Maria Romanova is one of the daughters of Nicholas II. All the twists and turns of her fate were associated with belonging to the crowned family. She lived a short life, cut off on a summer night in 1918 due to the massacre of the Bolsheviks. The figure of Mary, her sisters, brother and parents became symbols of the tragic history of Russia and the senseless cruelty of the Civil War.
Birth
The third daughter of the last Russian Tsar, Romanova Maria Nikolaevna, was born on June 14, 1899 in Peterhof, where the summer holidays of the imperial family took place. The third pregnancy of Alexandra Fedorovna was not easy. She even fainted, which is why she had to spend the last few weeks in a special gurney. Relatives and doctors seriously feared for the life of the mother and child, but, in the end, the birth went well. The girl was born strong and healthy.
Romanova Maria Nikolaevna was baptized on June 27. The ceremony was conducted by John Yanishev - the confessor of the imperial family. At that moment about 500 people were in the Peterhof Church - relatives, foreign envoys, courtiers, maids of honor. The solemn ceremony ended with a salute of 101 shots, church chanting and bell ringing. True, the very next day, Nikolai’s fatherly joy gave way to bitterness due to news of the death of his brother George, who died of tuberculosis.
Childhood
The nanny of Mary and her sisters was the Englishwoman Margarita Eager. She worked in Russia for six years and, returning to her homeland, published her memories of the royal family. Thanks to these memoirs and many other documents left by witnesses and contemporaries, today you can thoroughly restore the personality traits of the Grand Duchess. Romanova Maria Nikolaevna was a cheerful and agile girl with dark blue eyes and blond blond hair. In adolescence and young age, she was distinguished by high growth.
Due to the simplicity and good natured character, the princess in the family began to be called Masha. The name Mary was also often used. The habit of calling relatives in the English manner was the norm for the royal family. Most of all, Mary was friends with her younger sister Anastasia, under the influence of which she was a little mischievous, and later began to play tennis. Another favorite hobby of girls was music - often they turned on the gramophone and, to exhaustion, jumped to his tunes. Under the daughters' bedroom was the room of Alexandra Fedorovna, in which she received all kinds of officials. The hype at the top often led to embarrassment, because of which the empress had to send maid of honor there. Maria and Anastasia were considered the “younger” couple as opposed to the “older” - Olga and Tatyana.
In childhood, the sisters had a general abbreviation of OTMA (by the first letters of the names) with which they signed letters. Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna Romanova spent most of her life with her family in Tsarskoye Selo. Her parents did not like the St. Petersburg Winter Palace - it was too big and there were often drafts that often caused the children’s illness.
Every summer, the family went on a cruise on the yacht "Standard". Traveled mainly in the Gulf of Finland and small islands. Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna Romanova was relatively rarely visited abroad. Twice she visited numerous relatives in England and Germany. The royal family, thanks to numerous marriages, was closely associated with all European dynasties.
In early childhood, the girl spent a lot of time with her nanny. A lot of funny and curious episodes of the biography of the royal family were connected with Margarita Eager. For example, because of the nanny, Romanova Maria Nikolaevna acquired an Irish accent in the English language (she was a native of Belfast). The skew led to the imperial family hiring a new teacher, Charles Sydney. He corrected the Irish accent of Mary and her sisters.
The girl began to study at eight years old. Her first subjects were calligraphy, reading, God's law, and arithmetic. Then foreign languages (English, French, German) and natural sciences were added. The piano and dancing were also taught, without which Maria Nikolaevna Romanova could not do. The daughter of Nicholas 2 had to correspond to her status and possess all the skills adopted among girls in the highest aristocratic milieu. Mary was best given English, in which she often spoke with her parents.
Parenting
The girl’s mother was generally very strict. Nikolai behaved completely differently. The father often chided Mary and his other children where Alexandra Fedorovna could punish or rebuke. The empress kept her daughters in hedgehogs - she followed the circle of their communication. When the girls grew up, the mother became afraid of their rapprochement with any aristocratic families or even cousins. From the point of view of Alexandra Fedorovna, proper education must have been deeply Orthodox. The influence of the mother markedly affected the views and characters of the daughters. All of them (especially Olga, but also Mary) became mystically minded and zealous Christians.
Maria Nikolaevna Romanova, like her sisters, never got married - the war prevented. Of course, the daughters of the king were seen as potential brides of future heirs to thrones in other European powers. However, as contemporaries noted, Mary, because of her deep Orthodox faith, did not want to marry a foreigner at all. Together with her sisters, she dreamed of marriage with a Russian aristocrat in her homeland.
Alexandra Fedorovna, isolating her daughters from any extraneous companies, made them infantile. Maria Nikolaevna Romanova, already growing up, could talk like a 10-year-old girl. Deprived of communication with peers and living according to the peculiar rules of the court, she experienced certain difficulties in contact with the adult world.
In the upbringing of the daughters of the emperor there were still many strange features. For example, for some time, the supervision of the girls went to Catherine Schneider, the reader of Alexandra Fedorovna. German in origin, she poorly represented Russian realities. Her horizons were limited to the rules of yard etiquette. Finally, parents treated Mary and her sisters as little girls, even when they were already approaching the threshold of their twenties. For example, Alexandra Fedorovna personally checked every book that her daughters received.
Brother and Rasputin
Mary was the third of the king’s four daughters. In 1904, the emperor finally had a son, Alexei, who became the heir to the throne. The boy suffered from hemophilia - a serious illness, because of which he repeatedly found himself on the edge of life and death. The ailment of the prince was a secret family. Few knew about him, including Maria Nikolaevna Romanova.
The daughter of Nicholas 2 was very fond of his younger brother. This deep sentimental feeling became the reason for attachment to Grigory Rasputin. A Siberian peasant who came to St. Petersburg was able to help the heir to the throne. He eased the suffering of the boy. The main means of this strange pilgrim was prayer. His mysticism further strengthened the fanatical faith in Christianity of the emperor’s daughters. After the murder of Rasputin, Maria attended his funeral service.
During the war
According to Romanov tradition, at the age of 14, Maria was made a colonel of the 9th Dragoon Kazan Regiment. Exactly one year after this event, the First World War began. German Emperor William II was Mary's cousin on his paternal side. On the day of the declaration of war, the girl wept bitterly - she did not understand why the next of kin could not agree among themselves.
Romanova Maria Nikolaevna did not know anything about what bloodshed was. The events of the Russo-Japanese War and the first revolution fell on an almost unconscious age. Now the girl had to plunge into completely different living conditions. Maria and Anastasia worked in hospitals - sewed clothes for the wounded, prepared bandages, etc. While Olga and Tatyana became full-fledged sisters of mercy, their younger sisters were still too young for this. Maria and Anastasia arranged balls in hospitals, played cards with soldiers, read them. The third daughter of Nicholas loved to start conversations with the wounded, to ask them about children and families. Girls were given gifts to each soldier sold out. Often these were images and icons. During the war, one of the hospitals in honor of Mary was named Mariinsky.
In addition to the fact that William was the closest relative of the royal family, Alexandra Fedorovna herself was also German by birth. These facts have become fertile ground for rumors that the empress, princesses, and in general the entire crowned family, one way or another, sympathizes with the enemy. These speculations were especially popular among the military. In hospitals, some soldiers and officers specifically started talking about the German Kaiser in order to prick the girls. Maria answered the direct questions about "Uncle Willie" every time that she did not consider it her uncle and did not want to hear about him.
February revolution
In February 1917, Princess Maria Nikolaevna Romanova was in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo. At the end of the month in Petrograd, mass demonstrations of residents of the city, dissatisfied with the lack of bread, began. On March 2, spontaneous actions ended with the abdication of Nicholas II from the throne. The emperor at that time was at Headquarters at the front. On the way to Petrograd, while on the train, he signed the abdication (for himself and for his son).
Maria learned about the decision of her father thanks to Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich, who had specially arrived at the Alexander Palace. The building was cordoned off by a detachment of soldiers still loyal to the oath. On March 8, Count Pavel Benkendorf informed the Romanov family that from that day she was under house arrest. Nikolai arrived at the palace the next morning.
On the same day, a measles epidemic erupted in the building. Romanova Maria Nikolaevna was also infected. The third daughter of the emperor fell ill after her older sisters. Extremely high temperature. A cold that started at the same time could cause pneumonia. For several days, the princess did not get out of bed, she started raving. Otitis was soon added. The girl, even for a while, became deaf in one ear.
House arrest
After recovery, the former Princess Maria Nikolaevna Romanova returned to her usual measured life in Tsarskoye Selo. On the one hand, her daily routine did not change at all - she continued to study, and spent her free time in entertainment with her family. But there have been notable changes. The princesses began to do more house cleaning, cooking, etc. The time for walks was reduced. Family members of the Romanovs could not leave Tsarskoye Selo; a hooting crowd met them near the bars. The free press (especially left-wing newspapers) in every possible way reproached the renounced emperor and his family.
The situation was heating up every day. The further fate of the Romanovs was unclear. Living in Tsarskoye Selo, members of the dynasty were in limbo. After his abdication, Nikolai asked Kerensky to send him to Murmansk, from where he and his family would be able to move to England with his cousin George V. The Provisional Government gave its consent and set about negotiations with London. Soon, preliminary agreement came from England. However, the departure was postponed for a while. This was done because of the same measles that the princesses had, including Romanova Maria Nikolaevna. Alexandra Fedorovna’s daughter recovered, but in April, George had already withdrawn his invitation. The British king changed his mind due to the unstable political situation in his own country. In parliament, the left raised a flurry of criticism toward the monarch because of his intentions to shelter a deposed relative. The English ambassador George Buchanan, sobbing to Kerensky about the will of his king, wept. Nikolai received the news about the cousin’s demarche steadily and calmly.
Departure from Tsarskoye Selo
Amid a surge of anti-monarchist sentiment, the Provisional Government decided to resettle the Romanovs away from Petrograd and Moscow. Kerensky personally discussed this issue with Nikolai and his wife. In particular, the option of moving to Livadia was considered. But ultimately, it was decided to send the former crowned family to Tobolsk. On the one hand, Kerensky convinced Nikolai of the need to leave Tsarskoye Selo, explaining that there the Romanovs would be in constant danger. On the other hand, the head of the Provisional Government could choose Tobolsk in order to please the left, who claimed that the renounced emperor was a serious danger and a figure around which radical monarchists unite.
The train with the Romanovs left Tsarskoye Selo on August 2, 1917. The composition was flying the flag of the Red Cross. The interim government tried to hide all evidence of the displacement of the royal family. Maria Nikolaevna Romanova, whose photo before that constantly came across in the newspapers, together with her relatives disappeared from the public eye. The train arrived in Tyumen on August 5. Then the Romanovs moved to the ship and on it along Tobol reached Tobolsk, where they settled in the house of the former governor. A few servants, maids of honor and teachers, moved with the family.
Tobolsk
The life of the Romanovs in Tobolsk was calm and unremarkable. Soon, however, clouds began to gather over the family. In October 1917, power in Petrograd passed to the Bolsheviks. Unlike the Provisional Government, they did not experience any tolerance for the royal family. The new government was going to judge Nicholas. To do this, it was planned to move the whole family to Moscow or Petrograd. The prosecutor at the trial was going to become Leon Trotsky.
The new guard of the Romanovs in Tobolsk treated them much more unfriendly than the previous. In April 1918, prisoners (except Nikolai) burned their diaries and letters, fearing searches and raids. Romanova Maria Nikolaevna did this too. The biography of the girl promised to be completely different, but in the circumstances of the revolutionary chaos of the Tsar’s daughter, there was nothing left to do but to abandon the last reminders of the previous carefree life.
On April 23, Commissioner Yakovlev informed Nikolai of his intention to take him from Tobolsk. He tried to argue, but then the prisoner was reminded of his captive status. The Bolsheviks were going to take Nicholas alone, but in the end, Alexandra Fedorovna and Romanova Maria Nikolaevna went with him. The third daughter gathered on the road after her mother chose her. Most likely, Alexandra Fedorovna decided to take Maria with her because at that time she was the most physically strong of the four sisters.
None of the travelers knew where they were being taken. Nicholas suggested that the Bolsheviks were going to send him to Moscow so that he personally signed a separate Brest Peace. Among the escorts there was also no unity. After all kinds of intrigues among the Bolsheviks, in late April, prisoners were brought to Yekaterinburg. Upon arrival in the city, almost the entire retinue of the family was sent to a local prison.
Death
The Romanovs were placed in the house of engineer Ipatiev. A month later, on May 23, the rest of the family arrived there. The last days of the Romanovs can be judged by the diary of Nicholas. He led it for almost the entire conscious life and did not abandon it even after this habit became simply dangerous. In the evenings, Maria and her relatives spent time with Bezick (a popular card game) or played scenes from performances. Together with her father, she read Tolstoy's War and Peace.
In early July, the Bolsheviks realized that they would inevitably have to turn in Yekaterinburg to the approaching white. Retreat was only a matter of time. In the circumstances, the party leaders decided to get rid of the royal family. Evidence of how the fate of the Romanovs was decided is contradictory, but today historians generally agreed that the last word was with Lenin and Sverdlov.
On the night of July 16-17, 1918, a truck arrived at the Ipatiev House, which was soon used as a corpse truck. The Romanovs and their servants were lowered into the basement. Until the last second, they did not suspect their fate. The head of the firing squad read out the fateful decree, after which he shot at the former king. Then the rest of the Bolsheviks did the same to the rest of the imperial family.
The tragic death of the Romanovs shocked many: monarchists, liberals, and the foreign public. For many years, the Soviet government perverted the facts of treacherous murder. Many of his circumstances became known only in recent decades. Especially about the Romanovs grieved in exile. Every poem dedicated to Maria Nikolaevna Romanova, every obituary and every testimony of contemporaries who knew and saw the princess, unanimously testified that she was an outstanding girl, worthy of her high status and unjustly perished at the whim of the new government. The remains of the Tsar’s daughter (and her brother Alexei) were discovered only in 2007, although the rest of the Romanovs were found buried in the early 1990s. In 2015, the government decided to rebury them.