Depression/Melancholy/Nervous breakdown during WWI

[Holly]

Where can we read this letter?

[Elisabeth]

I hope someone here will correct me if I am wrong, but as memory serves the letter was reproduced in a book about the last days of the imperial family published by the Holy Trinity Monastery of Jordanville, NY. It's a very beautiful book, very nicely done, which I found in a university library many, many years ago, so I can't remember all the details. It included many of the last letters of the imperial family. (I think it was in Russian, though...?) Perhaps someone else knows of this book and can help us out.

[Janet_W.]

Golly, I'd love to see that book, Elisabeth! If anyone has knowledge of how to obtain it, please let me know.

Anyway, I'm just catching up with this thread again after being away for a few days.

Re: "the letter" (cue the Bette Davis impression!) I've only seen the excerpted quote of "Father says to forgive . . . " in a couple of books, including Peter Kurth's Tsar.

I think it's highly possible that Nicholas confided in Olga at Ekaterinberg, for he had done so previously; Olga was, as the saying goes, "her father's daughter." Of course, Nicholas may have withheld certain things even from Olga, so as not to frighten her. (But remember, also, that at some point earlier he instructed her on how to use a small gun which Olga kept hidden on her person until an ADC begged her to surrender it.)  Historically Nicholas has been criticized for his lack of perception, but this mostly has to do with certain diary entries about mundane things which were really more like "placekeepers." Young Nicholas didn't forsee the Revolution, of course, but although he could be quite conventional, he wasn't a dim bulb*, and his lifelong fatalism was another part of his personality which would have made him intensely aware--by the time of Ekaterinberg, at least--that he very likely would not get out alive.

Although Olga had plenty to be depressed and disturbed about, I still question the concept of Olga being a "cutter"; I'd like to see the exact reference and source.

That being said, I will add that I've known some people who "cut," and they generally hide it by wearing long sleeves to cover their cuts. Also, I'm sure many of us have engaged in similar types of behavior--not as extreme, to be sure, but still they are activities which signal stress, i.e., persistant nail biting, hair pulling, etc.

When I was going through a period of immense stress I realized I was picking at my cuticles until they bled. That's about as close to "cutting" as you can get, without the razor blade!


*Though I'm sure many posters will disagree with me on this!

[Elisabeth]

Janet, perhaps if you write to the monks at the Jordanville monastery they will know how you can obtain a copy of this book, even if it was not they who originally published it (but I'm pretty sure it was). I know they also have icons of the imperial family, although I'm not sure they're for sale.

Although Olga had plenty to be depressed and disturbed about, I still question the concept of Olga being a "cutter"; I'd like to see the exact reference and source.

That being said, I will add that I've known some people who "cut," and they generally hide it by wearing long sleeves to cover their cuts. Also, I'm sure many of us have engaged in similar types of behavior--not as extreme, to be sure, but still they are activities which signal stress, i.e., persistant nail biting, hair pulling, etc.

When I was going through a period of immense stress I realized I was picking at my cuticles until they bled. That's about as close to "cutting" as you can get, without the razor blade!

I agree with you, Janet. I can't take this "cutting" story seriously. I think, based on what sources we have, that Olga's depression was expressed in loss of appetite and extreme weight loss. One of the guards at the Ipatiev House described her as "nothing but skin and bones." Even pictures of her taken in Tobolsk show she was probably already significantly underweight. IMO this doesn't mean she suffered from anorexia nervosa but rather that she was clinically depressed, which can also result in huge weight loss (or gain).

[Sarastasia]

To be quiet honest, none of the Romanov children we dumb. I think they all would have known that something dreadful was happening and that they weren't likely to make it through alive. I guess Alexei would have been a little more shielded from it all, and maybe Maria was off in denial land with all her daydreaming, but I think OTMA would have all had a bad feeling about their fate.

Sarastasia

Sorry to be a little depressing!

[Romanov_fan]

No, Olga was almost certainly not a self injurer. For her time and background, that would have been unacceptable whether anyone found out about it or not. To Olga herself it would not probably not have been acceptable either. Everything around her had never conditioned her to do this, at all. If Olga were alive today, and the situation happened today, she might have cut herself, though. It would be a consideration given her serious, depressed personality at the time. This thread I enjoyed though because it raises interesting questions. I think Olga's state of mind was that she was depressed and lost weight because of this, quite a bit of weight. That's just my opinion.

[Romanov_fan]

I don't think Olga did if clinical depression is what you are talking about. Almost certainly, that was never the case. If you are saying that she was depressed in the sense that she was sad and moody sometimes this is true, and would have been more so after the Revolution. Olga was always one to think deeply about things, as anyone familiar with the Romanovs knows. Olga was very depressed  in the few months before their deaths no doubt, in that she was sad and moody. The revolution greatly affected her, and both her appearance and personality changed much at this time.

[M_Breheny]

I have always been puzzled by this entry in one of Maria's letters:  (Sept. 5, 1915) "We went as far as the 'caprice' and climbed the stairs, do you know?  And as soon as we reached it Olga took her umbrella and rushed furiously at one of the windows and broke three glasses with her umbrella and I broke another window, then Anastasia did the same thing."

Where exactly was the "caprice" and why did the girls apparently vandalize the place? Surely, this behavior would not have been encouraged.  

This topic may have been covered in other postings, but, if so, I missed it.

Mary

[clockworkgirl21]

No idea. I think it was because Olga was having a nervous breakdown, or was close to having one, because of her nursing wounded soldiers. Maybe she flipped out and just decided she needed to break a window. As for Anastasia doing it, maybe she figured she would get away with it since Olga was doing it. Or maybe she did it alongside Olga to make Olga feel better. I have no real answers. Sorry.  

[julia.montague]

Where do you have this from?

[matushka]

I do not know the details. It seems to me that they just had fun. A lot of people wrote the GD and more od all Alexei stayed children very late and had sometimes a quite "sauvage" behaviour.

[hikaru]

I think that they were under stress.
Pavillion "caprice" is near the hospital where they
worked as nurses.
They worked very hard from the morning till the night.
They saw a lot of wounded flesh and blood.
Especially, Olyga could not take it easy.

I think that poor girls were vandalized themselves by the situation.

[julia.montague]

M_Breheny
Could you post the whole letter?

[M_Breheny]

This letter can be found by returning the the Alexander Palace Main Menu and scrolling down to "Letters of the Grand Duchess Maria."  Look under "September 5, 1915."  

Hope this helps.

Mary

[RealAnastasia]

I do not think that Olga did it "just to have fun". Breaking a window is not funny at all. And certainly it's a sauvage behaviour. Sauvage behaviour in Anastasia is not a strange thing, but I think it was very odd in Olga. She must have had a breakdown, for she was very sensitive and working in a militar hospital must have been extremely hard for her... :-/

RealAnastasia.