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Alexander I of Yugoslavia, Alexander III of Russia, Alfred Duke of Edinburgh, Czar Nicholas II, Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna, King Ferdinand of Romania, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Russian Empire, Russian Imperial Family, Russian Revolution
Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia (June 10, 1897 – July 17, 1918) was the second daughter of Czar Nicholas II of Russia, and Princess Alix of Hesse and By Rhine. She was born at the Peterhof, Saint Petersburg.
She was better known than her three sisters during her lifetime and headed Red Cross committees during World War I. Like her older sister Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia, she nursed wounded soldiers in a military hospital from 1914 to 1917, until the family was arrested following the first Russian Revolution of 1917.
According to sources, Peter I of Serbia wanted Tatiana as a bride for his younger son, Prince Alexander (future Alexander I of Yugoslavia). In January 1914, the Serbian prime minister Nikola Pašić delivered a letter to Czar Nicholas II in which King Peter expressed a desire for his son to marry one of the Grand Duchesses. Nicholas II replied that he would allow his daughters to decide whom to marry, but he noticed that the Serbian prince Alexander often gazed upon Tatiana during a family dinner. Marriage negotiations ended due to the outbreak of World War I. Tatiana exchanged letters with Alexander during World War I and Alexander was distraught when he learned of her death.
Russian Imperial Family meets the Romanian Royal Family.
Instead of marrying Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia, King Alexander I of Yugoslavia married Princess Maria of Romania on June 8, 1922. Princess Maria of Romania was a second cousin of Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia. Marie of Romania was the daughter of King Ferdinand of Romania and Marie of Edinburgh. Marie of Romania was named after her maternal grandmother, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, (the second and only surviving daughter of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and his wife Marie of Hesse and by Rhine). Marie of Romania and was known as Mignon in the family to distinguish her from her mother, Marie of Edinburgh the daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (later Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha) and the aforementioned Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh was the second son and fourth child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Sisters, Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna (left) and Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia.
The murder Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia, by communist revolutionaries on July 17, 1918 resulted in her being named as a passion bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church. She was a younger sister of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia and an elder sister of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russiaand Tsarevich Alexei of Russia. All sisters were falsely rumored to have survived the assassination and dozens of impostors claimed to be surviving Romanovs. Author Michael Occleshaw speculated that a woman named Larissa Tudor might have been Tatiana; however, all of the Romanovs, including Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, were killed by the Bolsheviks.
European Royal History 