Grand Duke Konstantin and Russian naval reform

Grand Duke Konstantin supported comparatively liberal officials during Alexander II's reform era and participated in the emancipation of the serfs. He chaired the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, which was subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and was jokingly described by some British observers as a vehicle for Russian expansion. From 1854 he also initiated reforms in the Imperial Russian Navy, making the ship's title a reference to an active naval administrator. His effort to turn Russian Poland into a model of reform ended with his recall during the January Uprising of 1863. His role in the sale of Alaska is treated cautiously, with the observation that fiction often makes him more powerful than he was. Through his daughter Olga's marriage to George I of Greece, he also became an ancestor of Prince Philip, tying this Russian naval reformer to the modern British royal family.