Imperial Family Handwriting.

I am interested in the handwriting (graphology) of the Imperial Family because I think it holds the key to many of the claimants who allegedly survived the fatal night in 1918.

I have just started with this idea so if anyone has examples please will you share with the rest of us?

I have a genuine example of Xenia's handwriting and  though it has changed over the years it is still quite unique to her.  I will put this on this site as soon as I know how.

All the best

Tranwell

Nicholas II, in Russian & English:



Alix in Russian/English, and German:

Olga Nikolaevna in Russian and English:


Tatiana Nikolaevna in Russian and English:

Maria Nikolaevna in Russian and English:


Anastasia Nikolaevna in Russian and English:

Aleksei Nikolaevich in Russian and French:

Isa posted lots of nice samples on this thread at Ritka's RATP forum:
Real Royal Art and Letters

It should be noted that in the above example of the hand of Nikolai II, he is using his wife's cyphered writing paper. From the examples of writing, it appears that Tatiana was the only one who developed a style of her own in both Cyrillic and Latin characters. Maria has the most pleasant Cyrillic script to my eyes.

I do find it interesting that both the Emperor and the Empress do not have the elegant handwriting that was a requisite in their day. Could it be that changing back and forth in two different alphabets kept them from having an attractive hand in either script?

David

Though I'm aware that the children spoke fluent Russian, English, French and some German, what language did they know best?

What was their first language? Was it English or was it Russian?

Thank you for the examples and follow up sites.  My first reaction is that  having been taught along similar principles the handwriting tends to  have many similarities e.g. ligatures but as I look more specifically at each example there are signs of dissimilarity in flourishes - despite orientation, slope and the influence of copper plate style.  
I have some examples of Xenia's writing from 1939 to 1955 and the writing changes in appearance but the strokes are made in the same way.  What I am trying to find out from these is whether Xenia was first in her Grace and Favour at Windsor in 1934, then turned up in Harbin in China in 1939 - 41 and returned to Windsor after that.  Or, and this is the intriguing bit, was there another member of the Imperial Family, with similar handwriting in Harbin during that period?

Though I'm aware that the children spoke fluent Russian, English, French and some German, what language did they know best?

What was their first language? Was it English or was it Russian?

I believe the girls were equally comfortable speaking English and Russian. OTMA spoke English with their mother, Russian with their father, and Russian with each other. Aleksei, though, favored Russian heavily, even when speaking with his mother -- his first English letter to Alix was written in 1915.

If you do a search on "languages" you'll more detailed threads on this subject.

OTMAA were very patriotic and they lived in Russia so I think Russian was maybe the *main*language but they did speak english with their mother. What langyage they used with guestes? French maybe...? I've red that OTMAA knew really poorly German

If you do a search on "languages" you'll more detailed threads on this subject.

I ended up with stupid computer which does not work and is too lazy to load and think and finally it stopped working.... so that's why I ask this question here and not try to find it there...

I ended up with stupid computer which does not work and is too lazy to load and think and finally it stopped working.... so that's why I ask this question here and not try to find it there...

Then I will search for you!
Each of these threads mentions the children's language skills in some way:
Languages
What languages did Alexei speak?
What kind of student?
Talking like children?
 

   
  It's a commonplace of the Romanov boards on this forum that "OTMA" is the acronym, the name created to represent the signature  of the four GD's Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia. We know that they devised it at some point  as a convenient and clever way to represent themselves collectively, as a foursome.
  But it occurs to me that I've never seen "OTMA" on any actual  written document of their time, i.e. , on any of their letters, postcards, gifts sent in common, or even in any internal reference in any of their diaries or notes. So I have to wonder if this name was used rarely, or why in any case so few , if any, samples of OTMA's use of "OTMA" have survived to this day from among their writings or other artifacts.
  Have any of you people  ever seen an 'original' OTMA signature? 

Never. All the tandem signatures I've seen feature the girls' full names:




And I've been wondering about that very fact lately. It seems odd that the notion of OTMA is so ingrained in Romanov culture and yet in all my thousands of scans and photo albums, I don't have a single example of an OTMA signature. As best I can tell, the original source for the "OTMA" acronym was Gilliard. He had this to say:

"With the initials of their Christian names they had formed a composite Christian name, Otma, and under this common signature they frequently gave their presents or sent letters written by one of them on behalf of all."

I don't find it hard to believe that the girls might have used their initials as a form of shorthand from time to time. It seemed a fairly common practice in the IF -- the empress's diaries and letters are filled with initials, for example. What I've come to question recently is whether Gilliard overstated things when he claimed that Otma was a "composite Christian name" used by the GDss to refer to themselves as a clump, as opposed to a simple abbreviation.

I have seen a photo of a poem by Petrov dedicated to "O.T.M.A." but even that is clearly an abbreviation rather than the name-like "Otma" of Gilliard's claim. (I'd post a scan, but I can't get one without utterly destroying the paperback book it appears in.) Further, I don't recall ever seeing "OTMA" or "Otma" in any of the IF's diaries or letters. Instead, it's "we," "we four," "the girls," or "the sisters."

Sarushka, could you please post as to whom the last 2 pics you posted were for? And do you know the date of the last one? Thanks.