Maria Pavlovna
Maria Pavlovna, formerly known as Marie Alexandrine Elisabeth Elenoure, was the daughter of Friedrich Franz II, Archduke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany. After marrying into the Romanov family, there was soon an uproar.
Because of her German origins, some people doubted her position, thought she was a spy, and used her status as a grand princess to deliver news to Germany many times; others thought she was ambitious and bent on pulling Nicholas II off the horse to put her husband on the throne; others said that she was a truly far-sighted woman, the last backbone of the Romanov family.
Confusingly, Maria Pavlovna, a woman with great personal charm and full of controversy.
Love at first sight is not a marriage
Mary Alexandrina's hair was dark brown and her face was slightly square, making her look a little gritty. Although he is tall and plump, he still has the slender waist that people love most of the time. Mary is a cheerful and hot girl who is sought after by young men of the right age in her social circle.
Mary Alexandrina
She had a fiancé at the age of fourteen, but when she met Archduke Vladimir Aleksandrovich at a banquet in Berlin, the fire of love changed the path behind the girl. Vladimir was the third son of Alexander II, 2 years away from his second brother Alexander III. Although they were of similar age, the two brothers had a common affection, especially after the death of the eldest brother Nikolai, Vladimir was very jealous of the second brother becoming crown prince. But the elderly and young are orderly, and he can only pin his eyes on artistic women. As a playboy, the standard is to be handsome, humorous and knowledgeable. Vladimir was a playboy of honor, and he never hid his heart. But maybe it was just that men weren't bad and women didn't love, and Mary was quickly attracted to this man. After some conversation, the two found that they were very compatible with each other, whether it was talking about art or philosophy, the two could talk together. Thinking of her own fiancé, Mary made a decisive decision to divorce her fiancé and marry Vladimir.
Archduke Vladimir Aleksandrovich
Vladimir apparently would not refuse a fiancée of noble birth who had committed himself to it, so russia and Mecklenburg began to negotiate their marriage. But then a very serious problem was encountered: according to the custom of the Russian royal family, every bride who married into the Russian royal family had to convert to the Orthodox Church and change the name of the Orthodox Church.
Frederick Franz II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin
But Mecklenburg believed in Lutheranism, and Mary was also a devout believer, and she refused to convert. Religious differences caused great difficulties in the marriage, and the marriage negotiations were difficult for three years without result. Eventually, Mary proposed that her own lineage, a blood descendant of Paul I, could be changed to an Orthodox name, although it was not intended to change religion, which led to the Tsar's concession, allowing Mary to maintain her original faith, but to change her name to Maria Pavlovna.
Maria with her husband, Grand Duke Vladimir
After getting married, Vladimir and Maria hit it off and became the most fashionable social organizer in St. Petersburg, mixing in aristocratic circles and competing with the then Crown Princess Maria Fyodorovna. The orthodox church has too high a repetition rate, everyone is Maria, in order to distinguish, later we still use the nickname of Dagma to call the princess.
Spy suspicious
Maria's marriage to Russia was the late period of Alexander II's reign. As we all know, Alexander II became the target of the anti-imperial faction because of his keen reforms, and more than 100 assassinations against the Tsar made the entire royal family panic.
Alexander II
There are opponents on the outside who are ready to assassinate at any time, and there are people in the royal family who are indignant inside. When his wife was seriously ill, Alexander II brought his mistress, Catherine Dorguruskaya, and her children into the palace, and they were angry and dead. Then he remarried his lover while his wife's bones were cold, which made his married children angry. As discordant brothers, Vladimir was in line with his brother's attitude at this time, they could not dislike the "little mother" on the surface, but in the heart, they regarded them as intruders.
Alexander II with his mistress Catherine Dolgoruskaya and her children
Maria and Dagmar have opposite personalities, Maria has a fiery and proud personality, and Dagmar is kind and gentle. Because of the discord between the husbands, the relationship between the two concubines is also very general. But in the face of Dorguruskaya, the two maintained the same hatred and comradeship, and the miserable experience of the poor mother-in-law made them extremely disgusted with the father-in-law's bride. Unlike Dagmar's covert obstruction, Maria directly put her contempt for Dorguruskaya on the surface. She once arrogantly evaluated the new "little mother" to the people around her: a rude and unable to speak, not intelligent, not wise woman. Alexander II was furious when he heard the rumors and called his son Vladimir to his side for a long time of reprimand. Maria suspected that the palace officials around her had passed on her words, and she began to reject the servants of the Russian Palace, and all private letters were conveyed by the German servants, and this attitude she showed laid the hidden danger for what happened later.
After the assassination of Alexander II, the brothers expelled Dorguruskaya from Russia, Alexander III came to power, and Dagma became the new queen. The incense of the previous hatred of the enemy disappeared, and the brotherly dispute re-emerged. It wasn't long before there was a rumor in St. Petersburg that Grand Duchess Maria and German iron-blooded Chancellor Bismarck had a very good personal relationship. After some time, the rumors went further: Maria was Bismarck's spy in Russia.
Vladimir and Maria quickly retorted: We are just like the feelings of His Majesty the Tsar, and Alexander III, you don't have to frame your brothers like this! The nobles close to their husband and wife were deeply impressed that this leak of information in the palace was inseparable from the connivance of the Tsar and his wife.
The proud Maria, not afraid of rumors, still used only German servants to deliver private letters. But the Tsar was the Tsar after all, and his authority was unshakable in the court. An aide-de-camp in Vladimir secretly handed over the letters of Maria and Bismarck to the Tsar, and the Grand Duke angrily dismissed the adjutant, but as soon as Tsar Alexander III turned around, he appointed the officer as his aide-de-camp, which almost put suspicion and brotherly discord on the surface.
Dagmar with her husband Alexander III
The archduches, who were forced to bear a heavy slap, had to excuse themselves from illness and recuperate abroad for a long time before the incident passed.
The heart of St. Petersburg's social circle
Humiliated Maria. Pavlovna was a strong and intelligent woman. After being punched in the face by the Tsar, she regrouped and returned to St. Petersburg, where she became a central figure in social circles with her beauty and erudition.
Maria and her husband, Archduke Vladimir, were ambitious men, and the couple had always believed that Alexander III lacked the qualities to be king, was not intelligent, was politically insensitive, and even lacked personal charisma. As for Queen Dagma, she came from an ordinary background and could only rely on hypocritical kindness to attract commoners, and there was nothing to speak of. But after all, the couple is orthodox, so Maria takes a different path and shows a different style in the social circle of Petersburg. She is long-sleeved and good at dancing, outgoing and sociable, beautiful and erudite, and has a proud but not arrogant personality. Under her "offensive", some nobles who also disliked the Tsar, as well as those who also had German blood, stood by her side. Russian social circles gradually formed a situation of confrontation, with Empress Dagma on one side and Grand Duchess Maria on the other.
After punching the brothers in the face, the relationship between alexander and Vladimir brothers was completely broken. Queen Dagmar refused to greet Maria in public, not even nodding coldly. And Maria's sharp words to the queen also showed extraordinary resistance. The two brothers eventually became strangers, and the two sides did not maintain any private contact except for public occasions that had to be attended.
After 1890, Tsar Alexander III died. The last Tsar, Nicholas II, married his sweetheart Alex. Alex, who changed her name to Alexandra, ostracized Empress Dowager Dagma at every turn, jealous of her husband's relationship with her mother and hating her husband's obedience to Dagmar. Under the breeze of the pillow wind, Nikolai's relationship with his mother Dagmar gradually became estranged, and Dagmar was ostracized by the new empress Alexandra, often living abroad, and slowly withdrew from the social circle battle. Maria thus unified the social circle of St. Petersburg and became the only ruler of the social circle.
The Grand Duchess and the new Tsar
Although she did not like Alexander II and his wife, Maria did not like her daughter-in-law Alexandra even more, and she repeatedly misled the new queen in social occasions to make her suffer in aristocratic circles. The beauty Alexandra, who lacked emotional intelligence, was neither led by Dagmar nor ostracized by Maria, and was soon marginalized by the social circles of the Russian nobility. Perhaps because the brothers Alexander and Vladimir had died one after another, the relationship between Maria and Dagmar slowly eased, and although the two still looked at each other, they could also say a few words in public.
When the country is broken and the family is destroyed
At the time of the Sarajevo incident, the Tsar's family was on vacation. When Nicholas II received the telegram, he set aside and continued to live a relaxing vacation life with his family. The Tsar, who was not politically sensitive enough, was not at all aware of the seriousness of the matter.
One of the few members of the Maria royal family who was politically conscious, when she recognized the seriousness of the problem, began to run around, making more nobles realize that the war would bring ruin. But the apocalyptic Russian aristocrats were immersed in the last drunken gold fans, and everyone was half-convinced of her words.
After the beginning of the First World War, Maria's choice confirmed the absurdity of espionage, and she stood on the side of the Romanov family in a clear way, against her homeland. Maria once told the French ambassador that this war was a life-and-death battle between the German nation and the Slavic nation, and that this war would be very difficult and tragic... Apparently, her words were answered one by one in the subsequent wars.
After the outbreak of the war, Maria changed her usual extravagant style and actively devoted herself to the hygiene and care of Russian soldiers, leaving her social circle and devoting all her energy to helping disabled soldiers. He even used his influence among the nobility to call on the whole society to donate money to the war. With Maria's active campaign, a large amount of money was quickly raised, alleviating some of the pressure on the government. Maria also set up a charity to help disabled soldiers who returned home from injuries to get back to life.
Queen Alexandra disdainfully called Maria a name-seeker. But while Maria was actually doing something for the wounded soldiers, the queen was pampering Rasputin and standing tall.
The Russian army suffered constant setbacks on the front line and suffered heavy casualties. However, the internal contradictions can no longer be concealed and are becoming more and more acute. Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra blindly favored the demon monk Rasputin, listening to his advice and reusing many unreliable people. And when Nikolai went to the front, Alexandra regent, the bold empress allowed Rasputin to meddle in personnel appointments, while also firing a large number of officials she did not like.
Worried about the war situation, Maria took the initiative to find her sister-in-law Dagma, who had always been incompatible, and asked her to persuade her son to kill the monk and re-appoint her uncle, Grand Duke Nikolaevich. But Nicholas II did not listen to the advice at all, and he was bent on running on the road to annihilation. In conversations with the French ambassador, Maria repeatedly expressed her confusion about the future, and she commented helplessly on Nicholas II: "The Tsar was a hopeless fatalist, and whenever he made a wrong decision that led to a bad outcome, he would tell himself that it was God's will." ”
After the outbreak of the revolution, Maria refused to leave Russia, and lived here for more than 40 years, not only as a grand duchess, but also as a Russian, and she decided to live with the dynasty. As the situation became more critical, at the urging of her children, Maria, along with other Russian exiled nobles, took a boat to a safer Anapa for refuge. Anapa's living conditions were not good, there was a shortage of living supplies, and Maria's body was seriously injured. She wrote to a friend that at her age, she could no longer adapt to sleeping in a poor bed. It was cold here, and there wasn't enough linen, and there wasn't enough clothes and fur to spend the winter. The war left the city short of food, and she was sometimes able to survive on spoiled meat. Because of the cold, her legs and feet can no longer walk normally.
Years of worrying about the future of her country damaged her health, and the experience of life in Anapa completely crushed Maria's health. Reluctantly, Maria left Russia with her warship and went into exile in Venice and Switzerland. Old and sick, he could only sell his beloved jewelry at a low price to survive, and finally died on the German island of Mainau at the age of 66.
Maria Pavlovna, a legendary woman full of controversy. She is intelligent and far-sighted, but she also likes luxury and is domineering and jealous. Her strengths and weaknesses are equally obvious, and you could say that she has spent her whole life fighting for fame and fortune, but you can't deny her contribution to this country. While the Tsar and his wife were eating vegetarian meals and nepotism, Maria had begun to run around for the war. When war broke out, the rumors of the former spies were dispelled, and Maria became the backbone of Tsarist Russia.
After Maria's death, her son Archduke Kirill declared himself "Guardian of the Throne", and then on August 31, 1924, he received the title of Emperor of All Russia. Although this is only an empty title, it also fulfills the dream of the father. His branch still presents itself as the most direct descendant of the Tsarist family, and if Russia were to become a monarchy again, the current patriarch, Grand Duke Maria Vladimirovna, would be the most likely successor to the Tsarist throne.
Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich