which under the Emperor Meiji was undergoing a rapid Westernization of its government, industry and military. In 1882, Struve was posted as Minister to the United States. Struve and his wife were noted Washington society habitués, holding soirees and a Sunday salon for Washington’s diplomatic and political elite. Their residence in Washington was in Farragut Square, near the home of United States SenatorLeland Stanford of California. From 1882 to 1892, a variety of powerful men and women passed through the Struves’ door: the Theodore Roosevelts, Henry Adamses, James G. Blaines, Leland Stanfords, and many others. The Struves were also noted collectors, donating ethnological prints of Russians to the Smithsonian Institution and a vast teapot collection to various European collectors. In line with German practice, he was entitled to use the title of Baron von Struve while abroad, though this was denied him while resident in Germany or Russia. The American press generally rendered his title and name as Baron de Struve. Returning to St. Petersburg in 1892, Struve received his final diplomatic posting in 1893 when he was sent as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Netherlands. Karl von Struve died in 1907.
