Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Maria Pavlovna of Russia)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, wife of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, brother of Tsar Alexander III, wearing the famous Vladimir Tiara
Born May 14, 1854(1854-05-14)
Ludwigslust, Germany
Died September 6, 1920 (aged 66)
Contrexéville, France
Occupation Royalty
Parents Friedrich Franz II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Augusta of Reuss-Köstritz
For other persons named Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, see Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia.

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 Augusta of Reuss-Köstritz.

She married the third son of Alexander II of Russia, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia (April 22, 1847 - February 17, 1909) on August 28, 1874. She had been engaged to someone else, but broke it off as soon as she met Vladimir. It took three more years before they were permitted to marry. Raised as Lutheran, she refused to convert to the Russian Orthodox Church. Tsar Alexander II finally agreed to let Vladimir marry her without insisting on her conversion to Orthodoxy.[1] 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. They had four sons, Alexander Vladimirovich, who died in infancy;Kirill Vladimirovich, Boris Vladimirovich, and Andrei Vladimirovich, and one daughter, Elena Vladimirovna.[2]

She was the grandest of the grand duchesses, and formed an alternate court in the later years of the reign of her nephew Nicholas II[3] The Grand Duchess hated The Czar and Czarina towards the end of the dynasty (especially the Czarina). Along with her sons, she contemplated a coup against the Tsar in the winter of 1916-1917, that would force the Tsar's abdication and replacement by his son, with Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich as regent.[4] In seeking support for the coup, she famously told Duma president Mikhail Rodzianko that the Empress, must be "annihilated." [5]

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 Caucausus with her two younger sons throughout 1917 and 1918, still 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 to escape through Constantinople presented themselves she still 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(Kschessinska was also the former mistress of Nicholas II), and Andrei and Mathilde's son Vladimir (Vova), boarded an Italian ship headed to Venice on February 13, 1920.[6] Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia encountered Maria at the port of Novorossik in early 1920: "When even generals found themselves lucky to find a horse cart and an old nag to bring them to safety, Aunt Miechen made a long journey in her own train. It was battered all right--but it was hers. For the first time in my life I found it a pleasure to kiss her..."[7] Maria made her way from Venice to Switzerland and then to France, where her health failed. She died on August 24, 1920, surrounded by her family at Contrexéville where she retained a villa.[8] With the help of a family friend, her renowned jewel collection was smuggled out of Russia in a diplomatic bag. One of her tiaras is today owned by Queen Elizabeth II.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Charlotte Zeepvat, The Camera and the Tsars: A Romanov Family Album, Sutton Publishing, 2004, p. 45
  2. ^ Paul Theroff (2007). "Russia". An Online Gotha. Retrieved on January 5, 2007.
  3. ^ Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, 1967, p. 388
  4. ^ Massie, p. 388-390
  5. ^ Massie, p. 389
  6. ^ John Curtis Perry and Constantine Pleshakov, The Flight of the Romanovs, Perseus Books Group, 1999, pp. 228-232
  7. ^ Vorres
  8. ^ Perry and Pleshakov, pp. 263-264

[edit] References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: