Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna
Two sisters Ella and Alix
Elizaveta Feodorovna (at birth, Elizabeth Alexandra Louise Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt, German Elisabeth Alexandra Luise Alice von Hessen-Darmstadt und bei Rhein, her family name was Ella, officially in Russia - Elisaveta Feodorovna)
(November 1, 1864, Darmstadt - July 18, 1918, Perm province) - Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt
P.P. Trubetskoy. pastel 1890s
Elizabeth Feodorovna
Alexandra Fedorovna
The second daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt Ludwig IV and Princess Alice, granddaughter of the English Queen Victoria.
In 1878, the whole family, except for Ella (as she was called in the family), fell ill with diphtheria, from which Ella's younger sister, four-year-old Maria, and her mother, Grand Duchess Alice, soon died.
Portrait of the family of Grand Duke Ludwig IV, painted for Queen Victoria in 1879 by the artist Baron Heinrich von Angeli.
Father Ludwig IV, after the death of his wife, entered into a morganatic marriage with Alexandrina Hutten-Czapska, and Ella and Alix were brought up mainly by their grandmother, Queen Victoria, at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.
An important role in the spiritual life of Ella was played by the image of Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia, after whom Ella was named: this saint, the ancestor of the Dukes of Hesse, became famous for her works of mercy.
Elizabeth Feodorovna
1885
June 3 (15), 1884 in the Court Cathedral Winter Palace married Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, brother Russian emperor Alexander III.
Elizabeth Feodorovna
1887
Two sisters Ella and Alix
Alexandra Feodorovna (Feodorovna, nee Princess Victoria Alice Helena Louise Beatrice of Hesse-Darmstadt, German Victoria Alix Helena Louise Beatrice von Hessen und bei Rhein, Nicholas II also called her Alix - a derivative of Alice and Alexander)
(June 6, 1872, Darmstadt - July 17, 1918, Yekaterinburg)
Joszef Arpad Koppay
1900
Alexandra Fedorovna
The fourth daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and Rhine, and Duchess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria of England.
Name day (in Orthodoxy) - April 23 according to the Julian calendar, the memory of the martyr Alexandra.
Family portrait of Prince Ludwig of Hesse, 1871, August Noack.
Born in Darmstadt (German Empire) in 1872. She was baptized on July 1, 1872 according to the Lutheran rite. The name given to her consisted of her mother's name (Alice) and the four names of her aunts. The godparents were: Edward, Prince of Wales (future King Edward VII), Tsarevich Alexander Alexandrovich (future Emperor Alexander III) with his wife, Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria, Princess Beatrice, Augusta of Hesse-Kassel, Duchess of Cambridge and Maria Anna, princess of Prussia.
Princess Alix of Hesse
1894
Alice inherited the hemophilia gene from Queen Victoria.
Alice was considered the favorite granddaughter of Queen Victoria, who called her Sunny (“Sunny”).
Heinrich von Angeli
Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, born Princess Alice of Hesse.
The portrait was painted for Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
1896/97
In June 1884, at the age of 12, Alice visited Russia for the first time, when her older sister Ella (in Orthodoxy - Elizaveta Feodorovna) was married to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich.
Princess Alix of Hesse
1894
For the second time, she arrived in Russia in January 1889 at the invitation of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. After staying in the Sergievsky Palace (Petersburg) for six weeks, the princess met and attracted the special attention of the heir to Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich.
Alix of Hesse
1894
On November 14 (26), 1894, the wedding of Alexandra and Nicholas II took place in the Great Church of the Winter Palace.
Friedrich August von Kaulbach
1896
Alexandra Fedorovna
Albert von Keller
1896
Alexandra Fedorovna
Elizabeth Feodorovna
Elizabeth Feodorovna
Elizabeth Feodorovna
Sohn, Carl Rudolf
Portrait Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna
S.F. Aleksandrovsky
Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, 1887
Two sisters Ella and Alix
F.I. Rerberg. before 1905
Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna
Two sisters Ella and Alix
Elizabeth Feodorovna
Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant
Empress Alexandra Feodorovna
Alexander Vladimirovich Makovsky
1914
Friedrich August von Kaulbach.
Alexandra Fedorovna
The portrait - a copy of the painting of the same name by F. A. von Kaulbach (1903) - was executed at the request of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna for a gift to the Educational Society for Noble Maidens on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Smolny Institute (1914).
Alexandra Fedorovna
N.K. Bodarevsky
Canvas, oil. 1907
Portrait of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna
A.P. Sokolov
1901
Portrait of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna
Series of messages "
Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt - the wife of the last Russian emperor Nicholas II, who took the name Alexandra Feodorovna in Russia, was the daughter of the Duke of Hesse, Ludwig IV. Interestingly, before the formation of the German Empire in 1871, Hesse was an independent principality, and an ally of Austria, which opposed the unification of Germany. After the creation of the German Empire, the Hessian dukes were left without any serious maintenance, practically the family was in poverty, naturally in the sense when it comes to dukes. Material troubles were aggravated by the fact that in the early 1870s. Alice's three-year-old brother, Friedrich, died (died, by the way, from hemophilia), in 1878 the whole family fell ill with diphtheria, from which the mother and another sister of the future empress died. After that, the surviving four girls were raised by their grandmother, Queen Victoria. (It is also interesting that at the funeral, their mother's coffin was covered not with the German, but with the British flag).
The most beautiful of the sisters was Ella of Hesse (the future wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich under the name Elizaveta Feodorovna and the future saint of the Russian Orthodox Church). In addition to natural beauty, she had amazing tact and charm. Almost everyone who knew her spoke of her in the most enthusiastic terms, see for example "Memoirs" of the great book. Alexander Mikhailovich.
Ella's fate was amazing and extremely unhappy. Even in childhood, they were acquainted with the future German Emperor Wilhelm II and loved each other. Everyone believed that she would become the wife of the future emperor. But then, unfortunately, little Friedrich died - Ella's brother, and the doctors at that time already knew a lot about hemophilia .... The future of the German Empire should not have suffered because of the illness of the heir. The marriage is upset. Moreover, Wilhelm in this situation behaved somehow in a particularly insulting way, and it all ended with Ella and the German emperor after that becoming real enemies.
In 1884, Ella became the wife of the Russian Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, one of the younger sons of Alexander II. Sergei Alexandrovich then commanded in St. Petersburg the most prestigious and brilliant guards regiment - Preobrazhensky.
In Russia, Ella, thanks to her qualities, very quickly became a universal favorite. What can not be said about Prince Sergei. If you wish, you can find a lot of very different and very critical judgments about him from members of the Romanov family to Witte.
Including the most scandalous (I will not voice them here).
In general, Ella became very influential in Russia, especially after Prince Sergei became the mayor of Moscow. Everyone said that Ella and Sergei opened a courtyard in Moscow, modeled on the royal one and not inferior to it. It is interesting that Ella did not enter Orthodoxy immediately upon her marriage (the then order required this only from the wife of the tsar), but only, it seems, in 1891, when her husband moved to Moscow. And all the magnificent celebrations there were unthinkable without the participation of the clergy.
By the way, in Moscow, Sergei, who replaced the former liberal mayor, insisted on strict implementation of the law on the "Pale of Settlement" and about 30 thousand Jews were evicted from the second capital. Perhaps this was the reason for the assassination attempt on him in 1905, although this was certainly not the only one (as will become clear below).
In the meantime, in 1889, when the question of the marriage of the heir and future Nicholas II first arose, Ella directed all her efforts to ensure that her sister, Alice of Hesse, became the bride of the Tsarevich. Interestingly, at the same time, Wilhelm unofficially wooed his younger sister, Margaret of Prussia, to the future Russian Tsar. At that moment, everything ended in a draw: the German sounding was not successful, and Alix stuck around in Russia for some time to no avail.
The beautiful Ella nevertheless steadily led the prince to the idea of marrying her sister. (What Ella knew about a serious hereditary disease in her family is beyond doubt. Here it is worth focusing on the following. Ella and Sergey did not have children. The question arises - why? In general, as everyone noted, the spouses did not have any special closeness it was - there were rather common interests... And Ella had a maniacal passion to marry his sister to the Russian Tsar and show this ignorant Wilhelm what he refused ... Ella's birth of a boy could remind of hemophilia in their family)
It should be noted here that the very common opinion that Nicholas II somehow immediately and almost from childhood fell in love with Alix does not correspond, most likely, to reality. Nicholas reacted to the idea of marrying a Hessian princess at first rather indifferently. Did not show enthusiasm for Alix and his parents.
A few years later, Nicholas II was fascinated by the then fashionable Russian ballerina Matilda Kshessinskaya.
Finally, when in 1894 it became clear that Alexander III did not have long to live, Aunt Ella's long treatment worked. Nicholas insisted that he only wanted to marry Alix of Hesse.
Finally, in 1894, Nikolai went to Coburg to see his future bride. It is curious that the English Queen Victoria was there at that time, who blessed the future marriage (she blessed the marriage of the Russian Tsar, which in the future, given the hereditary hemophilia of the Hessians, posed a threat to the Russian Empire).
It is also worth noting that Alix was not at all equal in personal qualities to Ella. Yes, she was beautiful, but she organically did not know how to get along with people, which later manifested itself in all its glory. Alix quickly spoiled relations with everyone in the court circle, including the mother of the king, the dowager empress Maria Feodorovna (by the way, the former Danish princess Dagmar). Maria Fedorovna, who, in terms of personal qualities, also lacked stars from heaven, was a very contact and beloved woman by the court, unlike Alix, and she was, of course, extremely unpleasant that everything turned out like this with her son's wife.
Let us now turn to the celebrations of the coronation of Nicholas II in Moscow and the accompanying Khodynka tragedy. It seems that about 1000 people died then (perhaps they will correct me). Nothing was written about this then, and information reached only in the form of rumors and eyewitness accounts. They blamed in many respects Prince Sergei, who failed to provide adequate security. An extremely unpleasant impression was made by the fact that the tsar did not want to cancel all the planned celebrations after the tragedy. Again, with all the influence that Ella and his uncle Sergei had on the king, it was they who had to show tact and somehow “resolve” this situation. However, this did not happen. Subsequently, it was because of Khodynka that Sergei became one of the most hated dignitaries for the revolutionaries, and perhaps this was what cost Sergei his life in 1905.
Everything ended, as you know, VERY badly for all the heroes of our story - for Ella and Sergey, for Alix and Nicholas, and even for Wilhelm II.
P.S.
I'm so sorry Ella. Her guilt, due to the fact that the heir to the Russian throne nevertheless turned out to be ill with a terrible disease, was enormous, and her path after the death of Prince Sergei was monasticism, her refusal to leave Russia in 1917 was most likely an attempt to somehow redeem this guilt.
May the earth rest in peace for her ...
Original taken from echo_2013 in Mother Elizabeth. Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna. Part 1
In 1884, the brother of the Russian Tsar, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich married the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Louise Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt, or simply Ella of Hesse. Princess Ella, as her family called her, was the second daughter of the German Duke Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt and Duchess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria.
By the time of the wedding of Ella and Sergei, the mother of the bride, Duchess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt, had long been dead.
Life forced Princess Elizabeth to grow up early. Ella was a teenager when, in 1878, an epidemic of diphtheria broke out in Darmstadt, which completely affected the duke's family.
Ella as a child
Ella's older sister Victoria was the first to feel symptoms of illness. E It didn't make her shiver, her throat and head ached... The girls received a strict upbringing and didn't have the habit of complaining over trifles. Having decided that her illness was just those very trifles - a slight cold, Victoria continued to fulfill her duties as an older sister - in the evenings she had to read fairy tales aloud to the kids. Seating her brother and sisters in a circle next to her, the princess opened the book.
When Duchess Alice realized that her daughter was ill and called the doctor, the most terrible diagnosis was confirmed - Victoria had diphtheria, a disease that was difficult to cure in those years, which claimed many children's lives ... The doctor insisted on the immediate isolation of the sick princess, but his recommendations were somewhat belatedly - other children managed to get infected from their older sister. Everyone except Ella, whom her mother sent in a panic to her relatives. Then the duke himself fell ill.
Mad with horror, the duchess rushed between the children's rooms and her husband's bedroom, trying to do everything to pull her loved ones out of the arms of death.
The first to die was four-year-old Mei, Princess Mary. Little Ernie, having learned that his beloved sister was no more, crying, threw himself on his mother's neck and began to kiss her. Perhaps the mother understood that the sick child was transmitting her illness to her at that moment, but she did not find the strength to push him away ... The Duchess, who had been on her feet for a long time, also fell ill after direct contact with her son. The illness was severe. On her last day, Alice was delirious, it seemed to her that all the deceased loved ones, led by tiny Mei, were calling her to her ...
The famous politician Disraeli, having learned about the tragedy in the family of Duke Ludwig, called Ernie's fatal kiss "the kiss of death." And the young prince himself soon recovered, as if he had given his illness to his mother. The inconsolable duke erected a monument on his wife's grave depicting Alice clutching the dead May...
Duchess Alice with little Ella
And for Ella, childhood ended on the day her mother died. Doctors were afraid that the girl would develop a nervous illness from the shock. She could fall silent in the middle of a conversation, in mid-sentence, and, staring at the interlocutor with tear-filled eyes, plunge into her own thoughts for a long time. She began to develop a stutter.
But fourteen-year-old Ella managed to pull herself together. It was necessary to support the father and the kids, to do everything to at least partially replace their mother. The older sister Victoria, who claimed to be the head of the house, was caustic and harsh.
Ernie, the future Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse, recalled: " She is a girl(Princess Victoria) considered it unworthy to show good-heartedness and therefore often remained misunderstood, to which she easily reacted with harshness, since sharpness helped her give biting answers ..."
In Ella there was much more kindness, affection and self-denial, surprising for a teenager.
Even if she was offered something very valuable in children's eyes - a toy, sweets, new paints for drawing, she usually answered: "I don't need anything, it's better to give it to the kids"...
Ernie spoke of her in a very different way from the other sisters: “Of all the sisters, Ella was the closest to me. We almost always understood each other in everything, she felt me so subtly, as is rarely the case with sisters. She was one of the rare beauties, just perfection itself. Once in Venice, I saw in the market how many people abandoned their goods and followed her in admiration. She was musical, she had a pleasant voice. But she especially loved to draw. And she loved to dress well. Not out of vanity at all, no, out of love for beauty in everything. She had a strong sense of humor, she could talk about various incidents with inimitable comicality. How often we laughed with her, forgetting everything in the world. Her stories were a true delight»
.
Ella in her youth
Queen Victoria was shocked by the death of her daughter, Duchess Alice. This is probably why the orphaned children of Alice were closer to the queen than other grandchildren ...
« I will try with your other grandmother to become your mother by the will of God,- Queen Victoria wrote to them after the tragedy in the ducal family. - Your loving and unhappy grandmother...
Ella, like her sisters and brother, grew up in Windsor Castle and considered Britain her native country, and English language- with her innate, and until the death of the Queen of the British Empire, she maintained a tender and trusting relationship with her grandmother.
Queen Victoria with orphaned granddaughters; Ella is standing on the right, next to her is little Alix, the future Russian Empress
Even in her family, among pretty young princesses, Ella stood out for her beauty and grace. But she was not only extraordinarily pretty, but also intelligent and tactful; behaved with dignity, but without excessive claims. She had many admirers and very enviable suitors. The German prince Willi, heir to the Prussian crown, the future Kaiser Wilhelm II, was passionately in love with Ella.
He often visited Darmstadt, tried clumsily to court the beautiful princess, and finally ventured to propose a hand, a heart, and the imperial crown that awaited him. But Ella remained cold and wrote to her grandmother in Windsor: " Willy is obnoxious". Victoria, who dreamed of her beloved granddaughter as the empress of the Berlin court, tried to reason with her: the princess must remember her state and its interests, and passionate love is not always the basis for a successful marriage. Ella replied that in addition to human calculations, there is also God and it is better to rely to his will.
“He may have many other important things to do, besides arranging your fate,” Grandma smiled.
“Nothing, I’ll wait until he is free,” the choosy princess replied, realizing that the formidable queen grandmother was not angry.
Married to Ella and Friedrich of Baden, and other European princes. But she needed only one person - Grand Duke Sergei, brother of the Russian Tsar ...
Sergei often visited Darmstadt during his mother's lifetime - Empress Maria Alexandrovna was from the Hesse-Darmstadt family (Grand Duke Ludwig, Ella's father, was the nephew of the late Empress) and, of course, could not help but fall in love with the beautiful Ella, who answered him with complete reciprocity.
Sergey and Ella
Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt did not find any objections to the Grand Duke Sergei. The Romanov family also welcomed this union. Duchess Mary of Edinburgh, as a sister, wrote to Alexander III about Ella: “ Sergei will be just a fool if he does not marry her. He will never find a more beautiful and sweeter princess».
But the bride's grandmother, Queen Victoria, whose opinion had a special weight when concluding dynastic unions, did not immediately decide to give consent to Ella's marriage to the brother of the Russian emperor. (Grandmother personally dealt with the fate of the orphaned princesses, for marriage is a serious matter, and the Duke of Hesse, like all men, showed complete frivolity here).
The queen did not like the Russian imperial family too much, although her children and grandchildren forced her to intermarry with the ruling house of the Romanovs. Ella's marriage to the Grand Duke doomed the young beauty, brought up in European traditions, to life in distant, cold and, according to the queen, completely wild Russia.
But Ella, who was in love with Sergei, managed to insist on her own. Victoria thought and thought, collected information about the groom ... and agreed. After all, she had a weakness for love marriages - her own long and happy marriage was just that!
Ella and Sergey
Not all contemporaries left benevolent memories of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. A man with restrained manners, rather dry (which in the eyes of Ella, who received an English "Victorian" upbringing, was rather a virtue), deeply religious. Many people were annoyed by Sergey's manner of keeping his back “forcefully straight”, looking somewhat down and turning his whole body towards the interlocutor. In such manners they saw arrogance and defiance.
Few people guessed that since childhood, due to an illness of the spine, Sergei suffered from back pain and was forced to wear a rigid corset that deprived him of flexibility. At the same time, he tried to lead a life not of an invalid, but ordinary person- preferred a military career, went in for horse riding, sports, danced (all this - overcoming constant pain and not wanting to admit it to anyone). And the restrained manners were explained only by shyness caused by a physical handicap ...
Now they rarely remember that Sergei Alexandrovich, like his older brother Alexander III, was a hero Turkish war. As well as about scientific activity grand duke. But he defended his doctoral dissertation in economics, was a famous scientist, organizer of scientific expeditions and a member of the Presidium Russian Academy Sciences. Grand Duke Sergei patronized two archaeological institutes - in St. Petersburg and Constantinople, and provided his own funds for the organization of archaeological excavations.
In addition, Sergei Alexandrovich was considered a connoisseur, connoisseur and patron of art. He collected excellent collections of Italian and Russian paintings of the 18th century, antiques, a rich library, archive historical documents. He, for example, managed to find many scattered letters from the wife of Alexander I, Empress Elizabeth - the Grand Duke was going to write a book about her life. Professor I. Tsvetaev, who laid his life on the construction of the Moscow Museum fine arts them. A.S. Pushkin (originally - the Museum of Fine Arts named after Alexander III), recalled that the Grand Dukes Sergei Alexandrovich and Pavel Alexandrovich were the first major donors to the organization of the museum. The Parthenon Hall, one of the most majestic and expensive museum halls, was built entirely at the expense of the Grand Dukes.
The Orthodox Church still highly honors the religious merits of the Grand Duke to the fatherland. The organizer and leader of the Imperial Palestinian Society, he did a lot to strengthen the position of Russian Orthodoxy in the East, for the activities of Russian churches and monasteries in Palestine, for the development of Russian charity in Eastern countries and for organizing pilgrimages from Russia to the Holy Land. Despite all the political changes, terrible wars, to change the world order in the twentieth century, the Orthodox organizations created with the help of Sergei Alexandrovich in the Holy Land are still active.
Even a cursory glance at what was done by Grand Duke Sergei during his short life shows that all attempts to present him as a stupid martinet, retrograde, a person with a low level of intelligence, to put it mildly, are far from objectivity.
Speaking of Grand Duke Sergei and his marriage to Ella, one cannot avoid another topic, complex and ambiguous. This is the alleged non-traditional sexual orientation of the Grand Duke.
References to his homosexuality have become a "common place" in the works of modern authors, and even quite respected researchers have not escaped such statements. But you involuntarily notice that practically none of them gives any facts confirming this version. Letters, diary entries, denunciations to the highest name, police reports or similar documents are not quoted anywhere, in extreme cases, there are links to some gossip obtained from third parties and basically conveying meaningless events. The authorship of gossip belongs most often to the Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, Sandro, the younger cousin of Alexander III and Sergei Alexandrovich.
Sandro, for some reason, especially disliked his cousin Sergei. He even ventured to assert that Sergei married Ella of Hesse only " in order to further emphasize his unpleasant personality". But in fact, supposedly, because of his vicious inclinations, he did not need a woman spouse at all.
Of course, for the 21st century this is no longer such a serious accusation as for the end of the 19th century, when, according to the Penal Code, sodomy was equated with bestiality and was strictly punished by law, and the honor of a suspected person suffered immeasurably. And yet, if we accept on faith the assertions about the secret weakness of the Grand Duke, it is difficult to find answers to a number of important questions.
First. It is known that Queen Victoria, before giving her consent to the marriage of her granddaughter Ella, who was in love with the prince, collected a real dossier on the alleged groom through the informants of the English crown. English diplomats and spies are responsible people, and when preparing information for Her Majesty, they would hardly lose sight of something well-known that characterizes the personality of a future husband. Could the English queen, known for her strict moral principles, agree to the marriage of her beloved granddaughter with a man of "blue" orientation?
Ella (second from right) with her sisters
Second. Ella, having moved with her husband to distant Russia, wrote to her grandmother frequent and detailed letters about her life. Everything was described in them - from important family events and religious impressions that shake her soul, to trifles like a wasp sting, a dance party, or a dress she liked, seen in a picture in a fashionable French magazine. And at the same time, not a word, not a hint of failure in family life, to the neglect of her husband, to the fact that hopes for happiness have failed.
Suppose Ella, who received a strict upbringing, simply did not consider it possible to complain, considered it unworthy. But outright lies would be just as unworthy. She could "eloquently" keep silent about her troubles, often such silence speaks much more than words. But Ella's letters are letters from a happy young woman enjoying a harmonious marriage, and there is no doubt about that. A prosperous life, full of joy, and endless references to "my dear Sergei", with whom she does not want to part for a minute ... Together on the estate, together in the capital, together on regimental exercises, on a trip to holy places, on a visit to overseas relatives. " All I can always repeat is that I am quite happy..."
And this is written by a young beauty who married a man who does not need and is not interested in women?
Queen Victoria
Third. Sergei Alexandrovich was, according to everyone's conviction, a true believer. Even in his early youth, he made pilgrimages to holy places, led large Christian organizations, donated to Orthodox churches and participated in their consecration. His faith was not ostentatious, but internal, capturing the soul. He revealed to his young wife all the beauty of Orthodoxy, so that Elizabeth, who was brought up in the traditions of Protestantism, was imbued with love for the Russian church and, contrary to the orders of her father and grandmother, converted to Orthodoxy. Nobody demanded this from her, she herself, under the influence of her husband, decided to share his religious beliefs.
But, being Orthodox, Sergei had to regularly confess his sins to the priest, telling about everything without concealment. And the attitude of the church to the "sin of Sodom" is known. Could the Grand Duke combine Christian ideas about morality and similar hobbies, remaining spiritually pure before God?
Fourth. Alexander III, the elder brother of Sergei, could not help but know the whole ins and outs about such a close relative. He himself was not only an absolutely heterosexual person, but also an exemplary family man, who did not allow even innocent romantic hobbies outside of marriage, and would hardly have become condescending to the "non-traditional hobbies" of relatives. Nevertheless, he had friendly relations with Sergei, not overshadowed by any disagreements, Alexander even appointed his brother to the post of Moscow Governor-General. This is an exemplary appointment in every sense. The second city in Russia after the capital (and according to Muscovites - just the first!), Moscow was distinguished by patriarchal mores, and people in it, as in big village, were in sight, especially - representatives of high society. The whole mother of the Mother See was discussing who got married to whom, who walks from his wife, who bought the estate beyond his means, and who got entangled in gambling debts. Almost nothing could be hidden! And the governor-general, the first person in the Moscow hierarchy, was even more so for the townspeople as if under a magnifying glass. The level of tolerance in Moscow in those days, and later did not rise to transcendental heights, it was supposed to live "like everyone else." A fact-based rumor that the governor was from the "gays" would instantly deprive Sergei Alexandrovich of all authority and turn him into a general laughingstock.
So would Alexander III have thoughtlessly decided on such a compromise of the august family?
Fifth. Ella, who struck with beauty in her youth, literally blossomed in marriage. She was full of charm, feminine sensual charm, looked unusually young, almost younger than in the years of her mournful orphan youth ... Men admired her like the sun, but from a distance - Sergei Alexandrovich was terribly jealous! And his jealousy was visible to everyone. The French ambassador Maurice Palaiologos left this recollection:
« The good-natured giant, Alexander the Third ... lavished(to Grand Duchess Elizabeth. - E.Kh.) first the kindest attention; but soon had to refrain, noticing that he aroused the jealousy of his brother».
Is this really just a decoration for a failed marriage? No matter how you pretend, no matter how you play, trouble leaves an indelible mark on a woman.
But the day when the fate of the revolutionary extremist Kalyaev, who threw a bomb into the carriage of Grand Duke Sergei, took away her husband and marital happiness, became a fateful day in the life of Elizabeth. There was no replacement for her dead husband and could not be. She remained faithful to his memory until her death. Having visited the terrorist killer in prison and after listening to his lengthy explanations that he did not want to deprive her of extra blood, and although he could have dealt with her husband for a long time, he spared Elizabeth Feodorovna, who was usually next to the Grand Duke, not wanting to kill her, she quietly said :
“You didn’t guess that they killed me along with him!”
You can cite various facts for a long time and ask questions that are difficult to find an answer to ... But, asking if Elizaveta Fedorovna was happy and loved in marriage, one involuntarily has to answer with only one word - yes! " Sergey told me about his wife, admired her, praised her, - Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov recalled. - He thanks God every hour for his happiness."...
So what gave rise to such long-circulating rumors about Sergei Romanov's belonging to sexual minorities?
Being a strict and not too flexible (in the figurative sense of the word even more than in the direct) man, Sergei Alexandrovich made some enemies in the rapidly growing Romanov family. Shares in the "family pie" were not enough for everyone, and a struggle began for a place closer to the throne.
Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and his wife Xenia Alexandrovna, sister of Nicholas II
Sergei, who did nothing to strengthen his position, nevertheless aroused the envy of many Romanovs. The grandson, son, brother and uncle of the reigning emperors, he was part of the closest circle of the royal entourage, and many representatives of the "side branches" of the Romanov tree wanted to press him with all their might.
Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich always and without any particular reason claimed a special role in the empire, and woe to those who dared not recognize this state of affairs. His mother, Grand Duchess Olga Feodorovna (nee Princess Cecilia of Baden), not without reason considered "the first gossip of the empire", with great pleasure spread unfriendly rumors about everyone in whom she saw competitors for her sons. It was she who was suspected of authoring gossip about the "sodomite hobbies" of Grand Duke Sergei. Why did she need it? And it's so simple: she did not like Prince Sergei, and he greatly interfered with his beloved son to strengthen his position at court.
"I know Ella and I are being talked about, - Sergey Alexandrovich wrote to Grand Duke Konstantin. - But what do all these undeveloped people understand?»
Elizaveta Fedorovna
If you look at a person with an unfriendly look, you can usually find flaws in him sooner or later. So Alexander Mikhailovich, determined to search for flaws in an unloved relative, only tried to notice them. " He flaunted his shortcomings, as if throwing a challenge in the face of everyone.- he wrote, remembering Grand Duke Sergei, - and thus giving the enemies rich food for slander and slander".
Slander and slander! Alexander Mikhailovich seemed to let it slip, using these very words, being himself one of Sergei's main ill-wishers.
(By the way, this strict moralist and hypocrite, who saw hidden obscenity in the most ordinary acts of Prince Sergei, would eventually give his own daughter to Prince Felix Yusupov, a man of more than an ambiguous reputation. All of Petersburg knew about Felix’s unusual erotic amusements, the young prince didn’t particularly hid, appearing in theaters and restaurants in a woman's dress and surrounded by "cavaliers", but ... the Yusupovs were so rich, much richer than the Romanov family, especially its lateral, deprived branches! And Felix, after the death of his older brother, turned out to be the only possible heir to countless millions ...)
Be that as it may, the marriage of Sergei Alexandrovich and Ella of Hesse was consecrated with great love. And she wanted to see her husband's entourage embellished, consisting of kind and nice people. " Everyone who knows him loves him and says that he has a truthful and noble character...”, she wrote to her grandmother-queen about her husband.
Ella and Tsarevich Nicholas
This marriage, as it turned out later, albeit indirectly, determined the fate of the heir to the Russian throne. The future wife of Nicholas, Alexandra Feodorovna, Alix, was the sister of Ella of Hesse, and the mutual passion of the little princess and the Russian Tsarevich found strong patrons in the person of Sergei and Ella, who, despite all the obstacles, managed to bring the matter to the reunion of the lovers.
To be continued.
Two sisters. Ella (Elizaveta Feodorovna) and Alix (Alexandra Feodorovna)Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna
Two sisters Ella and Alix
Elizaveta Feodorovna (at birth, Elizabeth Alexandra Louise Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt, German Elisabeth Alexandra Luise Alice von Hessen-Darmstadt und bei Rhein, her family name was Ella, officially in Russia - Elisaveta Feodorovna)
(November 1, 1864, Darmstadt - July 18, 1918, Perm province) - Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt
P.P. Trubetskoy. pastel 1890s
Elizabeth Feodorovna
Alexandra Fedorovna
The second daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt Ludwig IV and Princess Alice, granddaughter of the English Queen Victoria.
In 1878, the whole family, except for Ella (as she was called in the family), fell ill with diphtheria, from which Ella's younger sister, four-year-old Maria, and her mother, Grand Duchess Alice, soon died.
Portrait of the family of Grand Duke Ludwig IV, painted for Queen Victoria in 1879 by the artist Baron Heinrich von Angeli.
Father Ludwig IV, after the death of his wife, entered into a morganatic marriage with Alexandrina Hutten-Czapska, and Ella and Alix were brought up mainly by their grandmother, Queen Victoria, at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.
An important role in the spiritual life of Ella was played by the image of Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia, after whom Ella was named: this saint, the ancestor of the Dukes of Hesse, became famous for her works of mercy.
Elizabeth Feodorovna
1885
On June 3 (15), 1884, in the Court Cathedral of the Winter Palace, she married Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, brother of the Russian Emperor Alexander III.
Elizabeth Feodorovna
1887
Two sisters Ella and Alix
Alexandra Feodorovna (Feodorovna, nee Princess Victoria Alice Helena Louise Beatrice of Hesse-Darmstadt, German Victoria Alix Helena Louise Beatrice von Hessen und bei Rhein, Nicholas II also called her Alix - a derivative of Alice and Alexander)
(June 6, 1872, Darmstadt - July 17, 1918, Yekaterinburg)
Joszef Arpad Koppay
1900
Alexandra Fedorovna
The fourth daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and Rhine, and Duchess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria of England.
Name day (in Orthodoxy) - April 23 according to the Julian calendar, the memory of the martyr Alexandra.
Family portrait of Prince Ludwig of Hesse, 1871, August Noack.
Born in Darmstadt (German Empire) in 1872. She was baptized on July 1, 1872 according to the Lutheran rite. The name given to her consisted of her mother's name (Alice) and the four names of her aunts. The godparents were: Edward, Prince of Wales (future King Edward VII), Tsarevich Alexander Alexandrovich (future Emperor Alexander III) with his wife, Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria, Princess Beatrice, Augusta of Hesse-Kassel, Duchess of Cambridge and Maria Anna, princess of Prussia.
Princess Alix of Hesse
1894
Alice inherited the hemophilia gene from Queen Victoria.
Alice was considered the favorite granddaughter of Queen Victoria, who called her Sunny (“Sunny”).
Heinrich von Angeli
Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, born Princess Alice of Hesse.
The portrait was painted for Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.
1896/97
In June 1884, at the age of 12, Alice visited Russia for the first time, when her older sister Ella (in Orthodoxy - Elizaveta Feodorovna) was married to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich.
Princess Alix of Hesse
1894
For the second time, she arrived in Russia in January 1889 at the invitation of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. After staying in the Sergievsky Palace (Petersburg) for six weeks, the princess met and attracted the special attention of the heir to Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich.
Alix of Hesse
1894
On November 14 (26), 1894, the wedding of Alexandra and Nicholas II took place in the Great Church of the Winter Palace.
Friedrich August von Kaulbach
1896
Alexandra Fedorovna
Albert von Keller
1896
Alexandra Fedorovna
Elizabeth Feodorovna
Elizabeth Feodorovna
Elizabeth Feodorovna
Sohn, Carl Rudolf
Portrait of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna
S.F. Aleksandrovsky
Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, 1887
Two sisters Ella and Alix
F.I. Rerberg. before 1905
Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna
Two sisters Ella and Alix
Elizabeth Feodorovna
Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant
Empress Alexandra Feodorovna
Alexander Vladimirovich Makovsky
1914
Friedrich August von Kaulbach.
Alexandra Fedorovna
The portrait - a copy of the painting of the same name by F. A. von Kaulbach (1903) - was executed at the request of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna for a gift to the Educational Society for Noble Maidens on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Smolny Institute (1914).
Alexandra Fedorovna
N.K. Bodarevsky
Canvas, oil. 1907
Portrait of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna
A.P. Sokolov
1901
Portrait of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna
She, who was born 150 years ago - November 1, 1864 - was called by her contemporaries the first beauty of Europe. father Elizabeth was Grand Duke of Hesse-Darm-Stadt Ludwig IV, mother - princess alice, daughter English Queen Victoria.
"I'm happy"
20-year-old Ella was brought to Russia by her consent to marry Grand Duke Sergei Romanov- brother Emperor Alexander III. The couple were deeply religious. Being a Protestant, Ella voluntarily stood next to Sergei Alexandrovich for many hours of services in Orthodox churches. After the first 6 years in Russia, against the will of her father, she converted to Orthodoxy. “How can I lie to everyone, pretending to be a Protestant, when my soul is completely religious here?!” she wrote to her father.
By this time, Ella had already begun to speak Russian, understood the beauty of the Church Slavonic language and admired it. Harmony reigned in her family life. "I am happy and very much loved" , - she wrote to her grandmother, the English Queen Victoria, and in a letter to her brother Ernst called her husband "a real angel of kindness." In 1891, the couple moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow - the Grand Duke was appointed governor-general of the Mother See. This high position made Sergei Alexandrovich a target for revolutionary terrorists. The governor-general was often threatened. It got to the point that the prince, leaving the house, tried not to take his relatives with him in order to save their lives in case of an assassination attempt. Terrorist Kalyaev threw a bomb at the Grand Duke on February 4, 1905 on the territory of the Kremlin. Hearing the explosion, Elizaveta Feodorovna ran out of the palace into the street. With a deathly pale face, she collected pieces of her husband's torn body. One old woman brought her the found finger of the prince with a wedding ring, one hand of the murdered was found on the other side Kremlin wall, and the heart is on the roof of one of the buildings.
The tragedy in the Kremlin became the prototype of the bloody mess into which the revolutionaries will turn Russia in 12 years. The cross, installed by Elizaveta Fedorovna at the site of the murder of her husband in the Kremlin, was personally dismantled in 1918 Lenin together with Sverdlov. And after the revolution, Lenin lived for some time in the family estate of Sergei Alexandrovich Ilyinsky, which is 30 km from Moscow. Ella and Sergei spent their honeymoon in Ilyinsky, during which time they set up a maternity hospital for the peasants and became godparents for many rural children. Local residents were not surprised when the Grand Duchess came to their house with the question: “How can I help you?”
After the death of her husband, Elizaveta Fedorovna sold all the jewelry, including the engagement ring, acquiring with this money in Moscow on Ordynka a large estate with a garden, where she founded. She set up a free hospital for the poor here, where the best doctors were receiving. And she herself assisted doctors during complex operations. The monastery had an orphanage, a free canteen, a Sunday school for children and adults, and a library. “Not everyone was able to correctly understand the change that had taken place in her,” wrote her contemporary about Elizabeth Feodorovna Archpriest Michael Polsky. “It was necessary to go through such a catastrophe as hers in order to be convinced of the fragility of wealth, fame and other earthly blessings, which the Gospel has been talking about for so many centuries.”
Elizaveta Fedorovna slept 4 hours a day on a bench without a mattress, looked after the most difficult patients, bandaged patients with gangrene, not shunning the smell, after which she had to change her clothes. “I am engaged to Christ and His cause,” she wrote in those days. - I give everything I can to God and neighbors, I go deeper into our Orthodox Church". She made all decisions with the blessing of the elders.
Two sisters
In Moscow, for helping the poor, the sick, the homeless, Elizabeth Feodorovna was called the Great Mother. Even in such a haunted place as Khitrov market, where mother picked up homeless children, no one dared to touch her. When the Bolsheviks decided to arrest Elizaveta Fedorovna, they sent not Muscovites to the monastery, but a group of Latvians. She was captured on the third day of Easter week in 1918.
Elizaveta Feodorovna in the clothes of a sister of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
Together with Elizaveta Fedorovna, her faithful cell-attendant went to exile in the Urals nun Varvara. Mother was thrown alive into a mine shaft 60 meters deep near Alapaevsk. It happened on July 18, the day of the name day of her late husband. And the day before, the royal family was killed in Yekaterinburg. As you know, wife Nicholas II, Alexandra Fedorovna, was the younger sister of Elizabeth Feodorovna.
In a terrible revolutionary time, mother, if desired, could leave Russia. After the Bolsheviks concluded the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, the German ambassador in Moscow sought permission from the Soviet leadership for Elizaveta Feodorovna to leave abroad. This was facilitated Kaiser Wilhelm, in his youth in love with Ella. In the spring of 1918, the German ambassador even arrived at the monastery, but the Grand Duchess did not receive the diplomat. She could not imagine herself without Russia. And the people that followed the revolutionaries, and called deceived. “Lord, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing,” the saint prayed at the edge of the mine for her tormentors. She, the nun Varvara, and six other prisoners were already bombarded in the mine. However, through the smoke and cinders from below came the singing of the mother: “Save, Lord, Thy people ...” Two of the group of executioners could not stand the horror of what was happening and went crazy.
Soon after the massacre, she came to Alapaevsk white army. The remains of the Grand Duchess and nun Varvara were transported through China to Jerusalem, where they rested in the Russian church of St. Mary Magdalene. A quarter of a century before her death, Elizaveta Feodorovna was present at the consecration of this church together with her husband. That was her first and only trip to the Holy Land. The temple was built with money royal family in memory of Empress Maria Alexandrovna- the mother of her husband Sergei. The beauty of both churches and places penetrated so deeply into the heart of 24-year-old Ella that she exclaimed: “I wish I were buried here!” These words of hers were exactly fulfilled.
In 1992, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Elizabeth Feodorovna as a saint. At the same time, the restoration of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent of Mercy, desecrated by the Bolsheviks, began in Moscow. Here again they help the suffering, raise orphans, feed the destitute. In the Church of the Intercession of the Mother of God, erected by the mother, a prayer is again raised to God. “The gates of hell will not overcome Holy Russia and the Orthodox Church,” wrote St. Elizabeth Feodorovna on the eve of her martyrdom.
