|
Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (''Maria Nikolaevna Romanova''; Russian: Великая Княжна Мария Николаевна, – July 17, 1918) was the third daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna (Alix of Hesse). In 1900 and later, her birthday came on June 27 new style. Her murder following the Russian Revolution of 1917 resulted in her canonization as a passion bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church. During her lifetime, Maria, too young to become a Red Cross nurse like her elder sisters during World War I, was patroness of a hospital and instead visited wounded soldiers. Throughout her lifetime she was noted for her interest in the lives of the soldiers. The flirtatious Maria had a number of innocent crushes on the young men she met, beginning in early childhood. She hoped to marry and have a large family. She was an elder sister of the famous Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, whose alleged escape from the assassination of the imperial family was rumored for nearly 90 years.〔Kurth (1983), p. xiv〕 However, it was later proven that Anastasia did not escape. In the 1990s, it was suggested that Maria might have been the grand duchess whose remains were missing from the Romanov grave that was discovered near Yekaterinburg, Russia and exhumed in 1991.〔Klier and Mingay (1995), p. 203〕 However, further remains were discovered in 2007, and DNA analysis subsequently proved that the entire Imperial family had been murdered in 1918. ==Life and characteristics== Contemporaries described Maria as a pretty, flirtatious girl, broadly built, with light brown hair and large blue eyes that were known in the family as "Marie's saucers".〔Massie (1967), p. 133.〕 Her French tutor Pierre Gilliard said Maria was tall and well-built, with rosy cheeks. Tatiana Botkina thought the expression in Maria's eyes was "soft and gentle."〔Kurth (1983), p. 138〕 As an infant and toddler, her physical appearance was compared to one of Botticelli's angels. Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia nicknamed her "The Amiable Baby" because of her good nature. As a toddler, little Maria once escaped from her bath and ran naked up and down the palace corridor while her distracted Irish nurse, Margaretta Eagar, who loved politics, discussed the Dreyfus Affair with a friend. "Fortunately, I arrived just at that moment, picked her up and carried her back to Miss Eagar, who was still talking about Dreyfus," recalled her aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia.〔Massie (1967), p. 132〕 Her older sisters objected to including Maria in their games and once referred to Maria as their "stepsister" because she was so good and never got into trouble, recalled Margaretta Eagar in her own memoirs. However, on occasion the sweet-natured Maria could be mischievous. Once, as a little girl, she stole some biscuits from her mother's tea table. As a punishment for her surprising behavior, the governess and Alexandra suggested she be sent to bed; however Nicholas objected, stating, "I was always afraid of the wings growing. I am glad to see she is only a human child." Eagar noted that Maria's love for her father was "marked" and she often tried to escape from the nursery to "go to Papa." When the Tsar was ill with typhoid, the little girl covered a miniature portrait of him with kisses every night.〔 Maria's siblings were Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, Grand Duchess Tatiana of Russia, Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia, and Tsarevich Alexei of Russia. Maria's Russian title (''Velikaya Knyazhna'' Великая Княжна) is most precisely translated as "Grand Princess", meaning that Maria, as an "Imperial Highness" was higher in rank than other Princesses in Europe who were "Royal Highnesses". "Grand Duchess" is the most widely used English translation of the title.〔Zeepvat (2004), p. xiv.〕 However, in keeping with her parents' desire to raise Maria and her siblings simply, even servants addressed the Grand Duchess by her first name and patronym, Maria Nikolaevna. She was also called by the French version of her name, "Marie," or by the Russian nicknames "Masha" or "Mashka". Maria and her younger sister Anastasia were known within the family as "The Little Pair." The two girls shared a room, often wore variations of the same dress, and spent much of their time together. Their older sisters Olga and Tatiana also shared a room and were known as "The Big Pair." The four girls sometimes signed letters using the nickname OTMA, which was derived from the first letters of their first names.〔Christopher, Kurth, Radzinsky (1995), pp. 88–89〕 Maria and Anastasia were dressed similarly for special occasions, when they wore variations of the same dress.〔Massie (1967), p. 133〕 She tended to be dominated by her enthusiastic and energetic younger sister. When Anastasia tripped people who walked by, teased others or caused a scene with her dramatics, Maria always tried to apologize, though she could never stop her younger sister.〔 Maria had simple tastes and was so kind-hearted that she was sometimes taken advantage of by her sisters, who nicknamed her "fat little bow-wow."〔 In 1910, her fourteen-year-old sister Olga persuaded ten-year-old Maria to write their mother a letter asking that Olga be given her own room and be allowed to let down her dresses. Maria tried to persuade her mother that it was her own idea to write the letter.〔Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), p. 337〕 Her mother's friend, Lili Dehn, said that while Maria was not as lively as her three sisters, she knew her own mind. Maria had a talent for drawing and sketched well, always using her left hand, but was generally uninterested in her schoolwork.〔 She was surprisingly strong and sometimes amused herself by demonstrating how she could lift her tutors off the ground.〔 Though usually sweet-natured, Maria could also be stubborn〔 and occasionally lazy.〔Massie, p133〕 Her mother complained in one letter that Maria was grumpy and "bellowed" at the people who irritated her. Maria's moodiness coincided with her menstrual period, which the Tsarina and her daughters referred to as a visit from "Madame Becker."〔Mironenko and Maylunas (1997), p. 463〕 Young Maria enjoyed innocent flirtations with the young soldiers she encountered at the palace and on family holidays. She particularly loved children and, had she not been a Grand Duchess, would have loved nothing more than to marry a Russian soldier and raise a large family.〔 Maria was fond of soldiers from a very early age, according to Margaretta Eagar: Until his own assassination in 1979, her first cousin, Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, kept a photograph of Maria beside his bed in memory of the crush he had upon her.〔King and Wilson (2003), p. 49〕 Alexandra's letters reveal that Maria, the middle child of the family, sometimes felt insecure and left out by her older sisters and feared she wasn't loved as much as the other children. Alexandra reassured her that she was as dearly loved as her siblings. At age eleven, Maria apparently developed a painful crush on one of the young men she had met. "Try not to let your thoughts dwell too much on him, that's what our Friend said," Alexandra wrote to her on December 6, 1910. Alexandra advised her third daughter to keep her feelings hidden because others might say unkind things to her about her crush. "One must not let others see what one feels inside, when one knows it's considered not proper. I know he likes you as a little sister and would like to help you not to care too much, because he knows you, a little Grand Duchess, must not care for him so."〔Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), p. 336〕 Maria, like all her family, doted on the long-awaited heir Tsarevich Alexei, or "Baby," who suffered frequent complications of hemophilia and nearly died several times. Her mother relied on the counsel of Grigori Rasputin, a Russian peasant and wandering ''starets'' or "holy man" and credited his prayers with saving the ailing Tsarevich on numerous occasions. Maria and her siblings were also taught to view Rasputin as "Our Friend" and to share confidences with him. In the autumn of 1907, Maria's aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia was escorted to the nursery by the Tsar to meet Rasputin. Maria, her sisters and brother Alexei were all wearing their long white nightgowns. "All the children seemed to like him," Olga Alexandrovna recalled. "They were completely at ease with him."〔Massie (1967), pp. 199–200〕 Rasputin's friendship with the imperial children was evident in the messages he sent to them. "My Dear Pearl M!" Rasputin wrote the nine-year-old Maria in one telegram in 1908. "Tell me how you talked with the sea, with nature! I miss your simple soul. We will see each other soon! A big kiss." In a second telegram, Rasputin told the child, "My Dear M! My Little Friend! May the Lord help you to carry your cross with wisdom and joy in Christ. This world is like the day, look it's already evening. So it is with the cares of the world."〔Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), p. 314〕 In February 1909, Rasputin sent all of the imperial children a telegram, advising them to "Love the whole of God's nature, the whole of His creation in particular this earth. The Mother of God was always occupied with flowers and needlework."〔Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), p. 321〕 One of the girls' governesses, Sofia Ivanovna Tyutcheva, was horrified in 1910 because Rasputin was permitted access to the nursery when the four girls were in their nightgowns. Tyutcheva wanted Rasputin barred from the nurseries. In response to Tyutcheva's complaints, Nicholas did ask Rasputin to end his nursery visits. "I am so afr(aid) that S.I. can speak ... about our friend something bad," Maria's twelve-year-old sister Tatiana wrote to her mother on March 8, 1910, after begging Alexandra to forgive her for doing something she didn't like. "I hope our nurse will be nice to our friend now."〔Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), p. 330〕 Alexandra eventually had Tyutcheva fired.〔Radzinsky (2000), p. 139〕 Tyutcheva took her story to other members of the family, who were scandalized by the reports, though Rasputin's contacts with the children were by all accounts completely innocent.〔Massie (1967), p. 208〕 Nicholas's sister Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia was horrified by Tyutcheva's story. She wrote on March 15, 1910 that she couldn't understand "...the attitude of Alix and the children to that sinister Grigory (whom they consider to be almost a saint, when in fact he's only a ''khlyst''!) He's always there, goes into the nursery, visits Olga and Tatiana while they are getting ready for bed, sits there talking to them and ''caressing'' them. They are careful to hide him from Sofia Ivanovna, and the children don't dare talk to her about him. It's all quite unbelievable and beyond understanding."〔 Another of the nursery governesses claimed in the spring of 1910 that she was raped by Rasputin. Maria Ivanovna Vishnyakova had at first been a devotee of Rasputin, but later was disillusioned by him. The empress refused to believe Vishnyakova "and said that everything Rasputin does is holy." Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was told that Vishnyakova's claim had been immediately investigated, but "they caught the young woman in bed with a Cossack of the Imperial Guard." Vishnyakova was dismissed from her post in 1913.〔Radzinsky (2000), pp. 129–130.〕 It was whispered in society that Rasputin had seduced not only the Tsarina but also the four grand duchesses.〔Mager (1998), p. 257〕 Rasputin had released ardent letters written to him by the Tsarina and the four grand duchesses. The letters circulated throughout society, fueling the rumors. Pornographic cartoons also circulated that depicted Rasputin having sexual relations with the empress, with her four daughters and Anna Vyrubova nude in the background.〔Christopher et al. (1995), p. 115.〕 Nicholas ordered Rasputin to leave St. Petersburg for a time, much to Alexandra's displeasure, and Rasputin went on a pilgrimage to Palestine.〔Christopher et al. (1995), p. 116〕 Despite the scandal, the imperial family's association with Rasputin continued until Rasputin was murdered on December 17, 1916. "Our Friend is so contented with our girlies, says they have gone through heavy 'courses' for their age and their souls have much developed," Alexandra wrote to Nicholas on December 6, 1916.〔Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), p. 489〕 In his memoirs, A. A. Mordvinov reported that the four grand duchesses appeared "cold and visibly terribly upset" by Rasputin's death and sat "huddled up closely together" on a sofa in one of their bedrooms on the night they received the news. Mordvinov reported that the young women were in a gloomy mood and seemed to sense the political upheaval that was about to be unleashed.〔Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), p. 507〕 Rasputin was buried with an icon signed on its reverse side by Maria, her sisters, and mother. Maria attended Rasputin's funeral on December 21, 1916 and her family planned to build a church over his grave site.〔Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), p. 511〕 Maria, like her mother, was likely a carrier of the hemophilia gene and might have passed on the disease to another generation if she had survived to have the children she dreamed of. One of Alexandra's brothers and two of her nephews, as well as one of her maternal uncles and two children of one of her first cousins were all hemophiliacs, as was Maria's brother Alexei. Maria herself reportedly hemorrhaged in December 1914 during an operation to remove her tonsils, according to her paternal aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, who was interviewed later in her life. The doctor performing the operation was so unnerved that he had to be ordered to continue by Maria's mother, Tsarina Alexandra. Olga Alexandrovna said she believed all four of her nieces bled more than was normal and believed they were carriers of the hemophilia gene like their mother.〔Vorres (1965), p. 115.〕 Symptomatic carriers of the gene, while not hemophiliacs themselves, can have symptoms of hemophilia including a lower than normal blood clotting factor that can lead to heavy bleeding during childbirth or surgical procedures such as a tonsillectomy.〔Zeepvat, p. 175〕 DNA testing on the remains of the royal family proved in 2009 that Alexei suffered from hemophilia B, a rarer form of the disease. The same testing proved that his mother and one of the four Grand Duchesses were carriers. Russians identify the grand duchess who carried the gene as Anastasia, but American scientists identified the young woman as Maria. Like her younger sister Anastasia, Maria visited wounded soldiers at a private hospital on the grounds of the palace at Tsarskoye Selo during World War I. The two teenagers, who were too young to become nurses like their mother and elder sisters, played games of checkers and billiards with the soldiers and attempted to uplift their spirits. A wounded soldier named Dmitri signed Maria's commonplace book and addressed her by one of her nicknames: "the famous Mandrifolie".〔Kurth (1983), p. 417.〕 During the war, Maria and Anastasia also paid a visit to a nurses' school and helped to tend to the children. She wrote her father that she thought of him when she was feeding the children and cleaned the gruel running down their chins with a spoon.〔Bokhanov et al. (1993), p. 125〕 For a break during the war, Maria, her sisters and mother sometimes visited the Tsar and Tsarevich Alexei at the war headquarters in Mogilev. During these visits, Maria developed an attraction to Nikolai Dmitrievich Demenkov, an officer of the day at the Tsar's Headquarters. When the women returned to Tsarskoye Selo, Maria often asked her father to give her regards to Demenkov and sometimes jokingly signed her letters to the Tsar "Mrs. Demenkov."〔Bokhanov et al., p. 125〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (1899–1918)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|