Maria Feodorovna of Russia (Dagmar of Denmark) Conclusion

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Abdication, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, Dagmar of Demark, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, Grand Duke Michael of Russia, Grigori Rasputin, King Christian X of Denmark, Nicholas II of Russia, Peter and Paul Cathedral, Prince Michael of Kent, Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark., Russian Revolution, St. Petersburg

In Kiev, Maria engaged in the Red Cross and hospital work, and in September, the 50th anniversary of her arrival in Russia was celebrated with great festivities, during which she was visited by her son, Nicholas II, who came without his wife. Empress Alexandra wrote to the Emperor: “When you see Motherdear, you must rather sharply tell her how pained you are, that she listens to slander and does not stop it, as it makes mischief and others would be delighted, I am sure, to put her against me…” Maria did ask Nicholas II to remove both Rasputin and Alexandra from all political influence, but shortly after, Nicholas and Alexandra broke all contact with the Emperor’s family.

When Rasputin was murdered, part of the Imperial relatives asked Maria to return to the capital and use the moment to replace Alexandra as the Emperor’s political adviser. Maria refused, but she did admit that Alexandra should be removed from influence over state affairs: “Alexandra Feodorovna must be banished. Don’t know how but it must be done. Otherwise she might go completely mad. Let her enter a convent or just disappear”.

Revolution and exile

Revolution came to Russia in 1917, first with the February Revolution, then with Nicholas II’s abdication on March 15. After travelling from Kiev to meet with her deposed son, Nicholas II, in Mogilev, Maria returned to the city, where she quickly realised how Kiev had changed and that her presence was no longer wanted. She was persuaded by her family there to travel to the Crimea by train with a group of other refugee Romanovs.

After a time living in one of the imperial residences in the Crimea, she received reports that her both of her sons, (Emperor Nicholas II and his brother Grand Duke Michael) her daughter-in-law and her grandchildren had been murdered. However, she publicly rejected the report as a rumour. On the day after the murder of the Emperor’s family, Maria received a messenger from Nicky, “a touching man” who told of how difficult life was for her son’s family in Yekaterinburg. “And nobody can help or liberate them – only God! My Lord save my poor, unlucky Nicky, help him in his hard ordeals!”

In her diary she comforted herself: “I am sure they all got out of Russia and now the Bolsheviks are trying to hide the truth.” She firmly held on to this conviction until her death. The truth was too painful for her to admit publicly. Her letters to her son and his family have since almost all been lost; but in one that survives, she wrote to Nicholas: “You know that my thoughts and prayers never leave you. I think of you day and night and sometimes feel so sick at heart that I believe I cannot bear it any longer. But God is merciful. He will give us strength for this terrible ordeal.”

Maria’s daughter Olga Alexandrovna commented further on the matter, “Yet I am sure that deep in her heart my mother had steeled herself to accept the truth some years before her death.”

Despite the overthrow of the monarchy in 1917, the former Empress Dowager Maria at first refused to leave Russia. Only in 1919, at the urging of her sister, Dowager Queen Alexandra, did she begrudgingly depart, fleeing Crimea over the Black Sea to London. King George V sent the warship HMS Marlborough to retrieve his aunt. The party of 17 Romanovs included her daughter the Grand Duchess Xenia and five of Xenia’s sons plus six dogs and a canary.

After a brief stay in the British base in Malta, they travelled to England on the British ship the Lord Nelson, and she stayed with her sister, Alexandra. Although Queen Alexandra never treated her sister badly and they spent time together at Marlborough House in London and at Sandringham House in Norfolk, Maria, as a deposed Dowager Empress , felt that she was now “number two,” in contrast to her sister, a popular queen dowager, and she eventually returned to her native Denmark. After living briefly with her nephew, King Christian X, in a wing of the Amalienborg Palace, she chose her holiday villa Hvidøre near Copenhagen as her new permanent home.

There were many Russian émigrées in Copenhagen who continued to regard her as the Empress and often asked her for help. The All-Russian Monarchical Assembly held in 1921 offered her the locum tenens of the Russian throne but she declined with the evasive answer “Nobody saw Nicky killed” and therefore there was a chance her son was still alive. She rendered financial support to Nikolai Sokolov, who studied the circumstances of the death of the Emperor’s family, but they never met. The Grand Duchess Olga sent a telegram to Paris cancelling an appointment because it would have been too difficult for the old and sick woman to hear the terrible story of murder of her son and his family.

Death and burial

In November 1925, Maria’s favourite sister, Queen Alexandra, died. That was the last loss that she could bear. “She was ready to meet her Creator,” wrote her son-in-law, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, about Maria’s last years. On October 13, 1928 at Hvidøre near Copenhagen, in a house she had once shared with her sister Queen Alexandra, Maria died at the age of 80, having outlived four of her six children. Following services in Copenhagen’s Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Church, the Empress was interred at Roskilde Cathedral.

In 2005, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and President Vladimir Putin of Russia and their respective governments agreed that the Empress’s remains should be returned to St. Petersburg in accordance with her wish to be interred next to her husband. A number of ceremonies took place from September 23 to 28, 2006.

The funeral service, attended by high dignitaries, including the Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, did not pass without some turbulence. The crowd around the coffin was so great that a young Danish diplomat fell into the grave before the coffin was interred.

The reburial of Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia in St. Petersburg

On September 26th, 2006, a statue of Maria Feodorovna was unveiled near her favourite Cottage Palace in Peterhof. Following a service at Saint Isaac’s Cathedral, she was interred next to her husband Emperor Alexander III in the Peter and Paul Cathedral on September 28, 2006, 140 years after her first arrival in Russia and almost 78 years after her death.

Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia (Dagmar of Denmark). Part IV

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Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, Dagmar of Demark, DukePeter of Oldenburg, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Empress Alexandra only Russia, Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia, Grand Duke George of Russia, King Christian IX of Denmark, Livadia, Precedence, Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, Queen Mary of the United Kingdom

On November 1, 1894, Alexander III died aged just 49 at Livadia. In her diary Maria wrote, “I am utterly heartbroken and despondent, but when I saw the blissful smile and the peace in his face that came after, it gave me strength.” Two days later, the Prince and Princess of Wales arrived at Livadia from London. While the Prince of Wales took it upon himself to involve himself in the preparations for the funeral, the Princess of Wales spent her time comforting grieving Maria, including praying with her and sleeping at her bedside.

Maria Feodorovna’s birthday was a week after the funeral, and as it was a day in which court mourning could be somewhat relaxed, Nicholas used the day to marry Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt, who took the name Alexandra Feodorovna.

As Empress Dowager, Maria was much more popular than either Emperor Nicholas III or Empress Alexandra. During her son’s coronation, she, Nicholas, and Alexandra arrived in separate carriages. She was greeted with “almost deafening” applause. A visiting writer Kate Kool noted that she “provoked more cheering from the people than did her son. The people have had thirteen years in which to know this woman and they have learned to love her very much.”

Richard Harding Davis, an American journalist, was surprised that she “was more loudly greeted than either the Emperor or the Empress.” Once the death of Alexander III had receded, Maria again took a brighter view of the future. “Everything will be all right”, as she said. Maria continued to live in the Anichkov Palace in St. Petersburg and at Gatchina Palace.

During the first years of her son’s reign, Maria often acted as the political adviser to the Emperor. Uncertain of his own ability and aware of her connections and knowledge, Emperor Nicholas II often told the ministers that he would ask her advice before making decisions, and the ministers sometimes suggested this themselves. It was reportedly on her advice that Nicholas initially kept his father’s ministers.

Maria herself estimated that her son was of a weak character and that it was better that he was influenced by her than someone worse. Her daughter Olga remarked upon her influence: “she had never before taken the least interest … now she felt it was her duty. Her personality was magnetic and her zest of activity was incredible. She had her finger on every educational pulse in the empire.

The fact that Russian court custom dictated that an empress dowager took precedence over an empress consort, combined with the possessiveness that Maria had of her sons, and her jealousy of Empress Alexandra only served to exacerbate tensions between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.

Sophie Buxhoeveden remarked of this conflict: “Without actually clashing they seemed fundamentally unable … to understand one another”, and her daughter Olga commented: “they had tried to understand each other and failed. They were utterly different in character, habits and outlook”. Maria was sociable and a good dancer, with an ability to ingratiate herself with people, while Alexandra, though intelligent and beautiful, was very shy and closed herself off from the Russian people.

1903. L to R. Princess Victoria, Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia

In 1899, Maria’s second son, George, died of tuberculosis in the Caucasus. During the funeral, she kept her composure, but at the end of the service, she ran from the church clutching her son’s top hat that been atop the coffin and collapsed in her carriage sobbing.

In 1892, Maria arranged Olga’s disastrous marriage to Peter, Duke of Oldenburg. For years Nicholas II refused to grant his unhappy sister a divorce, only relenting in 1916 in the midst of World War I. When Olga attempted to contract a morganatic marriage with Nikolai Kulikovsky, Maria Feodorovna and the Emperor tried to dissuade her, yet, they did not protest too vehemently. Indeed, Maria Feodorovna was one of the few people who attended the wedding in November 1916.

By the turn of the twentieth century, Maria was spending increasing time abroad. In 1906, following the death of their father, King Christian IX, she and her sister, Alexandra, who had become queen-consort of the United Kingdom in 1901, purchased the villa of Hvidøre. The following year, a change in political circumstances allowed Maria Feodorovna to be welcomed to England by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, Maria’s first visit to England since 1873. Following a visit in early 1908, Maria Feodorovna was present at her brother-in-law and sister’s visit to Russia that summer.

A little under two years later, Maria Feodorovna travelled to England yet again, this time for the funeral of her brother-in-law, King Edward VII, in May 1910. During her nearly three-month visit to England in 1910, Maria Feodorovna attempted, unsuccessfully, to get her sister, now Queen Dowager Alexandra, to claim a position of precedence over her daughter-in-law, Queen Mary.

In 1912, Maria faced trouble with her youngest son, when he secretly married his mistress, much to the outrage and scandal of both Maria Feodorovna and Nicholas.

Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia (Dagmar of Demark). Part III.

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Alexander III of Russia, Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, Dagmar of Demark, Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia, Grand Duchess, Grand Duke Vladimir of Russia, Grand Marie Pavlovna, Otto von Bismarck, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich of Russia

Empress Maria Feodorovna was active in philanthropic work. Her husband called her “the Guardian Angel of Russia.” As Empress, she assumed patronage of the Marie Institutions that her mother-in-law had run: It encompassed 450 charitable establishments. In 1882, she founded many establishments called Marie schools to give young girls an elementary education. She was the patroness of the Russian Red Cross. During a cholera epidemic in the late 1870s, she visited the sick in hospitals.

Maria was the head of the social scene. She loved to dance at the balls of high society, and she became a popular socialite and hostess of the Imperial balls at Gatchina. Her daughter Olga commented, “Court life had to run in splendor, and there my mother played her part without a single false step”.

A contemporary remarked on her success: “of the long gallery of Tsarinas who have sat in state in the Kremlin or paced in the Winter Palace, Marie Feodorovna was perhaps the most brilliant”. Alexander used to enjoy joining in with the musicians, although he would end up sending them off one by one. When that happened, Maria knew the party was over.

Alexander III had an extremely poor relationship with his brother Grand Duke Vladimir. At a restaurant, Grand Duke Vladimir had a brawl with the French actor Lucien Guitry when the latter kissed his wife, Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The prefect of St. Petersburg needed to escort Vladimir out of the restaurant. Alexander was so furious that he temporarily exiled Vladimir and his wife and threatened to exile them permanently to Siberia if they did not leave immediately.

As Tsarevna, and then as Empress, Maria Feodorovna had something of a social rivalry with the popular Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna (the eldest daughter of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin by his first wife, Princess Augusta Reuss of Köstritz), wife of her Russian brother-in-law, Grand Duke Vladimir. This rivalry had echoed the one shared by their husbands, and served to exacerbate the rift within the family. While she knew better than to publicly criticise both the Grand Duke and Duchess in public, Maria Feodorovna referred to Marie Pavlovna with the caustic epithet of “Empress Vladimir.”

Nearly each summer, Maria, Alexander and their children would make an annual trip to Denmark, where her parents, King Christian IX and Queen Louise, hosted family reunions. Maria’s brother, King George I, and his wife, Queen Olga, would come up from Athens with their children, and the Princess of Wales, often without her husband, would come with some of her children from the United Kingdom.

In contrast to the tight security observed in Russia, the Emperor and Empress, and their children relished the relative freedom that they could enjoy at Bernstorff and Fredensborg. The annual family meetings of monarchs in Denmark was regarded as suspicious in Europe, where many assumed they secretly discussed state affairs.

Otto von Bismarck nicknamed Fredensborg “Europe’s Whispering Gallery” and accused Queen Louise Denmark of plotting against him with her children. Maria also had a good relationship with the majority of her in-laws, and was often asked to act as a mediator between them and the Emperor. In the words of her daughter Olga: “She proved herself extremely tactful with her in-laws, which was no easy task”.

During Alexander III’s reign, the monarchy’s opponents quickly disappeared underground. A group of students had been planning to assassinate Alexander III on the sixth anniversary of his father’s death at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. The plotters had stuffed hollowed-out books with dynamite, which they intended to throw at the Emperor when he arrived at the cathedral. However, the Russian secret police uncovered the plot before it could be carried out. Five students were hanged in 1887; amongst them was Aleksandr Ulyanov, older brother of Vladimir Lenin.

The biggest threat to the lives of the Emperor and his family, however, came not from terrorists, but from a derailment of the imperial train in the fall of 1888. Maria and her family had been at lunch in the dining car when the train jumped the tracks and slid down an embankment, causing the roof of the dining car to nearly cave in on them.

When Maria’s eldest sister Alexandra visited Gatchina in July 1894, she was surprised to see how weak her brother-in-law Alexander III had become. At the time Maria had long known that he was ill and did not have long left. She now turned her attention to her eldest son, the future Nicholas II, for it was on him that both her personal future and the future of the dynasty now depended.

Nicholas had long had his heart set on marrying Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, a favourite grandchild of Queen Victoria. Despite the fact that she was their godchild, neither Alexander III nor Maria approved of the match. Nicholas summed up the situation as follows: “I wish to move in one direction, and it is clear that Mama wishes me to move in another – my dream is to one day marry Alix.”

Maria and Alexander found Alix shy and somewhat peculiar. They were also concerned that the young Princess was not possessed of the right character to be Empress of Russia. Nicholas’s parents had known Alix as a child and formed the impression that she was hysterical and unbalanced, which may have been due to the loss of her mother, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, and youngest sister, Marie, to diphtheria when she was just six. It was only when Alexander III’s health was beginning to fail that they reluctantly gave permission for Nicholas to propose.

October 13, 1928: Death of Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia. The former Dagmar of Denmark. Part I.

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Alexandra of Denmark, Dagmar of Denmark, Emperor Alexander III of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia, George I of the Hellenes, King Christian IX of Denmark, Louise of Hesse-Cassel, Princess of Wales, Russian Empire, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich of Russia

Maria Feodorovna (November 26, 1847 – October 13, 1928), known before her marriage as Princess Dagmar of Denmark, was a Danish princess who became Empress of Russia as spouse of Emperor Alexander III (reigned 1881–1894).

She was the second daughter and fourth child of King Christian IX of Denmark (r. 1863–1906) and of Louise of Hesse-Cassel. Louise was born as the daughter of Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Cassel and Princess Charlotte of Denmark. Charlotte of Denmark watithe daughter of Frederik, Hereditary Prince of Denmark and Norway, and Sophia Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

From L to R. Dagmar, Wilhelm, Alexandra. Seated King Christian IX of Denmark

Charlotte played some part in the succession crisis which occurred because her half first cousin, King Frederik VI of Denmark, lacked a male heir. In 1839, her brother Christian VIII of Denmark succeeded their cousin on the throne, and during his reign, Charlotte had an important position at the Danish royal court in Copenhagen because her brother favored that her line of the family should succeed to the throne after his male line had died out. This meant Louise of Hesse-Cassel had a better hereditary claim to the throne than her husband King ChristianIX of Denmark. But I digress. I have written about this elsewhere on the blog.

Due to the brilliant marital alliances of his children, King Christian IX became known as the “Father-in-law of Europe.” Dagmar’s eldest brother would succeed his father as King Frederik VIII of Denmark (one of whose sons would be elected as King Haakon VII of Norway).

Dagmar’s elder, and favourite, sister, Alexandra married Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) in March 1863. Alexandra, along with being queen consort of King Edward VII, was also mother of George V of the United Kingdom, which helps to explain the striking resemblance between their sons Nicholas II and George V.

Within months of Alexandra’s marriage, Dagmar’s second older brother, Wilhelm, was elected as King George I of the Hellenes. Wilhelm actually became King a few months before his father succeeded to the Danish throne. Her younger sister was Princess Thyra, who became Duchess of Cumberland with her marriage to Ernst August of Hanover, Duke of Cumberland and a straight male line descendant of George III, King of the United Kingdom and Hanover.

Princess Dagmar of Denmark

Dagmar also had another younger brother, Valdemar. He had a lifelong naval career. He was paternal uncle of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He married Princess Marie d’Orleans on October 22, 1885 at the Château d’Eu, the residence of Prince Philippe, Count of Paris. Marie was the eldest child of Robert, duke of Chartres, and his wife, Princess Françoise d’Orléans. I will write more on Prince Valdemar later this month.

Dagmar was known for her beauty. Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge said that Dagmar was “sweetly pretty” and commented favorably on her “splendid dark eyes.” Her fiancee Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich was enthusiastic about her beauty. He wrote to his mother that “she is even prettier in real life than in the portraits that we had seen so far. Her eyes speak for her: they are so kind, intelligent, animated.”

Due to the rise of Slavophile ideology in the Russian Empire, Alexander II of Russia searched for a bride for the heir apparent, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich, in countries other than the German states that had traditionally provided consorts for the tsars. In 1864, Nicholas, or “Nixa” as he was known in his family, went to Denmark and proposed to Dagmar. Her future mother-in-law Maria Alexandrovna (Marie of Hesse) gave her a pearl necklace and Nicholas gave her diamonds. In total, the betrothal gifts Dagmar received from her future in-laws cost 1.5 million rubles.

Dagmar of Denmark and Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich

In April, Nicholas grew gravely ill with cerebrospinal meningitis. Alexander II of Russia sent a telegram to Dagmar: “Nicholas has received the Last Rites. Pray for us and come if you can.” On April 22, 1865, Nicholas died in the presence of his parents, brothers, and Dagmar. His last wish was that Dagmar would marry his younger brother, the future Alexander III.

Dagmar was devastated by Nicholas’ death. Nicholas’ parents struggled to “pull Princess Dagmar away from the corpse and carry her out.” She was so heartbroken when she returned to her homeland that her relatives were seriously worried about her health.

She had already become emotionally attached to Russia and often thought of the huge, remote country that was to have been her home. Many were sympathetic towards Dagmar. Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge wrote of “poor dear Minny’s sorrow and the blight which has fallen upon her young life.” Queen Victoria wrote “how terrible for poor Dagmar… the poor parents and bride are most deeply to be pitied.”

Princess Dagmar of Denmark

Alexander II of Russia and Maria Alexandrovna had grown fond of Dagmar, and they wanted her to marry their new heir, Tsarevich Alexander. In an affectionate letter, Alexander II told Dagmar that he hoped she would still consider herself a member of their family. Maria Alexandrovna tried to convince Louise of Hesse-Kassel to send Dagmar to Russia immediately, but Louise insisted that Dagmar must “strengthen her nerves… [and] avoid emotional upsets.”

In June 1866, Tsarevich Alexander visited Copenhagen with his brothers Grand Duke Vladimir and Grand Duke Alexei. While looking over photographs of Nicholas, Alexander asked Dagmar if “she could love him after having loved Nixa, to whom they were both devoted.” She answered that she could love no one but him, because he had been so close to his brother. Alexander recalled that “we both burst into tears… [and] I told her that my dear Nixa helped us much in this situation and that now of course he prays about our happiness.”

Dagmar converted to Orthodoxy and became Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna of Russia. The lavish wedding took place on November 9, 1866 in the Imperial Chapel of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. Financial constraints had prevented her parents from attending the wedding, and in their stead, they sent her brother, Crown Prince Frederick. Her brother-in-law, the Prince of Wales, had also travelled to Saint Petersburg for the ceremony; pregnancy had prevented the Princess of Wales from attending.

Dagmar of Denmark and Tsarevich Alexander Alexandrovich

After the wedding night, Alexander wrote in his diary, “I took off my slippers and my silver embroidered robe and felt the body of my beloved next to mine… How I felt then, I do not wish to describe here. Afterwards we talked for a long time.” After the many wedding parties were over the newlyweds moved into the Anichkov Palace in Saint Petersburg where they were to live for the next 15 years, when they were not taking extended holidays at their summer villa Livadia in the Crimean Peninsula.

Maria and Alexander had an exceptionally happy marriage. She was widely recognized as “the only person on the face of the earth in whom the Autocrat of all the Russias puts any real trust. In his gentle consort, he has unlimited confidence.” Despite her anti-Russian sentiments, Queen Victoria wrote favorably about Maria and Alexander’s marriage. She wrote that “[Maria] seems quite happy and contented with her fat, good-natured husband who seems far more attentive and kind to her than one would have thought….I think they are very domestic and happy and attached to each other; he makes a very good husband.”