Elisabeth of Hessen-Darmstadt (1864–1918)
Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Louise Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt and by Rhine , Grand Duchess Elizaveta Fyodorovna ( Russian Елизавета Фёдоровна spelling before 1918, Елісавета Ѳеодоровна ) VA (* 1. November 1864 in Darmstadt ; † 18th July 1918 in Alapayevsk , RSFSR ), was a German princess and granddaughter of Queen Victoria . She was the older sister of the last Russian Tsarina Alexandra and, through her marriage to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, she was also a member of the imperial family of Russia. After her husband was assassinated in 1905 , she turned increasingly to the Russian Orthodox Church, to which she converted in 1891, although she was raised Protestant. She founded the Martha Maria Monastery in Moscow and presided over it as abbess . In the turmoil of the civil war in Russia , she was banished and murdered along with other members of the royal family in 1918 . Today she is venerated as a new martyr and saint in the Russian Orthodox Church (July 5th). The Russian Orthodox Church uses the old spelling of the name Jelissaweta Feodorovna (Russian Елисавета Феодоровна ). The Anglican State Church calls her a martyr of the 20th century and dedicated a portrait to her on the west portal of Westminster Abbey in London.
Life
Early years
Elisabeth von Hessen-Darmstadt was born on November 1st, 1864 as the second daughter of the grand ducal couple Ludwig and Alice von Hessen-Darmstadt . Her full name was Elisabeth Alexandra Luise Alice Princess of Hesse and by Rhine , the family simply called her Ella . The Grand Duke's children received a very strict upbringing and were encouraged to be humble. In addition to a good education, the Hessian court attached great importance to religiousness. Queen Victoria of Great Britain, the maternal grandmother, also had a great influence on the upbringing of the grand ducal children . When Elisabeth was fourteen years old, diphtheria was rampant in Hessen . She was spared while her siblings fell ill, and her mother Alice was also infected while caring for the children. Elisabeth survived the illness, while her four-year-old sister Marie and the only thirty-five year old mother fell victim. After her mother's death, she and her older sister Viktoria had to take care of the younger siblings.
Elisabeth in Russia
The young princess had many admirers. One of them, who also asked for her hand, was her cousin, the future German Emperor Wilhelm II. A special relationship had existed with the Russian court, not least since Tsarina Marie von Hessen-Darmstadt , a sister of her grandfather's. At one of the numerous family gatherings , Elisabeth fell in love with the Russian Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrowitsch Romanov , the fifth son of Tsar Alexander II and brother of his successor, Tsar Alexander III . Sergei had a bad reputation. With his rough manner and his imperious demeanor, he was considered a nerd. Elisabeth's relatives were opposed to this connection. In particular, Queen Victoria, who had already chosen the Hereditary Prince Friedrich von Baden as her bridegroom, objected. She had reservations about Russia and the Romanovs , considered the tsars to be tyrants and stressed that Russia lacked a parliamentary monarchy. Russia's anti-British policy in Asia may also have influenced its rejection. Against all odds, Elisabeth succeeded in her love marriage. The couple married on July 3rd . / June 15, 1884 greg. in the chapel of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg . At their wedding, Elizabeth's sister Alix met the Russian heir to the throne, Nikolaus Alexandrovich .
Elisabeth had an unhappy marriage with the jealous Sergei, who remained childless. However, when her sister-in-law Alexandra , wife of Sergei's brother Paul , died in 1891 shortly after the birth of their second child, they took care of their children, Maria and Dmitri, at times. When Paul had to go into exile in 1902 because of his marriage to Olga Palei, they came back to them in care.
Unlike most of the foreign wives of Russian grand dukes, Elizabeth did not convert to the Russian Orthodox Church before the wedding. In October 1888, Elisabeth traveled to Palestine with Sergei and visited, among other things, the Maria Magdalena Church in Jerusalem . On this trip she made the decision to join her husband's denomination . On April 12, 1891, she entered the Russian Orthodox Church and was henceforth known in Russia under the name of Grand Duchess Jelisaveta Fyodorovna . But she kept her old first name.
In 1891, Tsar Alexander III raised Sergei Alexandrovich as Governor General of Moscow . The conservative Sergei administered Moscow in a despotic style. He paid special attention to the pursuit of supporters of revolutionary ideas. In Moscow, as in other Russian cities, circles of intellectuals, socialists, communists and anarchists had emerged who tried to end the autocracy in Russia. Like his father, Nicholas II stuck to the autocratic form of government. This and the social problems that occurred as a result of industrialization as well as the Russo-Japanese war led to the revolution of 1905 . On jul. / January 22, 1905 greg. There were demonstrations by workers in St. Petersburg for popular representation, land reforms and better working conditions, which escalated on St. Petersburg's Bloody Sunday . Against this background, Sergei's tough course in Moscow was not without consequences.
On February 4, 1905, Ivan Kalyayev , a terrorist of the revolutionary movement, carried out an assassination attempt on the Grand Duke. In the Kremlin near the Nicholas Gate a bomb that killed the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich immediately exploded. Immediately after this murder, the widow sought solace in prayer for five days.
Before the funeral, she visited the assassin in prison and presented him with an icon. During her conversation with Kalyayev, he described her husband as an oppressor and an instrument of tyranny. Elisabeth contradicted him:
- “You are wrong, my husband loved the people and only thought of their welfare. Therefore your crime is not justified. Let go of your arrogance and repent. "
Their hope that the assassin would see his injustice was not fulfilled. Nevertheless, she sent a pardon to her brother-in-law Tsar Nicholas II. But the convict himself refused a pardon, hoping that his death would give the revolutionary movement a further boost.
Abbess Elisabeth
The attack marked a turning point in the life of the Grand Duchess. After the year of mourning, she decided to devote her life to the suffering and poor. She divided up all her possessions and did not even keep her wedding ring. A part went to the crown, another to relatives and most of it was used for their charitable work.
Elisabeth founded a monastery on the Great Ordynka in Moscow . She had the vision of a new type of sister who combined prayer and social work along the lines of deaconesses . The conservatives of the Orthodox Church viewed the Grand Duchess' ideas with suspicion and accused her of Protestant tendencies. In the rules for the sisterhood, which were then adapted, controversial points such as the ordination of deaconesses were completely dispensed with, and doubts could be dispelled. This is how the community of the Sisters of Love and Mercy was born . The Martha Maria Monastery of Mercy began its work on February 10, 1909. The strict rules and duties of the sisters also applied to Abbess Elisabeth. The monastery included a hospital where the needy were treated free of charge, a pharmacy, an orphanage and a library. The sisters provided the sick with medicines free of charge and fed the poor and needy.
As abbess, Elisabeth saw herself connected to the traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church and rejected excessive mysticism . This was shown, among other things, in the fact that she rejected applicants for the sisterhood who told her of visions and mystical experiences. This conviction also alienated her from her sister, Tsarina Alexandra, as she also resolutely rejected the faith healer and itinerant preacher Rasputin . In 1917 Elisabeth even used herself with Tsar Nicholas II for the murderers of Rasputin, especially for her nephew and former foster son Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov . In her letter to Nicholas II she wrote:
- "... for ten days I prayed for you all over and over again ... the name of this unfortunate man was on my list so that God might enlighten him. - When I came back, I heard the news that Felix had killed him ... what he must have gone through to accomplish this deed, and how moved by patriotism he decided to save his ruler and his country from what all suffered ... "
In 1914 the First World War began and some of the nuns of the monastery went to the front and worked in field hospitals. The Grand Duchess collected donations for war invalids and their relatives at charity events, some of which she organized herself.
The February Revolution of 1917 ended the tsarist rule in Russia and Elizabeth's brother-in-law Nicholas II had to abdicate. The political upheavals initially had no impact on life in the monastery. However, Elisabeth worried about her relatives, who were under house arrest in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo . She kept in contact with her sister Alexandra, even in her exile in Tobolsk , but under considerably more difficult conditions.
After the October Revolution
Consequences for the monastery and the Grand Duchess herself did not arise until the Bolsheviks came to power in the October Revolution of 1917. The Bolsheviks viewed the monastery as a “breeding ground for superstition”. Soon the monastery and its abbess faced harassment. Her former admirer, Kaiser Wilhelm II, tried to persuade Elisabeth to flee Russia. But she refused to leave her new home.
During the beginning of the Russian Civil War , she was exiled in April 1918, first to Perm and then to Yekaterinburg . For Alexander Beloborodov , chairman of the executive committee of the local regional soviet, there were too many Romanovs in the city in May 1918, and so he had some of them transferred to Alapayevsk , including Elizabeth. There she was allowed to live in a small school with five other relatives of the tsarist family. Grand Duke Mikhail , who was under house arrest in Perm , was shot dead by the local Cheka on July 13th . The events in Perm, disguised by the Cheka as an escape, were used by the Territorial Soviet as an opportunity to tighten the living conditions of the exiled Romanovs. From then on, the Cheka regarded Elisabeth and her fellow exiles as prisoners.
Late in the evening of July 17, 1918, one day after the killing of the tsarist family in Yekaterinburg, the Cheka also murdered the Romanovs in Alapayevsk and the nun Varvara (Barbara) Jakowleva, who had shared the exile with her abbess. The doomed were taken to a disused pit and pushed into a shaft. The last words Elizabeth Fyodorovna is said to have said to her murderers were the verse from the Bible ( Lk 23.34 EU ) that she had already placed on her husband Sergei's tombstone:
- "Lord forgive them because they don't know what they are doing!"
Three months later, a White Guard investigative commission found that the head of one of the young men who had been killed was carefully tied to the headscarf of the Grand Duchess, who, despite her own fatal injuries, had apparently still tried to alleviate the distress of her fellow sufferer.
In covering up the nightly events in Alapayevsk, the Cheka used a method similar to that used previously for the shooting of Grand Duke Mikhail. The local Bolsheviks let it be known that white bandits had kidnapped the imprisoned Romanov princes and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna and that the search for the kidnapped people, which was immediately initiated, had come to no avail.
After the (temporary) occupation of the area by the Czechoslovak legions , they recovered the bodies and identified them. When they withdrew, they transferred the White Army to Chita in Siberia. The bodies of the Romanov princes who were murdered together with Elisabeth found their final resting place in Beijing . At the instigation of her sister Viktoria von Hessen-Darmstadt , the Marchioness of Milford Haven, the remains of Elisabeth and her fellow sister were brought from Beijing to Palestine by the British government in 1920/1921 and buried in the Russian Orthodox Mary Magdalene Monastery in Jerusalem .
Moscow's Martha Maria Monastery of Mercy was finally closed in 1926 and the sisters were deported to Central Asia.
aftermath
The preserved buildings of the convent on Odrynka were returned to the church in 1992. After long arguments about the property and the building, the first sisters were able to re-establish the convent in May 1994; In 1995 they received the blessing of Patriarch Alexius II. Today the monastery is a memorial for Elisabeth, but also a center of social and charitable work. As early as 1949, Elisabeth's niece Alice von Battenberg , the mother of Prince Philip , founded a Maria Martha Sisterhood on the Greek island of Tinos, modeled on her aunt. Like these, she was later buried in Jerusalem.
Elisabeth was declared a saint in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile due to the circumstances of her death, along with other victims of communism . The Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church followed the Church abroad in 1992. The Monastery of St. Elizabeth in Minsk is named after her.
The effigy of Elizabeth is one of ten martyrs of the 20th century that were placed over the west portal of Westminster Abbey .
ancestors
- for further genealogy see the family list of the House of Hessen
- for the family of her husband Sergei Romanow see family list of the House of Oldenburg
literature
- Alexa-Beatrice Christ: "The choice has been made ..." Darmstadt princesses in St. Petersburg. Justus von Liebig Verlag, Darmstadt 2015.
- Lubov Millar: Grand Duchess Elisabeth of Russia. Holy new martyr under the communist yoke. Monastery of Saint Job, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-935217-15-3 .
- Olga Barkowez, Fedor Fedorow, Alexander Krylow: "Peterhof is a dream ..." German princesses in Russia. Edition q, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-86124-532-9 .
- Juri Buranow, Vladimir Khrustalev: The Tsar Murderers. Destruction of a dynasty. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin et al. 1993, ISBN 3-351-02408-8 .
- Robert K. Massie : The Romanovs. The last chapter (= Knaur. 60752). Full paperback edition. Droemer Knaur, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-426-60752-2 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Elisabeth von Hessen-Darmstadt in the catalog of the German National Library
- Nikolaus Thon: Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna and the Martha-Maria Sisterhood
- Russia, Jelissaveta Fyodorovna Grand Duchess of. Hessian biography. (As of February 26, 2020). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Elizabeth (Jelisawjeta) Feodorovna in Ecumenical Holy lexicon
- ↑ Barkowez, Fedorow, Krylow: "Peterhof is a dream ..." , 2001, pp. 147-149.
- ↑ a b Heresch, Elisabeth: Alexandra - Tragik und Ende der letzte Tsarina , 1993, pp. 31–37
- ↑ Radsinski, Edward : Nikolaus - The Last Tsar and His Time , 1992, page 31
- ↑ Radsinski, Edward: Nikolaus - The Last Tsar and His Time , 1992, page 68
- ↑ Barkowez, Fedorow, Krylow: "Peterhof is a dream ..." , 2001, page 153
- ↑ Barkowez, Fedorow, Krylow: "Peterhof is a dream ..." , 2001, page 150
- ↑ Barkowez, Fedorow, Krylow: "Peterhof is a dream ..." , 2001, pages 164-65 - from the notes of Maurice Paléologue
- ↑ Barkowez, Fedorow, Krylow: "Peterhof is a dream ..." , 2001, page 156
- ↑ Radsinski, Edward: Nikolaus - The Last Tsar and His Time , 1992, p. 138
- ↑ Barkowez, Fedorow, Krylow: "Peterhof is a dream ..." , 2001, page 158
- ↑ Barkowez, Fedorow, Krylow: "Peterhof is a dream ..." , 2001, page 192 - printed letter from Elisabeth to Tsar Nicholas II.
- ↑ Buranow, Khrustalev: Die Tsarenmörder , 1993, page 22/24
- ↑ Barkowez, Fedorow, Krylow: "Peterhof is a dream ..." , 2001, page 182 - printed letter from Elisabeth
- ↑ a b Massie, Robert K .: The Romanows - The Last Chapter , 1998, page 346
- ↑ Barkowez, Fedorow, Krylow: "Peterhof is a dream ..." , 2001, page 160
- ↑ Massie: The Romanovs - The Last Chapter , 1998, p. 308
- ↑ Buranow, Khrustalev: Die Tsarenmörder , 1993, p. 305
- ↑ Barkowez, Fedorow, Krylow: "Peterhof is a dream ..." , 2001, page 161 - can also be read in Radsinski's book.
- ↑ Barkowez, Fedorow, Krylow: The last Russian tsar Nicholas II and his family , 2002
- ↑ Buranow, Khrustalev: Die Tsarenmordern , 1993, p. 314
- ↑ a b Buranow, Khrustalev: Die Zarenmörder , 1993, p. 324
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hessen-Darmstadt, Elisabeth von |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Elisabeth Alexandra Luise Alice of Hesse and the Rhine; Ella; Elisabeth Feodorovna Romanovna; Елизавета Фёдоровна Романова |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Wife of Grand Duke Sergius Alexandrovich |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 1, 1864 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Darmstadt |
| DATE OF DEATH | 18 July 1918 |
| Place of death | Alapayevsk near Yekaterinburg |