Pretty as a Hummingbird

My own little space/ side history blog /ISTP/25

[romanovsonelastdance]

Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia, daughter of Anastasia Mikhailovna.

[elsalouisa]

"The educational program was certainly extended with the founding of more and more institutes. The pupils left for home at Christmas and Easter, and for the whole of the summer. The female members of the dynasty, in particular either dowager or reigning Empresses, continued to take a keen interest in those schools. But certain details decreed by Catherine the Great still remained in force. To the very end- till 1917-the girls went on wearing uniforms made according to an eighteenth-century pattern. It consisted of a long and tremendously wide robe of fine wool, maroon for the juniors, powder blue for "the middle," and a rather ugly green for the seniors. The robe had a boned bodice, cut very low in front and at the back, and the ruched sleeves came down but a few inches below the shoulder. Over the robe came a small white lawn apron, and the bare arms were covered by white lawn sleeves. Over the shoulders came a short cape of the same material. The pupils wore shoes of a heavy black woolen fabric and white stockings.

All the Institutes were housed in immense buildings; class- rooms and dormitories were heated rather inadequately, and didn't one shiver through the long wintry days! The very last of such Institutes was founded by Grand Duchess Xenia in either 1895 or 1896. It was housed in the immense palace of Grand Duke Peter, quite close to Nicholas Bridge on the south bank.

I can't now remember what connection my father had with it, but I believe it had something to do with "the higher education" for girls: "Xeniinsky," as it came to be known, was the only school of its kind to possess the so-called superior courses, where girls, having finished the seven-year program, stayed on studying both science and humanities. And in August 1913 I found myself taken as a grand-ducal pupil (my mother could never have afforded the fees) and entered the Upper Third in a mood of intense rebellion. My stay there was to last till May 1916-but I felt robbed of all my liberties. The garden was big-but not big enough. The lessons naturally included such abominations as geometry and physics, and the masters we had made nothing interesting of the subjects they taught. We used to go home three times a year, but the start of every holiday depended on our conduct marks. During my first term I so distinguished myself that I left for Christmas five days later then the rest and was told I could consider myself lucky not to be expelled. It happened during a history lesson. The master was a retired artillery officer. He sat at his high dais, droning on and on about Henry VIII and his successors. Suddenly I heard him say:

"Henry had one son, who reigned as Edward VI, whose mother was the unfortunate Anne Boleyn." He paused and I shot up from my desk. "I am sorry-but Edward VI's mother was Jane Seymour!"

The dame de classe, always present at every lesson "to observe proprieties, gasped. So did the girls. The master did not. His face an angry red, he barked at me:

"Sit down."

I did, conscious of the enormity but quite unashamed of it. There followed an uncomfortable interview with the head- mistress. To correct a master during a lesson was terrible, she told me. "But he doesn't know enough history to teach it," I stammered...

...In May 1916 we were "out," and few, if any, of us knew that by May 1917 Xeniinsky would exist no longer. By 1920 the building had become the "Palace of Labor," but I have no idea what the "Labor" consisted of. Anyway, the great forecourt was closed to all outsiders.

The Institutes' traditions, uniform, and way of life may well have been archaic in the twentieth century. But its discipline was good both for the mind and the body".

Edith Martha Almedingen "My St. Petersburg, a reminiscence of childhood"

[foreverinthepagesofhistoryy]

Princess Alexandra of Wales ~ 1860s

*·˚ ꕥ *·˚

[expressions-of-nature]

11th March 809, A 22 year old Japanese Emperor writes about his new cat.

“On the 6th Day of the 2nd Month of the First Year of the Kampo era. Taking a moment of my free time, I wish to express my joy of the cat. It arrived by boat as a gift to the late Emperor, received from the hands of Minamoto no Kuwashi.

The color of the fur is peerless. None could find the words to describe it, although one said it was reminiscent of the deepest ink. It has an air about it, similar to Kanno. Its length is 5 sun, and its height is 6 sun. I affixed a bow about its neck, but it did not remain for long.

In rebellion, it narrows its eyes and extends its needles. It shows its back.

When it lies down, it curls in a circle like a coin. You cannot see its feet. It’s as if it were circular Bi disk. When it stands, its cry expresses profound loneliness, like a black dragon floating above the clouds.

By nature, it likes to stalk birds. It lowers its head and works its tail. It can extend its spine to raise its height by at least 2 sun. Its color allows it to disappear at night.

I am convinced it is superior to all other cats.”

[elsalouisa]

Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia to Queen Victoria:

"The Grand Duchess Olga was here two days. She was very cold and uncivil to me, almost rude, when I went to see her she never asked me to sit down but sat at the table with her back turned to me, and condescended to ask me when I went away, whether I was sixteen. She is so shockingly dressed, her things so crumpled and soiled and she herself, oh so fannee and worn:, no remains of good looks, the Grand Duchess Marie must have been much prettier. Poor Grand Duchess Olga, I pity her, she looks so melancholy and sick of everything. (I don't very much wonder that she is of her own husband.) Of course I kept my reflections to myself and only tell you and Papa on paper what I think".

Queen Victoria to Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia:

"What could the Princess Royal of Wurttemberg mean by being so rude to you? You ought not to keep your feelings to yourself, for you owe it to your own position — to the country you come from, not to allow yourself to be treated with rudeness. You will remember that I said to you, you must always make a great difference between your conduct to the Queen and the Princesses of your husband’s family to whom you belong — and the Russian family who have never been considered as better or as high as our family. What moreover I cannot comprehend and think ought not to be tolerated is that people— (even your own ladies in writing to me) call the Princess Royal of Wurttemberg the Grand Duchess Olga — and you Princess Frederick William. She is the second daughter of the Emperor of Russia, married to the son and Heir-Prince of Wurttemberg consequently less in rank than her husband 5 you are the eldest daughter of the Queen of England, with a title and rights of your own, fifth in succession and married to a nephew of the King, therefore decidedly higher in rank than your husband 5 yet you — they call Princess Frederick William and make difficulties in adding even your name after the other! Now I don’t at all consider it advisable or necessary that the wife should (excepting in her own country where she has her own alloted place) take her name instead of her husband’s, but then it should be the same with all princesses. I don’t understand what that means, when I am answered that the Princess Royal of Wurttemberg always has been called Grand Duchess Olga, why the Princess Royal of Great Britain should not also always be called Princess Royal! I think this distinction is one which cannot be accepted by anyone^ our princes never admitted the Grand Dukes of Russia having precedence over them; Romanoffs are not to be compared to the houses of Brunswick, Saxony and Hohenzollern. Therefore there must be one rule for all, and one system. Moreover the Princess Royal of Wiirttemberg is always called so at Stuttgart. These are things which may appear trifles, but which the honour and dignity of one’s country do not allow to be overlooked".

[elsalouisa]

"The whole appearance of the Empress of Mexico, who was then only twenty-six years old, betrayed the deepest grief and most harassing anxiety. She was tall, with a fine, elegant figure, a round face, beautiful, deepset brown eyes, and most charming features. She wore a long black silk dress which still showed the creases of packing, testifying its wearer's impatience of delay, as it had evidently been hastily drawn from the trunk where it had lain during the long voyage and hurriedly donned, without undergoing any freshening process. A black lace mantle and a very becoming white hat which had been purchased ready trimmed that very morning at some milliner's emporium, completed this simple costume".

Madame Carette "Recollections of the court of the Tuileries"

[kootyl]

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Tsar Nicholas II walking with their eldest daughter, Grand Duchess Olga Romanov in Kharkiv, 1902.

[roehenstart]

Lithograph of King Alexander of Greece and Aspasia Manos.

[pokadandelion]

Louise of Orleans, Queen of the Belgians

[pokadandelion]

Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, German Empress and Queen of Prussia (1811-1890)

[d3utschem4rk]

The coronation of Nicholas II of Russia May 26th (O.S. May 14th), 1896

by Laurits Tuxen (Danish, 1853 - 1927) oil on canvas (87,5 x 66 cm), 1898

General Staff Building, Sankt Peterburg

[from-sandringham]

Portrait by Terence Cuneo

[tiny-librarian]

On this day in history, September 9th, in 1543, a 9 month old Mary Stuart was officially crowned “Queen of Scots” in the town of Stirling.

Little Mary had already been Queen for almost all of those 9 months since her father, James V, died when she was only 6 days old.

[ohsoromanov]

Three versions of the 1898 portraits of Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia made by Josef Arpád Koppay.

[teatimeatwinterpalace]

Queen Henrietta Maria by the studio of Anthony Van Dyck, 17th century.

Around noon on 9 february 1649 Queen Henrietta Maria sat down to dinner in the Palace of the Louvre. Here, in her ground-floor apartments looking out over the River Seine, she was just a few rooms away from the bedchamber where she had been born almost forty years before. As a girl of fifteen, seated on a throne in another nearby state chamber, Henrietta had received her first love letter from the English prince she was to marry. Everything about her then had been French: her exquisitely tailored silk dress, her hair in tiny curls, her witty conversation, her whole outlook on the world. But now, after twenty-three years of marriage, Paris was merely a 'sad place of exile'. Her love for her husband and her children - three sons and three daughters still survived of the nine babies she had borne - tied her to England, as did a real affection for the country and its people. Visitors to the Louvre were regaled with praises of the land she had been forced to leave. For ten or twelve years, they heard, she had been 'the happiest princess in the world' Her husband, King Charles I - 'mon cher cœur', 'my dear heart' - was the best of men: 'good, just, wise', 'a king, a husband and a friend' all in one. The love between them was 'the admiration of all Europe'.

Henrietta's charm was irresistible. 'She had an infinity of wit, that sparkling wit which pleases beholders,' Madame de Motteville recalled. 'She was agreeable in society, courteous, pleasant and easy to get on with; living without the slightest ceremony amongst those who had the honour of being near her. Her temperament was inclined towards mirth; and among her tears, if something amusing occurred to her, she would somehow stop crying to entertain the company.' All in all 'she made herself loved by everyone'. Even the young Sophia was won round after a few minutes conversation and 'from that time forward I considered her quite handsome'. | A Royal Passion: The Turbulent Marriage of King Charles I of England and Henrietta Maria of France by Katie Whitaker 

[feifalik]

Empress Nam Phương (14 November 1913 – 16 September 1963), born Marie-Thérèse Nguyễn Hữu Thị Lan, was the last Empress consort of Vietnam. Portraits by Madame d'Ora, around 1935. © Nachlass Madame d’Ora, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

[major-knighton]

It was cocky and overconfident to call the Titanic "unsinkable" but one thing that's overlooked is that she was genuinely really, unusually solid. She could float even with 4 compartments fully flooded, which even a lot of modern day ships can't do.

And it's not like they were wrong about her being solid! Olympic, her identical sister ship, survived being torpedoed and then running over the U-Boat that fired that torpedo. Those ships were solid.

It's very clear that absolutely no other ship in 1912 would have been able to survive that collision, and it's a testament to the quality of the ship that she didn't sink in a few minutes Empress of Ireland style. Part of what makes the Titanic such a tragic story is that it isn't a group of rich idiots locking themselves in a shoddy iron barrel to go 4km underwater. It was 2200 people, most of whom were poor immigrants, on a reliable ship on a commonly-made journey, and then something went horribly, unpredictably wrong.

[professorspork]

#also the White Star Line never billed Titanic as unsinkable #the media kind of did though most of that was posthumous #but she was NOT officially advertised that way#and before anyone mentions the lifeboat thing: #it's a myth that lifeboats were removed for aesthetic reasons #and Titanic had WAY more lifeboats than was required or expected at the time #in a design environment where lifeboats were seen as deathtraps significantly less safe than staying with the extremely well-designed snip #titanic isn't a story of carelessness #no expense was spared on safety #and oh my god they did not lock third-class passengers in to die on purpose that is a movie it is fake (via @mylordshesacactus)

[gay-jesus-probably]

There WERE gates seperating third class from the rest of the boat, but those gates were. Literally just waist high fences. They were just there to mark 'hey you're not allowed past here' in universal language, and that was it. It was physically impossible to trap third class passengers in the ship.

What DID happen with a lot of third class passengers was just a case of really unfortunate circumstances - they had the worst steward to passenger ratio, they were the furthest down in the ship, AND they had the widest diversity of languages, giving them the least time to get out, and the worst communication barriers. And even then, y'know what many surviving third class passengers reported?

People did not evacuate third class. They knew the ship was sinking, and they stayed put, because of an overwhelming amount of learned helplessness - for the majority of these people, their lives had NEVER been their own, they were always in the hands of greater powers. So they stayed put, they waited to be ordered to leave, and when those orders never came... they died. Which is fucking awful, but... yeah, not really a design flaw; just the nature of the tragedy.

Anyways, all that aside, I also hate it when people smugly talk about how mOrE LiFeBoAtS would have saved more people, like. Dude, holy shit, the Titanic actually sank EXTREMELY fast, boats that size normally took the better part of a day to sink, she was gone in about two hours. More lifeboats wouldn't have done anything. They didn't even have enough time to launch all the lifeboats they did have - Collapsible A was launched with the sides still down, so all passengers were sitting in ankle deep water all night, meanwhile Collapsible B was never launched at all - it was swept overboard and wound up upside down in the water (with the one surviving radio operator, Harold Bride trapped underneath). The survivors on Collapsible B were mainly men, who managed to climb on top of it, and under the command of Third Officer Lightoller (highest ranked survivor), the men standing on the overturned boat kept it balanced and floating all night, while towing more survivors in the water.

This obviously had high casualty rates, but one of the survivors they towed in the water was the ships head baker Charles Joughin, the final person to leave the Titanic, as he managed to climb up to the top of the stern as it tipped, and calmly rode it down like an elevator while people were panicking and jumping; Joughin didn't even get his hair wet (the Titanic movie also lied about the ship 'sucking people down with it' btw). Joughin also spent the entire sinking drinking heavily, which probably helped him stay calm, and when he was rescued his only health concerns were mild frostbite in his feet, and a raging hangover, god bless.

Anyways as for the lifeboats not being fully loaded, that WAS a mistake, but not the crews fault - that was STANDARD PROCEDURE in the day, lifeboats were NOT meant to be fully loaded while still in the air, you were supposed to put some people in, send them down, the load the rest in the water; loading them in the air would cause their hulls to break from the weight. Now, the lifeboats on the Titanic DID have reinforced hulls, so they actually could be fully loaded in the air, which had held up in testing... but the crew and officers had NOT been informed of that fact. When they were launching full lifeboats near the end, Lightoller's admitted in his inquiry testimony that it was an extremely reckless choice being made out of desperation.

Anyways, if you are also a nerd and want to know how the Titanic sinking actually went down first hand, why not get it right from the primary sources? There was a US Senate Inquiry that began literally the day after the Carpathia arrived in New York, the British held their own inquiry later, and the full transcripts of both can be found here. Extremely interesting stuff - during Gugliemo Marconi's testinmony on the first day, you can literally see the inquiry realizing in real time that hey, why the FUCK isn't it mandatory for ships to have someone at the radio at all times in case of emergency? Really neat stuff.

[bohba13-writing-den]

The other thing is, and we didn't realize this for decades after, was that the steel we made those ships out of have different material properties at different temperatures. The steel that made up the Titanic's hull when faced with normal seawater temperatures bends and flexes elastically as we would expect, but when put in the temperatures we would see in the arctic at the time, It shatters!

We would not learn this until the second world war! and it is still likely that any ship from our era, put in the same situation, with the exact damage suffered, would still fare worse.

The only difference is the modern procedures and practices would have saved more lives.

Put simply, The titanic was exactly the type of ship you wanted to be on if something went wrong. because every single feature of that ship did its job in the worst case scenario.

they bought time.