Maria Nikolaevna Romanova (1899-1918)

The Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia Petersburg, June 26, 1899 - Ipatiev House, Yekaterinburg, July 17, 1918) was the third daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna of Russia. His murder along with the rest of her family on the night of July 17, 1918 led to her subsequent canonization as a passion bearer for the Russian Orthodox Church.

During her life, Mary, being too young to become a Red Cross nurse like her mother and two older sisters during World War I, was patron of numerous hospitals along with her younger sister, Grand Duchess Anastasia, and both often visited wounded soldiers. The flirtatious Maria had some innocent crushes on certain young men she met, beginning in early childhood. She hoped to get married and start a large family. A potential romance is highlighted in 1910, when María's family met with her other relatives, including Luis Mountbatten, who was nicknamed Dickie, and he fell madly in love with María. Years later he would remember 'You couldn't imagine someone more beautiful than she was, I was crazy about María and determined to marry her. "She was absolutely charming."

Dickie never saw Maria again, but he did not forget her. He kept a photo of her on the mantelpiece in her bedroom until the day she died.

During the 20th century, after her death, Mary did not escape the various rumors that seemed to ensure the survival of one or more members of the imperial family. However, it was later found that neither she nor Anastasia survived. In the 1990s, it was suggested that Mary may have been the Grand Duchess whose remains were missing from the Romanov tomb discovered near Yekaterinburg, Russia and who were exhumed in 1991. However, other remains were discovered in 2007, and analysis DNA testing later showed that the entire imperial family had been murdered in 1918.

Birth

In March 1899, Empress Alexandra's pregnancy was extremely uncomfortable. The baby was in an awkward position that aggravated her sciatica; She once again spent most of her pregnancy in a bath chair. On May 9, the family left Tsarskoye Selo and went to Peterhof to await the arrival of the new family member, who arrived mercifully quickly. At 12:10 p.m. m. On June 261899, another Grand Duchess was born, weighing 4.5 kg. María, named after her grandmother. Alejandra soon happily breastfed her. Nicholas showed no obvious sign of discouragement; his religious fatalism undoubtedly influenced her impassive reaction. "The Lord sent us a third daughter"; he was resigned. & # 34; I am so grateful that dear Alicky has recovered so well, ”wrote Queen Victoria, that she could not ignore the serious dynastic problem that this entailed. "I know that an heir would be more welcome than a daughter."

Personality

A good-natured, lively and flirtatious young woman, she was considered the most beautiful of the tsar's daughters. She had expressive and beautiful blue eyes, so big that in the family they were known as "Maria's saucers." She lived in one of the 100 rooms of the Alexander Palace of Tsarskoye Seló, 20 km south of Saint Petersburg, with her sister, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, forming what was known in the palace as 'the little couple'. & # 3. 4;. She, along with her sisters and brother, Tsarevich Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia, formed a union, OTMAA (acronyms that respond to the initial of each of her names in descending order). With these initials they signed letters and gave gifts to those closest to them.

María liked to draw and paint, like her sisters, although she was considered the most expert in painting. Maria loved children, and she always talked about how she dreamed of having her own children in the future, so her father, Nicholas II, trusted that she would be an excellent mother and wife. Like her siblings, she enjoyed visiting and spending time with the children of orphanages.

When María was older, she highlighted the fact that she was a young woman in love; She grew attached to the guards and loved spending time with them. When her sisters and the Tsarina were visiting Tsar Nicholas and his brother Alexei in Mogilev, Maria began to have feelings for an officer named Nikolai Dmitrievich Demekov, although she could never marry him.

Unlike her two older sisters, the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana, due to her age she did not enlist as a Red Cross nurse during World War I, but she was in charge of visiting wounded soldiers who were treated in the palaces in the company of her sister Anastasia, they were considered very close and both liked to perform to make the patients laugh.

Physical description

Her French tutor, Pierre Gilliard, said that Maria was tall and well-built, with rosy cheeks. Tatiana Botkina said that the expression in Maria's eyes was "soft and gentle." During her childhood her physical appearance was compared to that of Botticelli's angels. Grand Duke Vladimir Aleksándrovich of Russia called her "friendly baby"; because of her good and loving nature.

Once, Alejandra decided to take advantage of a rare state dinner, held in honor of Carol [Prince of Romania] on the 9th, to officially present Maria at court. She and the tsar still viewed her third daughter, albeit affectionately, as chubby and gangly; The night before all the girls had been trying on dresses and, according to Tatiana, 'Maria had gained so much weight that she couldn't wear any.' "She looked very pretty in her light blue dress wearing the diamonds that her parents gave to each of their daughters on their sixteenth birthday," recalled Isa Buxhoeveden, Tsarina Alexandra's lady-in-waiting, but unfortunately, " 34;poor Mary slipped on her new high heels and fell as she entered the dining room arm in arm with a Grand Duke." Upon hearing the noise, the tsar jokingly commented 'of course fat Marie'. After her sister had "fallen with a thud with all her strength," as Tatiana remembered, she had sat on the floor laughing "to the point of embarrassment." 3. 4;.

Revolution

When the Russian Revolution broke out, she was confined with her family in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo. In August 1917 she was transferred with them to Tobolsk, Siberia. She enjoyed being in the city of Tobolsk, but she and her family were not allowed to fully enter the city. Surprisingly to many, Mary loved manual labor and was content to work outdoors during captivity.

Later, in the spring of 1918, they were taken to Yekaterinburg, where they were placed under house arrest in the Ipatiev House, also nicknamed 'The House of Special Purpose'.

In her letters to her siblings still in Tobolsk, Maria described her discomfort at the new restrictions on the family in Yekaterinburg. She and her parents were searched by guards at the Ipatiev house and warned that they would be subject to further searches. She installed a tall wooden fence around the house, limiting her view of the street. "Oh, how complicated everything is now,", he wrote on May 2, 1918. "We lived in peace for eight months and now everything has begun again" #34;.

Maria spent her time trying to befriend the members of the Ipatiev House Guard. She showed them photos from her albums and she told them about her family and her own hopes for a new life in England if she were released. Alexander Strekotin, one of the guards, recalled in his memoirs that she "was a girl who loved to have fun." Another of the guards remembered with appreciation Maria's buxom beauty and said that she did not assume an air of grandeur, as he and the others assumed. A former sentinel recalled that Tsarina Alexandra often scolded Mary in stern, angry whispers, apparently for her being too friendly with the Yekaterinburg guards. Strekotin wrote that his conversations always began with one of the girls saying: "We're so bored!" In Tobolsk there was always something to do. I know! Try to guess this dog's name!".

On the afternoon of July 16, 1918, the last full day of her life, Maria walked through the garden with her father and sisters, and the guards observed nothing unusual in the family's mood. She is as cheerful as ever. In the early morning of July 17, she was murdered by the Bolsheviks along with her family and several of her servants.

The discovery of the bodies

In 1991, bodies believed to belong to the Imperial Family and their servants were finally exhumed from a mass grave in the forest outside Yekaterinburg. The tomb had been found more than a decade earlier, but its discoverers kept it hidden from the communists who still ruled Russia when the tomb was originally found. Once the tomb was opened, the excavators realized that instead of eleven sets of remains (Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, Tsarevich Alexei, the four grand duchesses, Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia; the family doctor, Yevgeny Botkin; his valet, Alexei Trupp; his cook, Ivan Kharitonov; and Alexandra's maid, Anna Demidova) the tomb contained only nine. Alexei and, according to the late forensic expert Dr. William Maples, Anastasia, were missing from the family grave. However, Russian scientists refuted this and claimed that it was Mary's body that was missing.

Photographs taken of the four sisters up to six months before the murders show that María was several centimeters taller than Anastasia and also taller than her sister Olga. However, the height of the skeletons had to be estimated because some of the bones had been cut away and parts of the skeletons were missing. Since teeth and large portions of the jaw were missing from several of the remains, Russian scientists' claim that Anastasia's remains rather than Maria's were in the tomb because none of the skeletons had a gap between the front teeth, also seemed questionable to the Americans.

Canonization

After the dissolution of the USSR, the place where the imperial family was buried came to light. The Grand Duchess, along with the rest of the family, was canonized as a martyr by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000.

In 2007 the discovery of the bodies of the tsar's two sons was announced. After DNA testing, they were identified. Indeed, in April 2008 a laboratory confirmed that the remains found in 2007 corresponded to Maria and Alexei, putting an end to the story of the last imperial family of Russia.

Honorary distinctions

• Lady of the Order of Saint Catherine, Russian Empire.

Ancestors