November 26, 1847: Birth of Princess Dagmar of Denmark. Part I.

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Birthday, Christian IX, Dagmar of Denmark, Emperor Alexander III of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Kingdom of Denmark, Maria Feodorovna, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich

Maria Feodorovna (November 26, 1847 – October 13, 1928), known before her marriage as Princess Dagmar of Denmark, was a Danish princess and 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 and Louise of Hesse-Cassel; her siblings included Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, King Frederik VIII of Denmark and King George I of Greece, Thera Duchess of Cumberland and Valdemar of Denmark. Her eldest son became the last Russian monarch, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. She lived for ten years after he and his family were killed.

Princess Marie Sophie Frederike Dagmar was born at the Yellow Palace in Copenhagen. Her father was Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a member of a relatively impoverished princely cadet line. Her mother was Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel.

She was baptised as a Lutheran and named after her kinswoman Marie Sophie of Hesse-Cassel, Queen Dowager of Denmark as well as the medieval Danish queen, Dagmar of Bohemia. Her godmother was Queen Caroline Amalie of Denmark. Growing up, she was known by the name Dagmar. Most of her life, she was known as Maria Feodorovna, the name which she took when she converted to Orthodoxy immediately before her 1866 marriage to the future Emperor Alexander III. She was known within her family as “Minnie”.

Princess Dagmar, Prince Vilhelm, Christian IX of Denmark and Princess Alexandra

The rise of Slavophile ideology in the Russian Empire led Alexander II of Russia to search 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 where he was betrothed to Dagmar. On April 22, 1865 he died from meningitis. His last wish was that Dagmar would marry his younger brother, the future Alexander III. Dagmar was distraught after her young fiancé’s death. She was so heartbroken when she returned to her homeland that her relatives were seriously worried about her health.

Dagmar of Denmark and Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich

She had already become emotionally attached to Russia and often thought of the huge, remote country that was to have been her home. The disaster had brought her very close to “Nixa’s” parents, and she received a letter from Alexander II in which the Emperor attempted to console her. He told Dagmar in very affectionate terms that he hoped she would still consider herself a member of their family. In June 1866, while on a visit to Copenhagen, the Tsarevich Alexander asked Dagmar for her hand. They had been in her room looking over photographs together.

Dagmar of Denmark and the future Emperor Alexander III of Russia

She 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. 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.

On May 18, 1868, Maria Feodorovna gave birth to her eldest son, Nicholas. Her next son, Alexander Alexandrovich, born in 1869, died from meningitis in infancy. She would bear Alexander four more children who reached adulthood: George (b. 1871), Xenia (b. 1875), Michael (b. 1878), and Olga (b. 1882). As a mother, she doted on and was quite possessive of her sons. She had a more distant relationship with her daughters.

In 1873, Maria, Alexander, and their two eldest sons made a journey to the United Kingdom. The imperial couple and their children were entertained at Marlborough House by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The royal sisters Maria and Alexandra delighted London society by dressing alike at social gatherings. The following year, Maria and Alexander welcomed the Prince and Princess of Wales to St. Petersburg; they had come for the wedding of the Prince’s younger brother, Alfred, to Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, daughter of Tsar Alexander II and the sister of the tsarevich.

November 1, 1894: Death of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and the accession of Nicholas II.

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Alexander III of Russia, Dagmar of Denmark, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, Livadia, Olga of Greece, Princess Alix of Hesse by Rhine, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich

Alexander III (March 10, 1845 – November 1, 1894) was the Emperor of Russia, King of Poland, and Grand Duke of Finlandfrom March 13, 1881 until his death on 1 November 1894. He was highly reactionary and reversed some of the liberal reforms of his father, Alexander II. Under the influence of Konstantin P. Pobedonostsev (1827–1907) he opposed any reform that limited his autocratic rule. During Alexander’s reign Russia fought no major wars, and he was therefore styled “The Peacemaker”.

Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich was born on March 10, 1845 at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, the second son and third child of Emperor Alexander II and his first wife Princess Marie of Hesse and By Rhine, a daughter of Ludwig II, Grand Duke of Hesse and By Rhine and Princess Wilhelmine of Baden.

Alexander III, Emperor of Russia

Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich’s older brother was Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich engaged to Princess Dagmar of Denmark. She was the second daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark and Louise of Hesse-Kassel. Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich died on April 24, 1865, at the Villa Bermont in Nice, France from cerebro-spinal meningitis.

In the 1860s Alexander fell madly in love with his mother’s lady-in-waiting, Princess Maria Elimovna Meshcherskaya. Dismayed to learn that Prince Wittgenstein had proposed to her in early 1866, he told his parents that he was prepared to give up his rights of succession in order to marry his beloved “Dusenka”. On 19 May 1866, Alexander II informed his son that Russia had come to an agreement with the parents of Princess Dagmar of Denmark, his fourth cousin.

Dagmar of Denmark

On his deathbed Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich was said to have expressed the wish that his fiancée, Princess Dagmar of Denmark, should marry his successor. This wish was swiftly realized when on November 9, 1866 in the Grand Church of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Alexander wed Dagmar, who converted to Orthodox Christianity and took the name Maria Feodorovna. The union proved a happy one to the end; unlike his father’s, there was no adultery in his marriage.

Alexander II, Emperor of Russia

On March 13, 1881 Alexander’s father, Alexander II, was assassinated by members of the terrorist organization Narodnaya Volya. As a result, he ascended to the Russian imperial throne in Nennal. He and Maria Feodorovna were officially crowned and anointed at the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow on 27 May 1883. Alexander’s ascension to the throne was followed by an outbreak of anti-Jewish riots.

Dagmar of Denmark

Alexander and Dagmar (Marie) had six children, five of whom survived into adulthood: Nicholas (b. 1868), George (b. 1871), Xenia (b. 1875), Michael (b. 1878) and Olga (b. 1882). Of his five surviving children, he was closest to his youngest two.

In 1894, Alexander III became ill with terminal kidney disease (nephritis). Maria Fyodorovna’s sister-in-law, Queen Olga of Greece, offered her villa of Mon Repos, on the island of Corfu, in the hope that it might improve the Tsar’s condition. By the time that they reached Crimea, they stayed at the Maly Palace in Livadia, as Alexander was too weak to travel any further. Recognizing that the Tsar’s days were numbered, various imperial relatives began to descend on Livadia. Even the famed clergyman John of Kronstadt paid a visit and administered Communion to the Tsar.

Princess Alix of Hesse and By Rhine

On October 21, 1894, Alexander received Nicholas’s fiancée, Princess Alix of Hesse and By Rhine who had come from her native Darmstadt to receive the Tsar’s blessing. Princess Alix of Hesse and By Rhine was the sixth child and fourth daughter among the seven children of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and his first wife, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort.

Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia

Despite being exceedingly weak, Alexander insisted on receiving Alix in full dress uniform, an event that left him exhausted. Soon after, his health began to deteriorate more rapidly. He died in the arms of his wife, and in the presence of his physician, Ernst Viktor von Leyden, at Maly Palace in Livadia on the afternoon of 1 November 1, 1894 at the age of forty-nine, and was succeeded by his eldest son Tsesarevich Nicholas, who took the throne as Nicholas II. After leaving Livadia on November 6 and traveling to St. Petersburg by way of Moscow, his remains were interred on November 18 at the Peter and Paul Fortress.