What was Maria known for?

[Ally Kumari]

It is said she expressed a wish to "marry a soldier and have twenty children". I´d love to know the original source, it may also give us some idea about the time she said that.... Anybody?

[Sarushka]

It is said she expressed a wish to "marry a soldier and have twenty children". I´d love to know the original source, it may also give us some idea about the time she said that.... Anybody?

From page 89 of Peter Kurth's Tsar: The Lost World of Nicholas & Alexandra:

By common agreement, Marie was an angel, plump and pretty with "eyes like saucers", a warm and loving girl who wanted to marry a russian soldier and have twenty children. Once, when marie had been caught in some mischief or other, her father joked how glad he was to discover she was only human: "I was always afraid of the wings growing." Marie was so good that the others girls referred to her as their step-sister.


There are no source notes in Kurth's book, but I would guess the info in this paragraph was gathered from one or more of the courtier's memoirs. (I'm pretty sure NII's comment about wings is from Eagar, for example.) So far I've checked Vyrubova, Dehn, Gilliard, and Buxhoeveden's Left Behind with no luck.

[Yelena Aleksandrovna]

Thank you very much for post the fragment of this book, the book must be very good. The information is
excellent. Thanks!

[Sarushka]

It is said she expressed a wish to "marry a soldier and have twenty children". I´d love to know the original source, it may also give us some idea about the time she said that.... Anybody?

Wikipedia mentions Maria's wish to have a large family, attributing the info to Massie's Nicholas & Alexandra. However, neither source mentions a specific number of children, and Massie doesn't actually say Maria wanted a lot of chldren. From page 127 of my edition of Massie:

"What Marie -- whom everyone called "Mashka" -- liked most was to talk about marriage and children. More than one observer has noted that, had she not been the daughter of the Tsar, this strong, warmhearted girl would have made some man an excellent wife."

Massie gives no specific source, citing a list of various memoirs for his descriptions of the grand duchesses. Maybe one of them will be more direct about Maria's wishes:
Gilliard 73-7
Buxhoeveden 153-160
Dehn 75-80
Vorres 108-12
Kobylinsky 220-1
Gibbs (in Wilton) 254-5

[Proud_Olga]

It is said she expressed a wish to "marry a soldier and have twenty children". I´d love to know the original source, it may also give us some idea about the time she said that.... Anybody?

From page 89 of Peter Kurth's Tsar: The Lost World of Nicholas & Alexandra:

By common agreement, Marie was an angel, plump and pretty with "eyes like saucers", a warm and loving girl who wanted to marry a russian soldier and have twenty children. Once, when marie had been caught in some mischief or other, her father joked how glad he was to discover she was only human: "I was always afraid of the wings growing." Marie was so good that the others girls referred to her as their step-sister.


There are no source notes in Kurth's book, but I would guess the info in this paragraph was gathered from one or more of the courtier's memoirs. (I'm pretty sure NII's comment about wings is from Eagar, for example.) So far I've checked Vyrubova, Dehn, Gilliard, and Buxhoeveden's Left Behind with no luck.

It could be when she was still a child, I can't remember the source right now but didn't she say to Margaret Eager when seeing soldiers "I want to kiss them all.", M. Eager even replied "Sweet little girls don't kiss soldiers". It doesn't give a precise answer, but it may be around that time that she expressed that wish...

[Sarushka]

I can't remember the source right now but didn't she say to Margaret Eager when seeing soldiers "I want to kiss them all.", M. Eager even replied "Sweet little girls don't kiss soldiers".

Yes, that's in Eagar's memoir.

[Grand Duchess Mariana]

Well , I guess if you are talking about personality, she was probably known as the angel of the family , the flirtatious , a sweet and kind-hearted girl  , that is always there ,ready to help those in need[like she used to do with Alexandra].
Now , if you are referring to her physiognomy , she was known , of course , for her blue eyes.The Empress worried about her weight when she was younger , wich means she might have been plump in her childhood , though as she grown older , the fatness started to desappear...
I also read that people used to say she had a typical Romanov eyebrow.
[OH , BY THE WAY, ENGLISH IS NOT MY NATIVE LANGUAGE , SO IF THERE ARE ANYTHING WRONG ... I'M SORRY! =/ ]

[Olga Maria]

Don't worry about it, dear(",) I understood what you posted well.
 From Yurovsky...
"As far as Marie was concerned she did not behave at all like her elder sisters. Her sincere, modest character was very attractive to the men, and she spent most of her time flirting with them. She was not especially like her sisters, somehow she seemed closed off from most of her family. This obviously followed from what had happened, because her mother and eldest sister treated her as if she didn’t belong, like an outcast."

[Grand Duchess Mariana]

Thank you so much Grand Princess Shandroise!

[RomanovMartyrs]

Don't worry about it, dear(",) I understood what you posted well.
 From Yurovsky...
She was not especially like her sisters, somehow she seemed closed off from most of her family. This obviously followed from what had happened, because her mother and eldest sister treated her as if she didn’t belong, like an outcast."

That's terrible! Does the text go on to explain how her mother and Olga treated her, with examples or something? Does anyone else have information on this? I haven't heard it before. Thanks in advance.

[nena]

Yakov Yurovsky described each of four Romanov sisters, in his 1922 testimony. For more, look at www.kingandwilson.com. Same goes for Ekaterinburg guards at Ipatiev House. Olga was described as 'all skin and bone', and in often fight with her mother, like she was sheltered from the others.

[Sarushka]

Don't worry about it, dear(",) I understood what you posted well.
 From Yurovsky...
She was not especially like her sisters, somehow she seemed closed off from most of her family. This obviously followed from what had happened, because her mother and eldest sister treated her as if she didn’t belong, like an outcast."

That's terrible! Does the text go on to explain how her mother and Olga treated her, with examples or something? Does anyone else have information on this? I haven't heard it before. Thanks in advance.

No, Yurovsky doesn't elaborate. The original text I have in Russian from Ispoved' Tsareubiits is actually more vague -- it does not specify that Olga and Alexandra singled Maria out for different treatment, nor that it "obviously followed from what had happened." The Russian version also does not use the word "outcast."

[RomanovMartyrs]

Thanks, Sarushka, that's very helpful. Things are often misconstrued through translations, I hope this is one of those cases- the Romanovs do not seem the type of family to make "outcasts" of one another.

[Sarushka]

You're welcome.

A detail I forgot to mention: Yurovsky does use the word "stepsister" to describe Maria's position/treatment in the family, which is interesting in light of the fact that as very young children Olga and Tatiana sometimes teased Maria by calling her stepsister. (According to Margaret Eagar, O&T got fed up with Maria's perpetual goodness being held up as example to them.)

At the time of the murder and subsequent burial, Yurovsky noticed Maria was not wearing jeweled undergarments and assumed it had something to do with her "separate position" in the family. His assumption was wrong -- Maria wasn't wearing jewels because she wasn't present in Tobolsk when they were sewn into OTAA's undergarments -- but I think it's interesting that Yurovsky perceived enough difference in the IF's behavior toward Maria to make that erroneous connection.

[Romanov_fan]

"What had happened", what Yurovsky refers to is the debated incident with Marie and the guard in Ekatrinburg- it's described in Helen Rappaport's recent book about the Romanovs. Thanks for the additional info Sarushka, it's interesting that version is more vague.