July 17, 1918: Assassination of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and his Family.

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Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, Christian IX of Denmark, Dagmar of Denmark, Emperor Alexander III of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, German Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Russian Revolution

From the Emperor’s Desk: In the past on this blog I’ve written detailed accounts of the assassination of Emperor Nicholas II and his family. Today I will focus on genealogy, his marriage and briefly cover his reign.

Nicholas II (May 18, 1868 – July 17, 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917.

Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich was born in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo south of Saint Petersburg, during the reign of his grandfather Emperor Alexander II. He was the eldest child of then-Tsesarevich Alexander Alexandrovich and his wife, Tsesarevna Maria Feodorovna (née Princess Dagmar of Denmark).

Grand Duke Nicholas’ father was heir apparent to the Russian throne as the second but eldest surviving son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia. He had five younger siblings: Alexander (1869–1870), George (1871–1899), Xenia (1875–1960), Michael (1878–1918) and Olga (1882–1960). Nicholas often referred to his father nostalgically in letters after Alexander’s death in 1894. He was also very close to his mother, as revealed in their published letters to each other.

His paternal grandparents were Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna (née Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine). His maternal grandparents were King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark (née Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel). Nicholas was of primarily German and Danish descent, his last ethnically Russian ancestor being Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna of Russia (1708–1728), daughter of Peter I the Great.

Nicholas was related to several monarchs in Europe. His mother’s siblings included Kings Frederik VIII of Denmark and George I of the Hellenes, as well as the United Kingdom’s Queen Alexandra of King Edward VII.

Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and German Emperor Wilhelm II were all first cousins of King George V of the United Kingdom. Nicholas was also a first cousin of both King Haakon VII and Queen Maud of Norway (neé Princess Maud of the United Kingdom), as well as King Christian X of Denmark and King Constantine I of Greece.

Nicholas II and Wilhelm II were in turn second cousins once-removed, as each descended from King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, as well as third cousins, as they were both great-great-grandsons of Emperor Paul I of Russia.

In addition to being second cousins with the German Emperor through descent from Ludwig II, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and his wife Princess Wilhelmine of Baden. Nicholas and Alexandra were also third cousins once-removed, as they were both descendants of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia.

In 1884, Nicholas’s coming-of-age ceremony was held at the Winter Palace, where he pledged his loyalty to his father. Later that year, Nicholas’s uncle, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, married Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine, daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and his late wife Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (who had died in 1878), and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

At the wedding in St. Petersburg, the sixteen-year-old Tsesarevich met with and admired the bride’s youngest surviving sister, twelve-year-old Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine. Those feelings of admiration blossomed into love following her visit to St. Petersburg five years later in 1889. Princess Alix had feelings for him in turn.

In April 1894, Nicholas joined his Uncle Sergei and Aunt Elisabeth on a journey to Coburg, Germany, for the wedding of Elizabeth’s and Alix’s brother, Ernst Ludwig , Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, to their mutual first cousin Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha the daughter of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and his wife Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia (Nicholas II’s aunt).

Other guests included Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, German Emperor Wilhelm II, the Empress Friedrich (Emperor Wilhelm’s mother and Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter), Nicholas’s uncle, the Prince of Wales (future King Edward VII of the United Kingdom) and the bride’s parents, the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Once in Coburg Nicholas proposed to Alix, but she rejected his proposal, as a devout Lutheran she was reluctant to convert to Russian Orthodoxy. But Emperor Wilhelm II later informed her she had a duty to marry Nicholas and to convert, as her sister Elisabeth had done in 1892.

Thus once she changed her mind, Nicholas and Alix became officially engaged on April 20, 1894. Nicholas’s parents initially hesitated to give the engagement their blessing, as Alix had made poor impressions during her visits to Russia. They gave their consent only when they saw Emperor Alexander III’s health deteriorating.

By that autumn, Emperor Alexander III lay dying. Upon learning that he would live only a fortnight, the Emperor had Nicholas summon Alix to the imperial palace at Livadia. Alix arrived on October 22; the Emperor insisted on receiving her in full uniform.

From his deathbed, he told his son to heed the advice of Witte, his most capable minister. Ten days later, Alexander III died at the age of forty-nine, leaving twenty-six-year-old Nicholas as Emperor of Russia.

That evening, Nicholas was consecrated by his father’s priest as Tsar Nicholas II and, the following day, Alix was received into the Russian Orthodox Church, taking the name Alexandra Feodorovna with the title of Grand Duchess and the style of Imperial Highness.

Nicholas and Alix’s wedding was originally scheduled for the spring of 1895, but it was moved forward at Nicholas’s insistence. Staggering under the weight of his new office, he had no intention of allowing the one person who gave him confidence to leave his side.

Instead, Nicholas’s wedding to Alix took place on November 26, 1894, which was the birthday of the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, and court mourning could be slightly relaxed. Alexandra wore the traditional dress of Romanov brides, and Nicholas a hussar’s uniform. Nicholas and Alexandra, each holding a lit candle, faced the palace priest and were married a few minutes before one in the afternoon.

During his reign, Emperor Nicholas II gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin. He advocated modernization based on foreign loans and close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles. Ultimately, progress was undermined by Nicholas’s commitment to autocratic rule and an unwillingness to work with the Duma.

Nicholas II signed the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, which was designed to counter Germany’s attempts to gain influence in the Middle East; it ended the Great Game of confrontation between Russia and the British Empire.

He aimed to strengthen the Franco-Russian Alliance and proposed the unsuccessful Hague Convention of 1899 to promote disarmament and solve international disputes peacefully. Domestically, he was criticised for his government’s repression of political opponents and his perceived fault or inaction during the Khodynka Tragedy, anti-Jewish pogroms, Bloody Sunday and the violent suppression of the 1905 Russian Revolution.

His popularity was further damaged by the Russo-Japanese War, which saw the Russian Baltic Fleet annihilated at the Battle of Tsushima, together with the loss of Russian influence over Manchuria and Korea and the Japanese annexation of the south of Sakhalin Island.

During the July Crisis, which occured after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este, Nicholas supported Serbia and approved the mobilization of the Russian Army on July 30, 1914.

In response, Germany declared war on Russia on August 1, 1914 and its ally France on August 3, 1914, starting the Great War, later known as the First World War.

The severe military losses led to a collapse of morale at the front and at home; a general strike and a mutiny of the garrison in Petrograd sparked the February Revolution and the disintegration of the monarchy’s authority.

By March 1917, public support for Nicholas had collapsed and he was forced to abdicate the throne, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty’s 304-year rule of Russia (1613–1917).

After abdicating for himself and his son, the Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, Nicholas and his family were imprisoned by the Russian Provisional Government and exiled to Siberia. After the Bolsheviks took power in the October Revolution, the family was held in Yekaterinburg, where they were executed on July 17, 1918.

July 12: 1915: Birth of Princess Catherine Ivanovna of Russia

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Duke of Edinburgh, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, Grand Duchess Olga Constantinova of Russia, House of Romanov, King George I of the Hellenes, Marchese di Villaforesta, Prince Philip, Princess Catherine Ivanovna of Russia, Queen Elena of Montenegro, Ruggero Farace, Russian Revolution

Princess Catherine Ivanovna of Russia (July 12, 1915 – March 13, 2007) was a male line great-great-granddaughter of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia and a niece of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. She was the last member of the Imperial Family to be born before the fall of the dynasty. She was also second cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, as Catherine’s grandfather Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia was a younger brother of Prince Philip’s grandmother Grand Duchess Olga Constantinova of Russia, Queen of Hellenes as wife of King George I of the Hellenes.

Born in Pavlovsk Palace, she was the second child of Prince John Constantinovich of Russia and Princess Helen of Serbia. After the Revolution, her father was arrested and deported from the capital and her mother followed her husband into exile.

Catherine and her brother, Vsevolod, remained in the care of her grandmother, the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Mavriekievna of Russia. On July 18, 1918, their father, Prince John, was killed, and their mother, Princess Jelena, was arrested and spent several months in Soviet prisons. Grand Duchess Elizabeth was able to take Catherine and her brother to Sweden. Sometime later, they were reunited with their mother.

The family lived in Yugoslavia, then moved to England. There, Catherine received an excellent education, although she never learned the Russian language because her mother, devastated by her husband’s death, did not want her children speaking that language in front of her.

Marriage

From 1937 to 1945, Princess Catherine Ivanovna lived in Italy, with her great-aunt Queen Elena of Montenegro. During her stay she married the Italian diplomat Ruggero Farace, Marchese di Villaforesta (1909 – 1970), in Rome on September 15, 1937; on occasion of her wedding, she renounced to her succession rights to the Russian throne.

Marchese Ruggero Farace Farace di Villaforesta (1909-1970) was son of Alfredo, Marchese Farace di Villaforesta (1860-1949), member of an old Sicilian noble family and Greek aristocrat Caterina Fachiri (1882-1968), who was descendant of some of the most prominent Phanariote families of Constantinople.

Through mutual descent from Princes of Mavrocordato Ruggero was distantly related to Queen Natalia of Serbia (1859-1941), Princess Aspasia of Greece and Denmark (1896-1972) and her daughter Queen Alexandra of Yugoslavia (1921-1993), who was married to his wife’s first cousin King Peter II of Yugoslavia (1922-1970).

In 1945, after the end of the World War II, Princess Catherine separated from her husband (although they never legally divorced) and moved with her children to South America. In later years, she lived in Montevideo, capital city of Uruguay.

Death

She died on March 13, 2007 in Montevideo, Uruquay. Aged 91.

Death of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikoleavich of Russia. Part II.

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Abdication, Battle of Tannenberg, Comander-in-Chief, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Exile, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikoleavich of Russia, Monarchist, Russian Revolution, Soviet Union

1915

The Grand Duke had no part in the planning and preparations for World War I, that being the responsibility of General Vladimir Sukhomlinov and the general staff. On the eve of the outbreak of World War I, his first cousin once removed, the Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, yielded to the entreaties of his ministers and appointed Grand Duke Nicholas to the supreme command. He was 57 years old and had never commanded armies in the field before, although he had spent almost all of his life on active service. His appointment was popular in the army. He was given responsibility for the largest army ever put into the field up to that date. He recalled that “… on receipt of the Imperial order, he spent much of his time crying because he did not know how to approach his new duties.”

Grand Duke Nicholas was responsible for all Russian forces fighting against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey. He decided that their major effort must be in Poland, which thrust toward Germany like a salient, flanked by German East Prussia in the north, and Austro-Hungarian Galicia in the south. He planned to attend first to the flanks and when they were secure to invade German Silesia. In the north poor coordination of the two invading Russian armies resulted in the disaster of Tannenberg.

The Battle of Tannenberg, also known as the Second Battle of Tannenberg, was fought between Russia and Germany between 26 and 30 August 1914, the first month of World War I. The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army and the suicide of its commanding general, Alexander Samsonov. A series of follow-up battles (First Masurian Lakes) destroyed most of the First Army as well and kept the Russians off balance until the spring of 1915.

The Grand Duke picked and chose from the various plans offered by his generals. The Grand Duke begged for the artillery and ammunition they desperately lacked, so he could not embark on a coherent plan for victory. Grand Duke Nicholas came to power because of his royal status, and the tsar’s belief that God was guiding his decision. He lacked the broad strategic sense and the ruthless drive to command all the Russian armies. His headquarters had a curiously calm atmosphere, despite the many defeats and the millions of casualties. He failed in terms of strategy and tactics, as well as logistics, selection of generals, maintaining morale, and gaining support from the government. On a personal level he was well liked by both officers and men.

After the Great Retreat of the Russian army, the Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Yanushkevich, with the full support of the Grand Duke Nicholas, ordered the army to devastate the border territories and expel the “enemy” nations within. The Russian authorities launched pogroms against German populations in Russian cities, massacred Jews in their towns and villages and deported 500,000 Jews and 250,000 Germans into the Russian interior.

As a result of his failure, Emperor Nicholas II removed the Grand Duke as commander of the Russian armed forces on August 21, 1915 and took personal command.

Grand Duke Nicholas Nikoleavich of Russia towering over Emperor Nicholas II

The Caucasus

Upon his dismissal, the Grand Duke was immediately appointed commander-in-chief and viceroy in the Caucasus (replacing Count Illarion Vorontsov-Dashkov). While the Grand Duke was officially in command, General Yudenich was the driving figure in the Russian Caucasus army, so the Grand Duke focused on the civil administration. Their opponent was the Ottoman Empire. While the Grand Duke was in command, the Russian army sent an expeditionary force through to Persia (now Iran) to link up with British troops. Also in 1916, the Russian army captured the fortress town of Erzerum, the port of Trebizond (now Trabzon) and the town of Erzincan. The Turks responded with an offensive of their own. Fighting around Lake Van swung back and forth, but ultimately proved inconclusive.

It is reported that, while visiting the garrison of Kostroma he met Said Nursi, a famous Muslim cleric who was a prisoner of war. Because of Nursi’s disrespectful attitude, the Grand Duke gave an order to execute him. But after seeing Nursi’s devotion to his religion during his last prayer, Grand Duke changed his mind and amnestied Nursi. Nothing in the Grand Duke’s record suggests that he would have even considered such a war crime. At the time he was urging the Emperor to set up colleges for training Muslim clerics so they would not have to study abroad.

Nicholas tried to have a railway built from Russian Georgia to the conquered territories with a view to bringing up more supplies for a new offensive in 1917. But, in March 1917, the Tsar was overthrown and the Russian army began slowly to fall apart.

Revolution

The February Revolution found Nicholas in the Caucasus. He was appointed by the Emperor, in his last official act, as the supreme commander in chief, and was wildly received as he journeyed to headquarters in Mogilev; however, within 24 hours of his arrival, the new prime minister, Prince Georgy Lvov, cancelled his appointment.

Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and Grand Duke Nicholas Nikoleavich of Russia

Grand Duke Nicholas spent the next two years in the Crimean Peninsula, sometimes under house arrest, taking little part in politics. There appears to have been some sentiment to have him head the White Army forces active in southern Russia at the time, but the leaders in charge, especially General Anton Denikin, were afraid that a strong monarchist figurehead would alienate the more left leaning constituents of the movement. He and his wife escaped just ahead of the Red Army in April 1919, aboard the British Royal Navy battleship HMS Marlborough.

On August 8, 1922, Nicholas was proclaimed as Emperor Nicholas III of all the Russias by the Zemsky Sobor of the Priamurye region in the Far East by White Army general Mikhail Diterikhs. Nicholas was already living abroad and consequently was not present. Two months later the Priamurye region fell to the Bolsheviks.

In exile

After a stay in Genoa as a guest of his brother-in-law, Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy, Nicholas and his wife took up residence in a small chateau at Choigny, 20 miles outside of Paris. He was under the protection of the French secret police as well as by a small number of faithful Cossack retainers.

He became the symbolic figurehead of an anti-Soviet Russian monarchist movement, after assuming on November 16, 1924 the supreme command of all Russian forces in exile and thus of the Russian All-Military Union, which had been founded in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by Gen Pyotr Wrangel two months prior.

The monarchists made plans to send agents into Russia. Conversely a top priority of the Soviet secret police was to penetrate this monarchist organization and to kidnap Nicholas. They were successful in the former, infiltrating the group with spies. (OGPU later lured the anti-Bolshevik British master spy Sidney Reilly back to the Soviet Union (1925) where he was killed.) They did not succeed however, in kidnapping Nicholas. As late as June 1927, the monarchists were able to set off a bomb at the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow.

Grand Duke Nicholas died on January 5, 1929 of natural causes on the French Riviera, where he had gone to escape the rigors of winter. He was originally buried in the church of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Cannes, France. In 2014 Nicholas Romanov, Prince of Russia (1922–2014) and Prince Dimitri Romanov (1926-2016) requested the transfer of his remains. The bodies of Nicholas Nikolaevich and his wife were re-buried in Moscow at the World War I memorial military cemetery in May 2015.

Maria Feodorovna of Russia (Dagmar of Denmark) Conclusion

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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.

June 17, 1901: Birth of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia. Part II.

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Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Emperors of Russia, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, Grand Duchess Marie of Russia, Princess Alix of Hesse by Rhine, Russian Empire, Russian Revolution, World War I

World War I and Russian Revolution

During World War I, Anastasia, along with her sister Maria, visited wounded soldiers at a private hospital in the grounds at Tsarskoye Selo. The two teenagers, too young to become Red Cross nurses like their mother and elder sisters, played games of checkers and billiards with the soldiers and tried to lift their spirits. Felix Dassel, who was treated at the hospital and knew Anastasia, recalled that the grand duchess had a “laugh like a squirrel”, and walked rapidly “as though she tripped along.”

In February 1917, Anastasia and her family were placed under house arrest at the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo during the Russian Revolution. Nicholas II abdicated on March 15 [O.S. March 2] 1917. As the Bolsheviks approached, Alexander Kerensky of the Provisional Government had them moved to Tobolsk, Siberia. After the Bolsheviks seized majority control of Russia, Anastasia and her family were moved to the Ipatiev House, or House of Special Purpose, at Yekaterinburg.

The stress and uncertainty of captivity took their toll on Anastasia as well as her family. At Tobolsk, she and her sisters sewed jewels into their clothing in hopes of hiding them from their captors, since Alexandra had written to warn them that she, Nicholas and Maria had been searched upon arriving in Yekaterinburg, and had items confiscated. Their mother used predetermined code words “medicines” and “Sednev’s belongings” for the jewels.

However, even in the last months of her life, she found ways to enjoy herself. She and other members of the household performed plays for the enjoyment of their parents and others in the spring of 1918. Anastasia’s performance made everyone howl with laughter, according to her tutor Sydney Gibbes.
In a May 7, 1918, letter from Tobolsk to her sister Maria in Yekaterinburg, Anastasia described a moment of joy despite her sadness and loneliness and worry for the sick Alexei:

We played on the swing, that was when I roared with laughter, the fall was so wonderful! Indeed! I told the sisters about it so many times yesterday that they got quite fed up, but I could go on telling it masses of times … What weather we’ve had! One could simply shout with joy.

In his memoirs, one of the guards at the Ipatiev House, Alexander Strekotin, remembered Anastasia as “very friendly and full of fun”, while another guard said Anastasia was “a very charming devil! She was mischievous and, I think, rarely tired. She was lively, and was fond of performing comic mimes with the dogs, as though they were performing in a circus.” Yet another of the guards, however, called the youngest grand duchess “offensive and a terrorist” and complained that her occasionally provocative comments sometimes caused tension in the ranks. Anastasia and her sisters helped their maid darn stockings and assisted the cook in making bread and other kitchen chores while they were in captivity at the Ipatiev House.

In the summer, the privations of the captivity, including their closer confinement at the Ipatiev House negatively affected the family. According to some accounts, at one point Anastasia became so upset about the locked, painted windows that she opened one to look outside and get fresh air. A sentry reportedly saw her and fired, narrowly missing her. She did not try again.

Today is the 145th anniversary of the birth of Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia, (April 6, 1875 – April 20, 1960).

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Dagmar of Denmark, Emperor Alexander III of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia, House of Romanov, Russian Empire, Russian Revolution, Sandro

Today is the 145th anniversary of the birth of Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia, (April 6, 1875 – April 20, 1960) elder daughter and fourth child of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia (née Princess Dagmar of Denmark) and the sister of Emperor Nicholas II. She married a cousin, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia, with whom she had seven children. She was the mother-in-law of Felix Yusupov and a cousin of Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia who, together, killed Grigori Rasputin, holy healer to her nephew, the haemophiliac Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia.

During her brother’s reign she recorded in her diary and letters increasing concern about his rule. After the fall of the monarchy in February 1917, she fled Russia, eventually settling in the United Kingdom.

Young Xenia with her mother Maria Feodorovna

Xenia and her paternal first cousin once removed Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia, her eventual husband, played together as friends in the 1880s. He was the son of Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich of Russia, the youngest son of Nicholas I of Russia, and Grand Duchess Olga Feodorovna (Cecily of Baden). He was mostly known as “Sandro” and was also a friend of her brother, Nicholas. In 1886, 20-year-old Alexander was serving in the navy. Eleven-year-old Xenia sent him a card when his ship was in Brazil, “Best wishes and speedy return! Your sailor Xenia”. In 1889, Alexander wrote of Xenia, “She is fourteen. I think she likes me.”

At age 15, though Xenia and Alexander wanted to marry, her parents were reluctant because Xenia was too young and they were unsure of Alexander’s character. The Empress Maria Feodorovna had complained of Alexander’s arrogance and rudeness. It was not until January 12, 1894 that Xenia’s parents accepted the engagement, after Alexander’s father, Grand Duke Michael Nikolaievich of Russia, intervened.

Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia

The couple finally wed on August 6, 1894, when Xenia was 19, in the SS Peter & Paul Chapel of the Peterhof Palace. Xenia’s younger sister, Olga, wrote about the joy of the wedding, “The Emperor was so happy. It was the last time I ever saw him like that.” They spent their wedding night at Ropsha Palace, and their honeymoon at Ai-Todor (Alexander’s estate in Crimea). During the honeymoon, Xenia’s father, Alexander III, became ill and died on November 1, 1894. After his death, Xenia’s eldest brother inherited the Crown and became the new Emperor Nicholas II.

In 1918, while in Crimea, Xenia learnt that her brother Nicholas II, his wife, and their children had been murdered by the Bolsheviks. Her last surviving brother, Michael, was also murdered (by shooting) in 1918 outside Perm.

While the Red Army was coming closer to the Crimea, Xenia and her mother, the Dowager Empress Maria, escaped from Russia on April 11, 1919 with the help of Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom (née Princess Alexandra of Denmark), Dowager Empress Maria’s sister. King George V of the United Kingdom sent the British warship HMS Marlborough which brought them and sixteen other Romanovs (including five of her sons) from the Crimea through the Black Sea to Malta, and then to England. Xenia remained in Great Britain, while Dowager Empress Maria, after a stay in England, was joined by Olga at Villa Hvidore outside Copenhagen in Denmark.

Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia And Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia

On February 6, 1933, Xenia’s husband Sandro died. Xenia and her sons attended his funeral on 1 March, in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in the south of France. By March 1937, Xenia had moved from Frogmore Cottage in Windsor Great Park to Wilderness House in the grounds of Hampton Court Palace. She lived there until her death on April 20, 1960. Despite reduced circumstances during her lifetime, Xenia left a small estate to her remaining relatives.

March 15, 1917: Abdication of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia.

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Abdication, Duma, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, House of Romanov, King George V of the United Kingdom, Provisional Government, Russian Empire, Russian Revolution, World War I

Nicholas II (May 18, 1868 – July 17, 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from November 1, 1894 until his forced abdication on March 15, 1917. His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse.

By early 1917, Russia was on the verge of total collapse of morale. An estimated 1.7 million Russian soldiers were killed in World War I. The sense of failure and imminent disaster was everywhere. The army had taken 15 million men from the farms and food prices had soared. An egg cost four times what it had in 1914, butter five times as much. The severe winter dealt the railways, overburdened by emergency shipments of coal and supplies, a crippling blow.

Ideologically the Emperor’s greatest support came from the right-wing monarchists, who had recently gained strength. However they were increasingly alienated by the Emperor’s support of Stolypin’s Westernizing reforms, by tsar’s liberal reforms taken early in the Revolution of 1905, and especially by the political power the tsar had bestowed on Rasputin.

On February 23, 1917 in Petrograd, a combination of very severe cold weather and acute food shortages caused people to start to break shop windows to get bread and other necessities. In the streets, red banners appeared and the crowds chanted “Down with the German woman! Down with Protopopov! Down with the war! Down with the Tsar!”

Police started to shoot at the populace from rooftops, which incited riots. The troops in the capital were poorly motivated and their officers had no reason to be loyal to the regime. They were angry and full of revolutionary fervor and sided with the populace. On Sunday, March 11, 1917, despite huge posters ordering people to keep off the streets, vast crowds gathered and were only dispersed after some 200 had been shot dead, though a company of the Volinsky Regiment fired into the air rather than into the mob, and a company of the Pavlovsky Life Guards shot the officer who gave the command to open fire. Nicholas, informed of the situation, ordered reinforcements to the capital and suspended the Duma. However, it was too late.

On March 12 order broke down and members of the Duma and the Soviet formed a Provisional Government to try to restore order. They issued a demand that Nicholas must abdicate. Faced with this demand, which was echoed by his generals, deprived of loyal troops, with Empress Alexandra and the rest of the imperial family firmly in the hands of the Provisional Government and fearful of unleashing civil war and opening the way for German conquest, Nicholas had little choice but to submit.

Nicholas had suffered a coronary occlusion only four days before his abdication. At the end of the “February Revolution”, Nicholas II chose to abdicate on March 15, 1917. He first abdicated in favor of Alexei, but a few hours later changed his mind after advice from doctors that Alexei would not live long enough while separated from his parents, who would be forced into exile. Nicholas thus abdicated on behalf of his son, and drew up a new manifesto naming his brother, Grand Duke Michael, as the next Emperor of all the Russians.

He issued a statement but it was suppressed by the Provisional Government. Michael declined to accept the throne until the people were allowed to vote through a Constituent Assembly for the continuance of the monarchy or a republic. The abdication of Nicholas II and Michael’s deferment of accepting the throne brought three centuries of the Romanov dynasty’s rule to an end. The fall of Tsarist autocracy brought joy to liberals and socialists in Britain and France. The United States was the first foreign government to recognize the Provisional government. In Russia, the announcement of the Emperor’s abdication was greeted with many emotions, including delight, relief, fear, anger and confusion.

Both the Provisional Government and Nicholas wanted the royal family to go into exile following his abdication, with the United Kingdom being the preferred option. The British government reluctantly offered the family asylum on March 19, 1917, although it was suggested that it would be better for the Romanovs to go to a neutral country. News of the offer provoked uproar from the Labour Party and many Liberals, and the British ambassador Sir George Buchanan advised the government that the extreme left would use the ex-Emperor’s presence “as an excuse for rousing public opinion against us.”

On March 20, the Provisional Government decreed that the royal family should be held under house arrest in the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo. Nicholas joined the rest of the family there two days later, having travelled from the wartime headquarters at Mogilev. The offer of asylum was withdrawn in April following objections by King George V, who, acting on the advice of his secretary Arthur Bigge, 1st Baron Stamfordham, was worried that Nicholas’s presence might provoke an uprising like the previous year’s Easter Rising in Ireland.

The Life of Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia. Part VI: Conclusion.

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Alexander Kerensky, Dagmar of Denmark, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Empress Marie of Russia, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, House of Romanov, Provisional Government, Russian Revolution

With Michael wiling to leave it up to the will of the people whether or not he shall become Emperor of Russia, commentators, ranging from Kerensky to French ambassador Maurice Paléologue, regarded Michael’s action as noble and patriotic, but Nicholas was appalled that Michael had “kowtowed to the Constituent Assembly.”

The hopes of the monarchists that Michael might be able to assume the throne following the election of the Constituent Assembly were overtaken by events. His renunciation of the throne, though conditional, marked the end of the Tsarist regime in Russia. The Provisional Government had little effective power; real power was held by the Petrograd Soviet. Historians debate whether Michael can be counted as the legitimate last Emperor of Russia.

Michael returned to Gatchina and was not permitted to return to his unit or to travel beyond the Petrograd area. On April 5, 1917, he was discharged from military service. By July, Prince Lvov had resigned as Prime Minister to be replaced by Alexander Kerensky, who ordered ex-Emperor Nicholas II removed from Petrograd to Tobolsk in the Urals because it was “some remote place, some quiet corner, where they would attract less attention”. On the eve of Nicholas’s departure, Kerensky gave permission for Michael to visit him. Kerensky remained present during the meeting and the brothers exchanged awkward pleasantries.

On August 21, 1917, guards surrounded the villa on Nikolaevskaya street where Michael was living with Natalia. On the orders of Kerensky, they were both under house arrest, along with Nicholas Johnson, who had been Michael’s secretary since December 1912. A week later, they were moved to an apartment in Petrograd. Michael’s stomach problems worsened and, with the intervention of British ambassador Buchanan and foreign minister Mikhail Tereshchenko, they were moved back to Gatchina in the first week of September. Tereshchenko told Buchanan that the Dowager Empress Marie would be allowed to leave the country, for England if she wished, and that Michael would follow in due course. The British, however, were not prepared to accept any Russian Grand Duke for fear it would provoke a negative public reaction in Britain, where there was little sympathy for the Romanovs.

On September 1, 1917, Kerensky declared Russia a republic. Michael wrote in his diary: “We woke up this morning to hear Russia declared a Republic. What does it matter which form the government will be as long as there is order and justice?” Two weeks later, Michael’s house arrest was lifted. Kerensky had armed the Bolsheviks after a power struggle with the commander-in-chief and in October there was a second revolution as the Bolsheviks seized power from Kerensky. With a permit to travel issued by Peter Polotsov, a former colleague of Michael from the Savage Division who was now a commander in Petrograd, Michael planned to move his family to the greater safety of Finland. They packed valuables and prepared to move, but their preparations were seen by Bolshevik sympathisers and they were placed once more under house arrest. The last of Michael’s cars were seized by the Bolsheviks.

The house arrest was lifted again in November, and the Constituent Assembly was elected and met in January 1918. Despite being the minority party, the Bolsheviks dissolved it. On March 7, 1918, Michael and his secretary Johnson were re-arrested on the orders of Moisei Uritsky, the Head of the Petrograd secret police, and imprisoned at the Bolshevik headquarters in the Smolny Institute. On March 11, 1918, Uritsky sent Michael and Johnson to Perm, a thousand miles to the east, on the order of the Council of the People’s Commissars, which included both Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin.

Alexander Kerensky, Prime Minister of Russia from July–October 1917

Natalia lobbied the Commissars in Petrograd for his release and, on April 9, 1918, he was set at liberty within Perm. He moved into the best room in the best hotel in Perm, along with Johnson and two manservants, valet Vasily Chelyshev and former chauffeur Borunov. Natalia feared for George’s safety, and in March 1918, she arranged for him to be smuggled out of Russia by his nanny with the help of Danish diplomats and the Putyatins.

In May, Natalia was granted a travel permit to join Michael. Accompanied by family friends Prince Putyatin and Margaret Abakanovich, she arrived at Perm before the Orthodox Easter and they spent about a week together. The Germans demanded that the Bolsheviks disarm the Czechs, who fought back, seized the railway, joined forces with Russians fighting against the Bolsheviks and advanced westwards toward Perm. With the approach of the Czechs, Michael and Natalia feared that she would become trapped there, possibly in a dangerous situation and so, on May 18, she left unhappily. By early June, Michael was again ill with stomach trouble.

On June 12, 1918, the leader of the local secret police, Gavril Myasnikov, with the connivance of other local Bolsheviks, hatched a plan to murder Michael. Myasnikov assembled a team of four men who, like him, were all former prisoners of the Tsarist regime: Vasily Ivanchenko, Ivan Kolpashchikov, Andrei Markov and Nikolai Zhuzhgov. Using a forged order, the four men gained entry to Michael’s hotel at 11.45 p.m.

At first, Michael refused to accompany the men until he spoke with the local chairman of the secret police, Pavel Malkov, and then because he was ill. His protestations were futile and he got dressed. Johnson insisted on accompanying him and the four men plus their two prisoners climbed into two horse-drawn three-seater traps.

They drove out of the town into the forest near Motovilikha. When Michael queried their destination, he was told they were going to a remote railway crossing to catch a train. By now it was the early hours of June, 13. They all alighted from the carriages in the middle of the wood, and both Michael and Johnson were fired upon, once each, but as the assassins were using home-made bullets, their guns jammed. Michael, whether wounded or not is unknown, moved towards the wounded Johnson with arms outstretched, when he was shot at point-blank range in the head. Both Zhuzhgov and Markov claimed to have fired the fatal shot. Johnson was shot dead by Ivanchenko.

Michael (left) in Perm April 1918

The bodies were stripped and buried. Anything of value was stolen and the clothes were taken back to Perm. After they were shown to Myasnikov as proof of the murders, the clothes were burned. The Ural Regional Soviet, headed by Alexander Beloborodov, approved the execution, either retrospectively or beforehand, as did Lenin. Michael was the first of the Romanovs to be executed by the Bolsheviks but he was not the last. Neither Michael’s nor Johnson’s remains have been found.

The Life of Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia. Part V: Revolution.

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Abdication, Duma, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, Rasputin, Russian Revolution, The Duma

My Note: I had planned to conclude this series today but found more information to disseminate.

Michael and other members of the imperial family, including Grand Dukes Alexander, George, Nicholas and Dmitri and Grand Duchess Elizabeth, warned of the growing public unrest, and of the perception that Nicholas was governed by his German-born wife Alexandra and the self-styled holy man Rasputin. Nicholas and Alexandra refused to listen. In December 1916, Dmitri and four of his friends killed Rasputin. Michael learned of the murder at Brasovo, where he was spending Christmas with his family. On December 28, according to the French ambassador, there was a failed attempt to assassinate Alexandra; the lone assailant was caught and hanged the next day.

In January 1917, Michael returned to the front to hand over command of his corps; from 29 January he was Inspector-General of Cavalry stationed at Gatchina. General Aleksei Brusilov, Michael’s commander on the south-eastern front, begged him to tell the Tsar of “the need for immediate and drastic reforms”, but Michael warned him, “I have no influence … My brother has time and time again had warnings and entreaties of this kind from every quarter.”

Through February, Grand Duke Alexander, Duma President Rodzianko and Michael pressured Nicholas II and Alexandra to yield to popular demands. Public unrest grew and, on February 27, soldiers in Petrograd joined demonstrators, elements of the military mutinied and prisoners were freed. Nicholas II, who was at army headquarters in Mogilev, prorogued the Duma, but the deputies refused to leave and instead set up their own rival government.

After consulting Rodzianko at the Mariinsky Palace in Petrograd, Michael advised Nicholas II to dismiss his ministers and set up a new government led by the leader of the majority party in the Duma. His advice was supported by General Mikhail Alekseyev, Nicholas II’s chief of staff. Nicholas II rejected the suggestion and issued futile orders for troops to move on Petrograd.

On the night of February 27-28, 1917, Michael attempted to return to Gatchina from Petrograd, where he had been in conference with Rodzianko and from where he had telegraphed the Emperor, but revolutionary patrols and sporadic fire prevented his progress. Revolutionaries patrolled the streets, rounding up people connected with the old regime. Michael managed to reach the Winter Palace, where he ordered the guards to withdraw to the Admiralty, because it afforded greater safety and a better tactical position, and because it was a less politically charged location. Michael himself took refuge in the apartment of an acquaintance, Princess Putyatina, on Millionnaya street.

Abdication of Nicholas II

On the afternoon of March 15, 1917, Emperor Nicholas II, under pressure from generals and Duma representatives, abdicated in favour of his son, Alexei, with Michael as Regent. Later that evening, though, he reconsidered his decision. Alexei was gravely ill with haemophilia and Nicholas feared that if Alexei was Emperor, he would be separated from his parents. In a second abdication document, signed at 11.40 p.m. but marked as having been issued at 3.00 p.m., the time of the earlier one, Nicholas II declared:

We have judged it right to abdicate the Throne of the Russian State and to lay down the Supreme Power. Not wishing to be parted from Our Beloved Son, We hand over Our Succession to Our Brother the Grand Duke Michael Aleksandrovich and Bless Him on his accession to the Throne

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By early morning, Michael was proclaimed as “Emperor Michael II” to Russian troops and in cities throughout Russia, but his accession was not universally welcomed. While some units cheered and swore allegiance to the new Emperor, others remained indifferent. The newly formed Provisional Government had not agreed to Michael’s succession. When Michael awoke that morning, he discovered not only that his brother had abdicated in his favour, as Nicholas had not informed him previously, but also that a delegation from the Duma would visit him at Putyatina’s apartment in a few hours’ time. The meeting with Duma President Rodzianko, the new Prime Minister Prince Lvov and other ministers, including Pavel Milyukov and Alexander Kerensky, lasted all morning. Putyatina laid on a lunch, and in the afternoon two lawyers (Baron Nolde and Vladimir Nabokov) were called to the apartment to draft a manifesto for Michael to sign.

The legal position was complicated as the legitimacy of the government, whether Nicholas had the right to remove his son from the succession and whether Michael actually was Emperor were all open to question. After further discussion, and several drafts, the meeting settled on a declaration of conditional acceptance as an appropriate form of words. In it, Michael deferred to the will of the people and acknowledged the Provisional Government as the de facto executive, but neither abdicated nor refused to accept the throne.

Life of Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (later Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia the Elder).

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Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Emperor Alexander III of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Emperors of Russia, Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia, Maria Pavlovna the Elder, Russian Empire, Russian Revolution

Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (later Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, known as “Miechen” or “Maria Pavlovna the Elder”; May 14, 1854 – September 6, 1920) was born Marie Alexandrine Elisabeth Eleonore of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, daughter of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Princess Augusta Reuss of Köstritz.

A prominent hostess in St Petersburg following her marriage to the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia, she was known as the grandest of the grand duchesses and had an open rivalry with her sister-in-law the Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and born Princess Dagmar of Denmark the daughter King Christian IX of Denmark and Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel.

On August 28, 1874 she married her second cousin, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia (April 22, 1847 – February 17, 1909) the third son of Alexander II of Russia (and a brother of Emperor Alexander III. She had been engaged to George Albert I, Prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, but broke it off as soon as she met Vladimir. It took three more years before they were permitted to marry as she had been raised a Lutheran and refused to convert to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia

Emperor Alexander II finally agreed to let Vladimir marry her without insisting on her conversion to Orthodoxy. Upon her marriage she took the Russian name of Maria Pavlovna – the name she is best known by. Maria remained Lutheran throughout most of her marriage, but converted to Orthodoxy later in her marriage, some said to give her son Kirill a better chance at the throne. As a result of marrying the son of a Russian Emperor, she took on a new style Her Imperial Highness; the couple had four sons and one daughter.

Life in Russia

In Russia, she lived at the Vladimir Palace situated on the Palace Embankment on the Neva River. Socially ambitious, it was there that she established her reputation as being one of the best hostesses in the capital. An addiction to gambling, which saw her defy a prohibition by Nicholas II on the playing on roulette and baccarat in private homes, resulted in her temporarily being banned from Court. In 1909, her husband died and she succeeded him as president of the Academy of Fine Arts.

Her Grand Ducal court, was in the later years of the reign of her nephew, Emperor Nicholas II the most cosmopolitan and popular in the capital. The Grand Duchess was personally at odds with Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra. She wasn’t the only Romanov who feared the Empress would “be the sole ruler of Russia” after Nicholas took supreme command of the Russian armies on August 23, 1915 hoping this would lift morale.

Escape from Russia

The Grand Duchess held the distinction to be the last of the Romanovs to escape Revolutionary Russia, as well as the first to die in exile. She remained in the war-torn Caucasus with her two younger sons throughout 1917 and 1918, hoping to make her eldest son Kirill Vladimirovich the Tsar. As the Bolsheviks approached, the group finally escaped aboard a fishing boat to Anapa in 1918. Maria spent fourteen months in Anapa, refusing to join her son Boris in leaving Russia.

When opportunities for escape via Constantinople presented themselves she refused to leave for fear she would be subjected to the indignity of delousing. She finally agreed to leave when the general of the White Army warned her that his side was losing the civil war. Maria, her son Andrei, Andrei’s mistress Mathilde Kschessinska, and Andrei and Mathilde’s son Vladimir, boarded an Italian ship headed to Venice on February 13, 1920.

Nicholas II, Last Emperor of Russia

She made her way from Venice to Switzerland and then to France, where her health failed. Staying at her villa (now the Hotel La Souveraine), she died on September 6, 1920, aged 66, surrounded by her family at Contrexéville.

Her eldest surviving son, Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich, of Russia married, in 1905, his first cousin Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, daughter of Vladimir’s sister Grand Duchess Maria the Duchess of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, spouse of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Gotha (second son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom).

Other than the fact that first cousin marriages were not allowed, she was also the former wife of Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse of and By Rhine, the brother of the Empress Alexandra (born Alix of Hesse and by Rhine daughter of Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and By Rhine and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (second daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom).

Alexandra, Last Emperess of Russia.

This marriage between Cyril and Victoria Melita was not approved by Nicholas II and Cyril was stripped of his imperial titles. The treatment of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna’s son created a strife between her husband, Grand Duke Vladimir, and the Emperor. However, after several deaths in the family put Cyril third in the line of succession to the Imperial Throne, Nicholas agreed to reinstate Cyril’s Imperial titles, and the latter’s wife was acknowledged as HIH Grand Duchess Viktoria Fedorovna.