Letters to Mashka @letterstomashka - Tumblr Blog

imperial-russia

Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, St Petersburg c.1890

#San Petersburgo

letterstomashka

Happy Mother’s Day <3

#<3

aw-laurendet

Princess Irina Pavlovna Paley…..eldest daughter through the Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich Romanov of Russia’s second marriage.

#Irina Paley

delicate-flowers-of-the-past

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna with two ladies.

#Maria Nikolaevna

imperial-russia

Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse and his bride Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha at the very beginning of their unhappy marriage, 9 April 1894. According to her aunt Empress Victoria of Prussia the bride “looked very charming and distingueé. She had a plain white silk gown with hardly any trimming, and Aunt Alice´s [Ernst´s mother] wedding veil, a light slender diadem of emeralds with a sprig of orange blossom stuck behind it. It all suited her charmingly. During the service Aunt Marie was very calm, but the tears rolled down Uncle Alfred´s cheeks, and Grandmama´s and mine to…”

The two young people with completely uncompatible characters were pushed into the union by their grandmother Queen Victoria, who, upon learning about the failure of the marriage some time later, vowed never to play a matchmaker again. At the same time she refused to allow a divorce. Ernst and Victoria eventually separated after her death.

#Ernst of Hesse #Victoria Melita

romanovsonelastdance

OTMA with their maternal aunts Ella and Victoria, and cousins Louise and Dickie.

When the Tsarina’s sister Victoria–the Marchioness of Milford Haven–heard that the Tsar had left for Ekaterinburg, she wrote a letter to Arthur Balfour, then Foreign Secretary, asking if it would be possible for at least three of the Tsar’s children to be brought to England and placed in her custody. ‘I quite realize that the boy is a political asset which no party in Russia would allow to be taken out of its hands, but the girls (except perhaps the eldest) can be of no value or importance,’ she said. ‘I and my husband would willingly keep them here in quiet obscurity.’ She received a reply that the difficulties in the way of such a proposal were ‘almost insuperable.’ From Princess Marina, Her Life and Times, by Stella King.

#victoria of hesse #The Romanov Family

imperial-russia

Former Grand Duchesses Maria, Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia under house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo, spring 1917

#OTMA

imperial-russia

Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia

Dmitri has often been portrayed as s golden youth. Writers speak of his sterling character, handsome bearing, and success as a lieutenant in the Third Cavalry Regiment of the Imperial Life Guards. A more balanced analysis, however, reveals a different picture. In reality, he was pale, thin, and nervous; his inpredictable moods and fits of depression were notirious. The Grand Duke was also an alcoholic, dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure in and attempts to combat his melancholy. Meriel Buchanan, daughter of the British ambassador, remembered him as “recklessly dissipated.” She wrote that he suffered from a “lack of purpose, indecision and an inherent weakness.” And another of Dmitri´s acquintances, the Honorable Bertie Stopford, an aide at the British embassy in the capital, referred to the Grand Duke as “always helpless and desolate.” With such a character, Dmitri easily fell under the powerful influence of Felix Youssoupov.

The passage of time and destruction of relevant papers make it impossible to say precisely what the nature of the relationship between Felix and Dmitri may have been. But gossip at the time linked the two men romantically. Members of the Romanov family, the imperial court, and the aristocracy were all privy to the information which confirmed the existence of such a relationship, if not the intimate details. Even today there are confessions of a romantic liaison. Many well acquainted with Felix and Dmitri seem to have accepted the fact that the relationship did indeed occur.

Greg King: The Man Who Killed Rasputin

#Dmitri Pavlovich

aw-laurendet

Princess Elisabeth of Hesse (Darmstadt) and By Rhine before she became the Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna Romanova of Russia.

#Elizabeth Feodorovna

imperial-russia

The Danish Princess Dagmar, who became the Russian Empress Maria Feodorovna, was in many ways a noteworthy figure among royal European women. She was only one of many leading Russian empresses since Catherine the Great, but it is she who stands out most clearly. She was Empress of Russia for 36 years, leaving a reputation that only few others have enjoyed. She must have been an exceptional person: no one who wrote memoirs of the enormous Russian court had anything but good to say about the Empress.

It is of no consequence whether the Empress Maria Feodorovna had great intellectual gifts or not: she was wise. It is true that she was born a Danish princess and throughout her life retained a profound love of her fatherland, but she became Russian. She learned the language, and she shared her husband´s and her contemporaries´ view of Russian society. She exerted her indisputable political influence through quiet, carefully considered pressure, later slightly more noticeably exerted on her son Nicholas II.

Ole Villumsen Krog: Kejserinde Dagmar

#Maria Feodorovna

russianprincesses

Nicholas II with his four daughters, Anastasia, Olga, Tatiana and poor Maria stranded in the middle of a fountain. Looks like Nicholas wants to make her fall! Crimea 1914