Marie of Mecklenburg (1854-1920)
Marie Alexandrine Elisabeth Eleonore zu Mecklenburg [-Schwerin] (* May 14, 1854 in Ludwigslust ; † September 6, 1920 in Contrexéville ), also called "Maria Pawlowna the Elder", was by marriage Grand Duchess Maria Pawlowna of Russia .
Life
Lineage and Early Life
Marie zu Mecklenburg, born in 1854 at Ludwigslust Palace , was the daughter of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and his first wife Auguste Reuss zu Köstritz . She was among other things a great niece of the German Emperor Wilhelm I. Her mother died in 1862 when she was only eight years old. Her father's second wife, Anna von Hessen-Darmstadt , also died in 1865. When Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II finally entered into a third marriage in 1868, Marie was raised by a stepmother, Marie von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt , who was only four years older than she was.
Marriage and offspring
On August 28, 1874, Marie married the Russian Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich , the third son of Tsar Alexander II and his first wife Marie von Hessen-Darmstadt, in the Winter Palace of Saint Petersburg . "Miechen", as Marie was also called, had already been engaged to Georg Albert von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt , but this engagement had been broken when she first met Vladimir. Since Marie, who was raised in the Lutheran faith, refused to convert to the Russian Orthodox Church , it was another three years before Alexander II gave Vladimir permission to marry her without converting. After their marriage, she took the Russian name Maria Palowna . Later in the marriage, the Grand Duchess finally converted to the Orthodox faith, perhaps to increase the chances of her son Kyrill Vladimirovich of an accession to the throne. The couple had a total of five children:
- Grand Duke Alexander Vladimirovich (born August 31, 1875 - † March 16, 1877)
- Grand Duke Kyrill Vladimirovich (October 12, 1876 - October 12, 1938)
- Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich (* November 24, 1877 - November 9, 1943)
- Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich (* May 14, 1879 - October 30, 1956)
- Grand Duchess Jelena Vladimirovna (born January 29, 1882 - † March 13, 1957)
Life in Russia; to travel
In Russia, Marie lived in the Vladimir Palace in Saint Petersburg on the Neva . The socially very committed Grand Duchess was considered one of the best hosts in the Russian metropolis. She was addicted to gambling and disregarded the ban on playing roulette and baccarat in private homes by her nephew, Tsar Nicholas II . This led to their temporary banishment from the court.
Marie often spent several months from November in Paris , where she became known for her generosity. She regularly ordered much admired gemstone collections from Cartier . In particular, she was looking for the company of the Comtesse Greffulhe and the Comtesse de Chevigné in the French capital .
Marie was very class-conscious and only wanted to marry her only daughter Jelena to a hereditary prince. She engaged Jelena to Maximilian von Baden , heir to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Baden . When the latter broke off the engagement, he incurred Marie's anger. When Nicholas of Greece , the third son of King George I , who had no prospect of succession, applied for Jelena's hand, the Grand Duchess reluctantly agreed to it in 1902. In 1905, Marie's son Kyrill married Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha . Among other things, because Kyrill's wife was his first cousin and marriages of such close relationships were forbidden in the Russian Orthodox Church, the Tsar did not agree to this marriage and dismissed Kyrill's title. This angered the Grand Duchess and also led to the conflict between her husband Vladimir and the Tsar. After a few deaths in the tsarist family, Nicholas II gave his title back to Kyrill, who was now third in line to the throne.
After the death of her husband in 1909, Marie succeeded him as president of the Academy of Fine Arts. During the last years of Nicholas II's reign she had her own court, which was one of the most cosmopolitan and popular in Saint Petersburg.
Marie was at odds not only with the tsar, but also with his wife Alexandra Feodorovna . After Nicholas II had taken over the supreme command of the Russian army during the First World War in August 1915, Marie, like other Romanovs, feared de facto sole rule by the Tsarina. In the winter of 1916/1917, she and her sons are said to have considered a coup d'état against Nicholas II in order to force his abdication. With this she supposedly wanted to achieve the accession to the throne of Nikolaus' son Alexei , with her son Grand Duke Kyrill or Grand Duke Nikolai as regent. However, there is no documentary evidence for this thesis.
Escape from Russia and death
Still hoping that because of the illness of the heir to the throne, Grand Duke Alexei, her own eldest living son, Kyrill, would one day become Tsar, Marie spent the years 1917–1918 with her two younger sons in the war-torn Caucasus . With the advance of the Bolsheviks , the group finally fled to Anapa in a fishing cutter in 1918 . Marie spent fourteen months in Anapa and refused to accompany her son Boris on their escape from Russia. Even when the possibility of fleeing via Constantinople existed, she did not take advantage of it, as she was afraid of possibly having to undergo a humiliating delousing. It was only when the Commander-in-Chief of the White Army informed her that the civil war was lost that she finally consented to go into exile.
So Marie went on February 13, 1920 together with her son Andrei, his lover Matilda Felixowna Kschessinskaja and her son Wladimir on board an Italian ship to Venice . In the port of Novorossiysk , Grand Duchess Olga also rose. From Venice she went via Switzerland to France, where Marie's already ailing health worsened after the exhausting journey, so that she died on September 6, 1920 at the age of 66 with her family in Contrexéville . Thus Marie was the last noble émigré to leave Russia shortly after the First World War and the first to die in exile. She was buried in the Orthodox chapel she built in Contrexéville in 1909.
The British antiques and art dealer Albert Stopford , a close friend of the Romanovs, was able to smuggle Marie's valuable gemstones out of Russia after the outbreak of the revolution in 1917. After the Grand Duchess's death, her children sold the treasures to finance their living in exile.
literature
- Olga Barkowez, Fyodor Fedorow, Alexander Krylow: "Peterhof is a dream ..." - German princesses in Russia . Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-86124-532-9
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Marie of Mecklenburg |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Marie Alexandrine Elisabeth Eleonore of Mecklenburg; Maria Pavlovna of Russia |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Grand Duchess of Russia |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 14, 1854 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Ludwigslust |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 6, 1920 |
| Place of death | Contrexéville |