Grand Duchess Maria Romanov of Russia: A Revolution & Lilacs

        THE photograph above looks to be taken rather recently, despite it being in black-and-white. It shows a young girl on a ship called the Standart—a Russian ship. Her hair is long and beautiful, being described as brown. She wears a lovely, white blouse and a skirt that falls a few inches below her knee. The photograph above is of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia. She was the third child and daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his beloved wife, Tsarina Alexandra. She was fourteen or fifteen when this photograph was taken. When she was nineteen years old, she disappeared.

Childhood and personality

        BORN on 26 June 1899 (Old Style: 14 June 1899) at 12:10 p.m. in the Peterhof Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Maria was the third daughter of the Tsar and Tsarina of Russia. The birth of yet another daughter brought about a sense of solemness into the big, atmospheric world that was the Imperial court of Russia. A son and heir would have been welcomed with joviality and tender respect, but a third girl, entering a court already filled with sorrow and fear for the future of their dear Russia, would be faced with uncertain faces. As the Queen of the United Kingdom put it: "I regret the third girl for the country. I know that an heir would be more welcome than a daughter."

The first part of the newly-born Grand Duchess’s life was schedule and routine. Despite being a Grand Duchess, Maria and her siblings were raised with austerity—a practice that was long implemented during the late reign of Catherine the Great. Every morning, the Romanov sisters would bathe in cold bath water. Usually during the evenings, the Romanov sisters would bathe in their favorite scent. Olga's was rose, Tatiana's was jasmine, Anastasia's was violet, and Maria's was lilac. However, that was only one of her favorite scents; for, she liked many. They slept on hard, moveable camp beds that travelled with them wherever they went. During Christmas time, the Romanov sisters would place their beds near the Yule tree in Alexei’s playroom. The sisters would sew and create gifts to be sold at charity functions, and, during their time in captivity in 1917, made their attendants gifts. They enthusiastically participated in White Flower Day, a day commemorating those afflicted with tuberculosis.

The birth of Maria was preceded by Olga (in 1895) and Tatiana (in 1897). In 1901, another daughter was born to the Russian Imperial family: Anastasia. Finally, in 1904, a son was born to family: Tsarevich Alexei. Although the birth of a son was received with great pomp and excitement by the family circle and public, it later was realized by the family that he had hemophilia, which he inherited from his mother's side of the family. It caused great alarm within the family, and the disease was kept hidden from the public for some time. Hemophilia impaired the body's ability to produce blood clots. A single cut could end up killing the Tsarevich, which it almost had.

Photograph of young Maria,

Olga, and Tatiana

The four Romanov sisters were insanely close, despite dissimilar personalities. Olga was analytical and poetic; Tatiana was serious and a leader; Maria was passionate and wholesome; Anastasia was carefree and humorous. Once Anastasia was born, the four sisters diverged into 'groups' of their own. Olga and Tatiana were apart of "The Big Pair" while Maria and Anastasia were apart of "The Little Pair". Olga and Tatiana shared rooms together, while Maria and Anastasia occupied another string of rooms together.

Maria Romanov had brown hair and big, blue eyes. She drew with her left hand, but could write with her right hand like her older sister Tatiana. She loved to draw, and took part in performing plays with Anastasia. She was known to be more shy and reserved compared to that of her younger sister, and was often dominated by her other siblings. There was an instance in 1910 when her elder sister Olga, wanting to let down her childhood dresses and to be allowed her own suite of rooms alone, made Maria write their mother a letter in order to persuade her to grant Olga these wishes. Maria often felt left out of her big family circle, and at times forgotten. She was, sometimes, the pun of her sisters' jokes.

Photograph of Maria in 1915

Maria was known to be stubborn and, at times, moody. Although she was kind to her teachers, she was uninterested in her schoolwork and preferred to spend her time daydreaming. A recurring daydream of hers was of having a large family of her own. She often remarked that she wanted to have twenty children. Maria developed many crushes on the young men that she met. It was said that, wherever she went, she would develop a crush. Maria’s first official love was with Nikolai Dmitrievich Demenkov, whom she met at the Army Headquarters in Mogilev.

Her favorite pet was a mouse that lived in the walls of her bedroom.

World War I and revolution

Photograph of Maria and Anastasia

in 1915. Behind them is a famous

photograph of the Romanov

family together.

        IN 1914, when World War I broke out, Maria's eldest sisters, alongside their mother, worked as nurses for the Red Cross. Maria and Anastasia were too young to become nurses like their mother and elder sisters, so they, instead, played games with the soldiers and told them jokes in order to uplift their spirits. By the end of the day, Maria would know all about the soldiers' lives and their children's names.

It was during the second half of the 1910s that Russia was slowly creeping towards a revolution. After all of the scandals with their monarchs over time, the Russian people no longer wanted a Tsar or Tsarina, or a Tsarevich or a Grand Duchess.

The Romanov family had faced immense backlash for their friendship with Grigori Rasputin, even from close attendants and family members. Rasputin was a Russian mystic who had aided the ailing Tsarevich Alexei when he had hemophilia attacks. It was claimed that Rasputin had seduced both the Tsarina and Grand Duchesses—claims that were ever exaggerated in pamphlets and heightened during the Russian Revolution. The Russian people had also disliked him for his ever-growing influence over the Tsar and Tsarina, which was viewed as a threat.

On 30 December 1916 (Old Style: 17 December 1917) Rasputin was murdered. When the Grand Duchesses got word of the murder, they huddled up together on a sofa in one of their bedrooms, distressed and saddened by the news.

In the spring of 1917, the Romanovs sisters fell ill with measles. The medicine used caused their hair to fall out, and, in the end, they had to shave their hair. By July 1918, their hair had grown long again.

On 22 March 1917, the Tsar abdicated the throne. Maria initially acted calm in response to her father’s abdication, but a family friend, Lili Dehn, found her crying in a corner of one of the rooms. Dehn wrote, "In one corner of the room crouched the Grand Duchess Marie. She was as pale as her mother. She knew all… She was so young, so helpless, so hurt". The wrath of the revolution affected Maria and her family greatly.

Photograph of Maria in 1916

After living in multiple cities and palaces during their captivity and house arrest, the Romanov family and their remaining attendants were moved to the Ipatiev House (also known as "the House of Special Purpose") in Yekaterinburg. The Romanovs quiet, calm and simple way of life had ended here. They windows were covered up. A fence was built up around the house so that the family had no contact with the outside world. The guards at the Ipatiev House often wrote obscenities about the family on the walls.

End of an era

        AT 1 a.m. on 17 July 1918, Dr. Botkin, one of the remaining attendants to the family, was told to wake up the Romanovs and tell them to get dressed, as they would be leaving the house. At 2:15 a.m., the Romanov family and their attendants, with their pet dogs snuggled in their arms, traveled down the steep staircase that would lead them towards the ground floor of the house for the last time.

When they entered the basement, they were told that they had to wait for the truck to arrive. In response, the family had requested chairs for Alexei (who was ill) and Alexandra (who could not stand long due to her sciatica). The guards accepted their request, one of them mumbling that the "heir wanted to die in a chair. Very well then, let him have one." The guards left the family and attendants in the basement for an hour, making sure everything was prepared. When the guards entered the room, they read aloud a speech that was prepared beforehand:

"Nikolai Alexanderovich, in view of the fact that your relatives are continuing their attack on Soviet Russia, the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you."

The former tsar uttered the words "What? What?". The leading executioner, Yakov Yurovsky, repeated the speech before the guards fired at the tsar. Alexandra and Olga attempted to make the sign of the cross, but were shot at. Maria ran towards the double doors in the basement and pounded at them frantically, but was shot in the thigh. For a moment the guards left the room due to the dense amount of smoke in the room, leaving majority of the family and attendants wounded—only a few were dead. The children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei, were all still alive. It was only Maria who was wounded.

Because the family dogs were making too much noise, the guards killed them by hitting them with gun butts and bayonets. The sound of gunshots could, too, be heard from the street, as reported by Alexey Kabanov, who went to check the noise levels from the streets. The family was hit with bayonets repeatedly. Alexei, who was still sitting in the chair, unable to move, was knocked off the chair and killed. Tatiana was shot in the back of the head, blood spewing on her sister Olga, who she had huddled up with in the darkest corner of the basement. Olga was shot also in the back of the head, her body tumbling over the corpse of Tatiana.

Anastasia and Maria were the last to die. Maria was hit in the torso several times by a bayonet, but, still alive, was finally shot in the head. All heads turned to young Anastasia, who was lunged at and hit with a bayonet before being shot. Reportedly, one or more of the Romanov sisters, while being carried outside of the basement, shot up and screamed, covering their head before being hit with a bayonet.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the bodies of the Romanovs were discovered and buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Olga was 22.

Tatiana was 21.

Maria was 19.

Anastasia was 17.

Alexei was 13, just a few weeks shy of his fourteenth birthday.

Famous family portrait of the Romanovs.

Left to right: Olga, Maria, Alexandra,

Nicholas, Anastasia, Alexei, and Tatiana.

The House of Special Purpose had, now, done its purpose—by the killing of innocents.