The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra

401 Pages·2014·3.1 MB·English

by  Helen Rappaport

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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Glossary of Names
Author’s Note
Epigraph
Prologue – The Room of the First and Last Door
One – Mother Love
Two – La Petite Duchesse
Three – My God! What a Disappointment!… A Fourth Girl!
Four – The Hope of Russia
Five – The Big Pair and The Little Pair
Six – The Shtandart
Seven – Our Friend
Eight – Royal Cousins
Nine – In St Petersburg We Work, But at Livadia We Live
Ten – Cupid by the Thrones
Eleven – The Little One Will Not Die
Twelve – Lord Send Happiness to Him, My Beloved One
Thirteen – God Save the Tsar!
Fourteen – Sisters of Mercy
Fifteen – We Cannot Drop Our Work in the Hospitals
Sixteen – The Outside Life
Seventeen – Terrible Things Are Going on in St Petersburg
Eighteen – Goodbye. Don’t Forget Me
Nineteen – On Freedom Street
Twenty – Thank God We Are Still in Russia and All Together
Twenty-one – They Knew It Was the End When I Was With Them
Twenty-two – Prisoners of the Ural Regional Soviet
Epilogue – Victims of Repressions
Photographs
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
Index
Copyright
In memory of
Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia Romanova
four extraordinary young women
List of Illustrations
1 Tsarevich Nicholas and Princess Alix of Hesse (Photo by Time Life
Pictures/Mansell/GettyImages/Getty)
2 Alexandra Feodorovna with the Grand Duchesses Olga and baby Maria, 1899 (By courtesy of
Lotte Hoffmann-Kuhnt)
3 The Tsarevich Alexey, aged about three, with a Box Brownie (By courtesy of Ruth Abrahams)
4 Grand Duchess Olga, Guérin-Boutron chocolate company trade card, 1906 (By courtesy of Roger
Short)
5 Grand Duchess Tatiana, Guérin-Boutron chocolate company trade card, 1906 (By courtesy of
Roger Short)
6 Grand Duchess Maria, Guérin-Boutron chocolate company trade card, 1906 (By courtesy of Roger
Short)
7 Grand Duchess Anastasia, Guérin-Boutron chocolate company trade card, 1906 (By courtesy of
Roger Short)
8 The Imperial family on duty c. 1911 (Mary Evans Picture Library/Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo)
9 The Imperial family (By courtesy of Roger Short)
10 The Tsaritsa in her boudoir with Anastasia, Tatiana and Maria (By courtesy of Ruth Abrahams)
11 Tsar Nicholas II and the Grand Duchess Anastasia, smoking (By courtesy of the Siberian
Times/Zlatoust Municipal Regional Studies Museum, Chelyabinsk)
12 White Flower Day (By courtesy of Roger Short)
13 Anastasia with members of the Imperial Entourage of the Shtandart (By courtesy of Ruth
Abrahams)
14 Olga and Tatiana ashore with courtiers (By courtesy of Ruth Abrahams)
15 Olga at her lessons with Pierre Gilliard (By courtesy of Ruth Abrahams)
16 Anastasia in the schoolroom (By courtesy of the author)
17 The four Grand Duchesses with their father (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film
& Photo Archive/Russian Archives Online)
18 Olga, Tatiana and Anastasia with officers aboard the imperial yacht, the Shtandart (By courtesy
of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)
19 Profile portraits of the four Grand Duchesses, 1914. Clockwise from top left: Olga, Tatiana,
Anastasia, Maria. (By courtesy of the Siberian Times/Zlatoust Municipal Regional Studies Museum)
20 Olga and Tatiana in court dress c. 1913 (By courtesy of Ruth Abrahams)
21 Olga and Tatiana in regimental uniform c. 1913 (By courtesy of Ruth Abrahams)
22 Dmitri Pavlovich (By courtesy of Roger Short)
23 Maria, Anastasia and Olga with young officers in Cossack dress (By courtesy of the Russian
State Documentary Film & Photo Archive/Russian Archives Online)
24 Tatiana and Olga picking grapes with their father Nicholas II and Anna Vyrubova (By courtesy
of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)
25 Tatiana in fancy dress, 1916 (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo
Archive/Russian Archives Online)
26 Olga in fancy dress, 1916 (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo
Archive/Russian Archives Online)
27 Maria in fancy dress, 1916 (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo
Archive/Russian Archives Online)
28 Anastasia in fancy dress, 1916 (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo
Archive/Russian Archives Online)
29 Olga and Tatiana receiving donations for the Russian war effort (Stolitsa i usadba/By courtesy of
New York Public Library)
30 Anastasia and Maria with wounded soldiers (By courtesy of the author)
31 Tatiana, nursing a wounded officer (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary Film & Photo
Archive/Russian Archives Online)
32 Tatiana with Vladimir Kiknadze (By courtesy of the Siberian Times/Zlatoust Municipal Regional
Studies Museum)
33 Olga and Tatiana nursing the wounded (By courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, Yale University)
34 Maria and Olga, 1916 (By courtesy of the author)
35 Tatiana recuperating from typhoid fever in 1913 (By courtesy of the Russian State Documentary
Film & Photo Archive/Russian Archives Online)
36 Anastasia, with shaven head (Ekaterina Erastovna Zborovskaia collection, Box 1, Hoover
Institution Archives)
37 The last photograph taken of the Tsar and Tsaritsa, Tobolsk 1917 (Mary Evans Picture Library)
38 Olga and Alexey in captivity at Tobolsk (By courtesy of the author)
39 Father Ivan Storozhev (By courtesy of John Storojev)
40 Father Storozhev’s missal (By courtesy of John Storojev)
Glossary of Names
Listed below are the most frequently occurring names in the text, in the form in
which they are generally cited.
OTMA = the sisters’ own acronym for Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia AKSH: acronym of Alexander
Konstantinovich Shvedov, one of Olga’s favourite officers in the Tsar’s Escort A (S ) T :
LEXANDRA HURA EGLEVA
OTMA’s nurse and later general maid; married Pierre Gilliard
A : Princess Alice of Great Britain, later Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine, Alexandra’s mother
LICE
A : Queen Victoria’s pet name for Alexandra, used to distinguish her from Alix, who in the British
LICKY
royal family was Alexandra, Princess of Wales A : Nicholas’s pet name for his wife Alexandra A
LIX NNA
(N ) D : Alexandra’s maid in waiting A V : Alexandra’s close friend and confidante;
YUTA EMIDOVA NNA YRUBOVA
later appointed a maid of honour B : pet name for Varvara Vilchikovskaya, OT’s friend and nurse at the
IBI
annexe C : Terenty Chemodurov, Nicholas’s valet C B : Pavel Benkendorf, chief
HEMODUROV OUNT ENKENDORF
marshal and master of ceremonies at the imperial court C F : Vladimir Freedericksz, head of
OUNT REEDERICKSZ
the imperial household C G : Nikolay Grabbe, commander of the Tsar’s Escort D : Andrey
OUNT RABBE EREVENKO
Derevenko, Alexey’s sailor dyadka
D : Louis of Battenberg, later Lord Mountbatten, OTMA’s cousin D P : Grand Duke Dmitri
ICKIE MITRI AVLOVICH
Pavlovich, OTMA’s cousin D (M ) M : Tatiana’s favourite wounded officer at the hospital
MITRI ITYA ALAMA
D (M ) S -B : Olga’s favourite wounded officer at the hospital D : Prince Vasili
MITRI ITYA HAKH AGOV OLGORUKOV
Dolgorukov, adjutant general, with Nicholas at Stavka D B : Evgeny Botkin, physician to the
R OTKIN
Imperial Family D D : Vladimir Derevenko, Alexey’s personal physician (no relation to Andrey
R EREVENKO
Derevenko) D G : Princess Vera Gedroits, senior surgeon at the Court Hospital D S -
R EDROITS UCHESS OF AXE
C : formerly Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, also Duchess of Edinburgh D : pet
OBURG UCKY
name for Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg, first wife of Ernie, Alexandra’s brother E
LIZAVETA
E : Alexandra’s maid in waiting E N : Alexandra’s mistress of the robes from 1910;
RSBERG LIZAVETA ARYSHKINA
the most senior lady at court E O : Alexandra’s lady in waiting E : Grand Duke Ernest
LIZAVETA BOLENSKAYA RNIE
of Hesse and by Rhine, Alexandra’s brother G M : Alexander Mosolov, head of the Court
ENERAL OSOLOV
Chancellery G S : Alexander Spiridovich, Chief of the Kiev section of the Okhrana; from
ENERAL PIRIDOVICH
1906 head of the tsar’s personal security services G B : son of Dr Botkin; with him at Tobolsk
LEB OTKIN
G D V : Maria Pavlovna the elder, wife of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich; also
RAND UCHESS LADIMIR
known in the family as Miechen G D G : Georgiy Alexandrovich, Nicholas’s younger brother
RAND UKE EORGIY
and tsarevich till his death in 1899