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Messages - HessianPrincess

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You're welcome! I found it fascinating, as well. I honestly just stumbled across it on tumblr. I am not 100% convinced it is truly them, but hope it is. I wish there was a proper record of its provenance. I am also not sure of the authenticity of the alleged recording of Nicholas II's voice (I believe there has been discussion of that clip on this forum), but I did notice that the males' voices on both this and that recording are somewhat similar, which lends some credence to both. I also hold out hope that there exists a recording of Alexandra and OTMA somewhere. It just needs to be found. 

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The following quote about the recording is from Paul Kulikovsky, and was posted on the "Romanov News" facebook page. It is my understanding that this page is associated with the newsletter Mr. Kulikovsky publishes himself. So, with some degree of caution, I decided to go ahead and post it here:

"Yes, I do believe these are the voices on my great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandmother, Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna, better known in Denmark as Empress Dagmar - says Paul E. Kulikovsky.

This recording have been known to me since 2014, where Stig Nielsen was the first to tell me about it. I have since done some research and in short I can give the following information.
The phonograph was demonstrated at the Danish Royal Palace Fredensborg on 28 September 1889. It is known that it was during one of the Emperor and Empress' stays in Denmark.

The next day it was reported in the newspapers - "Edison's Phonograph was presented to Their Majestys King and Queen with tall guests at Fredensborg Castle. The presentation took place in Havesalen (Garden Hall) and commenced at 10. The most popular melodies captivated the royal and imperial rulers in two hours, and it was solely because of the advancing time that the presentation was interrupted."

There is no mentioning of a recording being made at this event, but it might well have happen before or after (next day), as Emperor Alexander III was very interested in the phonograph.

The event was repeated about two month later in Russia. On Sunday, November 10, 1889, a similar demonstration took place at the palace in Gatchina. The Emperor invited a number of friends (there were 39 present), among whom were two brothers and his children, several ministers and ladies of the court, and others.

Julius Block tells to a friend - "I was asked to show and explain the phonograph after dinner, which ended at 8 ¾. After a brief explanation, I went to a demonstration of the phonograph with one of a solo cornet, which was with the Emperor himself playing the cornet. The Emperor and Empress expressed their full satisfaction and said that they were surprised by the cleanliness and the intensity of the phonograph, in comparison with what they heard in the palace of the King of Denmark."

Emperor Alexander III made an order for the phonograph and Mr. Edison prepare the latest model with a sign that reads:
"The phonograph is presented to His Majesty; ALEXANDER III, Emperor of Russia, by its inventor Edison in ____ 1889. " It was the intention that the blank space was to be filled in with the specific date. However, the phonograph arrived to Emperor Alexander III only in 1890, so it was never filled in.
With the phonograph was send two dozen first-class music tracks and 50 blank discs for recording."


Link to facebook page (hopefully it works correctly; if not, I found the post by typing "phonograph" into the search bar): https://www.facebook.com/pg/PageRomanovNews/posts/?ref=page_internal


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Alexandra Feodorovna / Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« on: August 03, 2018, 09:09:42 AM »
Yes, I agree that the homeopathic remedies she was taking for her conditions may have exacerbated them or caused new ones, especially if she was taking them for conditions self-diagnosed or misdiagnosed. It also seems that she was taking excessive doses of some of them.

I also agree that there was really something going on with her heart; but what was behind it? She seems to have been so young to have developed a primary cardiac condition, unless it was something congenital, but in that case I can't see how she survived all of those pregnancies. The thing with the thyroid is that it affects every body system, so when it malfunctions, so does most everything else to one degree or another, though some are more noticeable than others. And, leg swelling can also be a symptom of hypothyroidism, as well. Again, I do not know if a thyroid problem was involved, just suggesting that it is a possibility that should probably be explored like any other. Even today, thyroid problems are not taken seriously by people, and some women are written off as hypochondriacs by doctors for months or years before they are finally diagnosed. And even then, it is one of those conditions people write off as if it were a "made up" excuse for weight problems or other vague complaints. For some, maybe so, but others really do suffer.

Unfortunately we will never probably know in Alexandra's case. It frustrates me that her physicians seemed to chalk most of her problems up to mental and/or emotional instability. Even when they agreed that she had some sort of circulatory or cardiac issue, they still wanted to ascribe it to her neurotic personality -  that it was simply a physical manifestation of a mental health issue. Perhaps it was simply a case of depression/anxiety/panic attacks, but I feel no really thorough physical examinations were done, or at least not documented. And, for her part, she seemed to be the type who only accepted what she wanted to hear, and likely surrounded herself with primarily sycophantic doctors. The result is likely misdiagnosis (or a non-thorough diagnosis) of what was really going on, whatever it was, and the lack of good documentation of a possible physical condition has allowed people to continue to write her off as a mentally-unstable hypochondriac. Which then plays into the larger narrative of her as a generally mentally-unstable woman whose neuroses brought down an empire. It is simply unfair - not to mention grossly simplistic and somewhat misogynistic - to frame things that way. I know that serious Romanov historians and hobbyists do not (at least I hope they do not), but in the popular imagination, she is still very much seen in that way. She deserves better as a human being, and history deserves better, as well.

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Alexandra Feodorovna / Re: Alexandra and her Health Part 2
« on: August 02, 2018, 07:44:37 PM »
One thing I rarely see mentioned as a possible explanation for some of Alexandra's health problems is thyroid disease. Doing a search on this forum, I found it mentioned only in passing and given little to no attention. I believe it should be considered as a possibility more than it has been.

I have been reading about the Romanovs for more than 20 years, since I was a teenager. I used to think like everyone else does - that Alexandra's health problems were due to a combination of migraines, sciatica, anxiety, and hypochondria. Then in my late 30s I was diagnosed with Graves' Disease. The symptoms that led me to my doctor were heart palpitations - which I had off and on for a couple of years - and shortness of breath after doing something simple like walking up a flight of stairs. My anxiety levels had skyrocketed, I felt hyperactive and "edgy". I was scattered. I would find myself with bursts of energy (which were, however, difficult to focus) and then I would crash in exhaustion, because my body was simply processing everything at too rapid a pace, and was burning itself out. I started having problems with my eyes (not the bulging you see in later stages, but rather a sensitivity to light and a general discomfort), I felt overheated, couldn't sleep, my hands had tremors. Most of these things I chalked up to nerves or stress or age until I just couldn't ignore them anymore. Of course not everyone who has thyroid disease will exhibit the same symptoms or experience them to the same degree, but anyone who has read much about Alexandra would recognize many of these. Her heart palpitations and shortness of breath are well-documented; as are her complaints about eye strain and anecdotes about how cold she kept her residences because she was intolerant of heat. Facial flushing is another symptom, as are panic attacks in some people. Alexandra exhibited both of these, as well, according to descriptions of friends and acquaintances. Graves' is not the only thyroid autoimmune disease - Hashimoto's Disease is on the other end of the spectrum, and causes hypothyroidism (which has symptoms of depression, mental fuzziness, lethargy, muscle aches, weight gain, feeling cold, etc.; basically the opposite of the Graves' symptoms). In some cases, people with Hashimoto's can fluctuate between hyper- and hypothyroid states for years before their thyroid finally gives up the ghost and shuts down.   

At any rate, after diagnosis, and after hearing from many other women - and it is 7 or 8 times more common in women than men - about their own symptoms and struggles, I began to see Alexandra's health problems in a different light. I do not know if she suffered from a thyroid condition; Graves' Disease was a known and named entity by the mid-1800s, and I believe Hashimoto's was described in the late 19th/early 20th century, as well. So I would have thought her physicians would have at least considered it as a possible diagnosis, and they didn't seem to have done that or at least didn't document it, as far as I know. I am also not sure how it was even diagnosed 100+ years ago. Now it is done with a blood test. I would assume Alexandra's physicians would have at least felt her thyroid to see if it was enlarged, but that isn't always obvious. My thyroid was only minimally enlarged; I doubt it would have been detectable on palpation alone.

It is also important to remember that a tendency toward autoimmunity is inherited, but the condition may manifest differently in different individuals, or not at all. My father also has an autoimmune disease, but it is a different one than I have. So I inherited the marker for autoimmunity from him, but mine manifested as thyroid disease, his is another condition. Then there also usually is a trigger that sets the disease in motion; often a stressful life event or an illness. The timing of Alexandra's rapid health deterioration a few years after Alexei's birth and hemophilia diagnosis follows this pattern, considering autoimmune symptoms do not begin to show overnight; it takes months to years for them to become severe enough to be noticed. Stress also exacerbates autoimmunity, and most autoimmune conditions exhibit flare-ups and periods where symptoms aren't as bad. As for Alexandra's headaches and leg pains, those were both conditions she complained of as a very young woman, before the other problems began. So migraines and sciatica were life-long problems for her, and seemingly completely unrelated to her later health issues.

Again, we will probably never know one way or the other, but it is something to consider . . .


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Marie Feodorovna / Voice Recording of Alexander III & Maria Feodorovna?
« on: August 02, 2018, 06:19:13 PM »
Hello!

This is my first post on the forum. Forgive me if there is a thread on this elsewhere (I did a search and could not find one). What does everyone make of this recording? I am particularly interested in what our Russian and/or Russian-speaking members think based upon what the male voice is singing and whether/what accent he may have, as has been debated in the comments under the video itself. It is sourced to the Ruben Collection at the Danish Royal Library; unfortunately it doesn't seem to be appropriately documented. There is a quote about the recording attributed to GD Olga Alexandrovna's descendant Paul Kulikovsky, who apparently believes it to be the voices of his great-great-grandparents, but as I could not source that quote, I will not copy or link it here. I am not sure what I think about it, and am curious as to others' thoughts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGaKueN2qsQ

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