As Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm has noted in her study of Russian Imperial awards during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia that the award attained particular prestige after 1908, as presentation of the award was at the sole discretion of the sovereign. General of the Cavalry Konstantin Klavdievich Maximovich had certainly had the sort of distinguished and lengthy career that warranted such an award. He had served as a commander of the Ural Cossack Host from 1893–1899, the Donskoe Cossack Host from 1899–1905 and the Warsaw Military District in 1905. From 1908 served on Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia's committee seeking employment for wounded veterans of the Russo-Japanese War, from 1915 Assistant Commander of the Imperial Headquarters (Imperatorskaia Glavnaia Kvartira). On this award, see Ulla Tillander-Godenhielm, The Russian Imperial Award System (Helsinki, 2005), p. 121–122, 386, 446. On the order and its insignia more generally, see L. M. Grivova, ed., Polza. Chest. Slava. Nagrady Rossii, Moscow: Khudozhnik i kniga, 2004, pp. 91–99 and V. A. Durov, Ordena Rossii=The Orders of Russia, Moscow, 1993, pp. 22–33. On Maksimovich, see V. I. Fedorchenko, Imperatorskii dom. Vydaiushchiesia sanovniki. Entsiklopediia biografii. Tom 2. Moscow: Olma-Press, pp. 11–12.

Tsar Peter I the Great of Russia had intended to found a military order named in honor of the Russian hero-saint Alexander Nevsky, but had died before being able to do so. He had had the saint’s remains brought from Vladimir to St. Petersburg on August 30, 1724 and re-interred at the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra, founded on the spot where some 500 years earlier, on July 15, 1240, Alexander Nevsky had led his troops to victory over the Swedes. Shortly after his death, his widow, Tsaritsa Catherine I of Russia, established the order in 1725 with a slight change: it was both a military and a civil award. Although it had only one class, it could be awarded with crossed swords or diamonds in the case of outstanding military achievements.

Provenance: General of the Cavalry Konstantin Klavdievich Maximovich (or Maksimovich), later his nephew Boris Ivanovich Maximovich (1871–1954). Thence by descent.