Depression/Melancholy/Nervous breakdown during WWI

[blessOTMA]

I was thinking about the bed as well.  Olga loved the comfort and softness  of a real bed.  When illness  or her menstrual period landed her in a real bed instead of the camp bed they  had all their lives, she loved it and indeed found it hard to leave it!  I can't say I blame her! lol!
 
About Olga's depression during the war...I feel it's totally understandable and even appropriate...simply thinking of the terrible loss of life by 1916,  would be  greatly depressing... and she had so many other things besides to be depressed about. What amazes me is how she well functioned  even so and was always there for the family til the very end.

[Sarushka]

I was thinking about the bed as well.  Olga loved the comfort and softness  of a real bed.  When illness  or her menstrual period landed her in a real bed instead of the camp bed they  had all their lives, she loved it and indeed found it hard to leave it! 

The only one of the girls I'm aware of using a real bed is Maria, during her near-fatal attack of measles in 1917.

[GrandDuchessAndrea]

I feel sorry for poor Olga.  She was such a wonderful person. Here's where our similarity comes in; (along with loving literature;) I'm tempermental too! 
P.S. There's a picture of Olga in what appears to be a real bed that is sometimes identified as Alexandra, so I guess she did sleep in "real" beds when she was ill. Or maybe there's just a lot of pillows on her camp cot. Who knows?

[EmmyLee]

I think this is the photo you're talking about, GrandDuchessAndrea. You can see the stripes of her camp bed behind the pillows.

The only one of the girls I'm aware of using a real bed is Maria, during her near-fatal attack of measles in 1917.

As for the others using a real bed, Tatiana used had a break from the camp bed while sick with typhus.

[blessOTMA]

I was thinking about the bed as well.  Olga loved the comfort and softness  of a real bed.  When illness  or her menstrual period landed her in a real bed instead of the camp bed they  had all their lives, she loved it and indeed found it hard to leave it! 

The only one of the girls I'm aware of using a real bed is Maria, during her near-fatal attack of measles in 1917.

Olga speaks of being in a real bed in her 1913 diary....I'll post it when I run across it again. The sick room looks equipped with them.
I have wondered if that photo of Olga in the 17th century court dress was taken in the sick room as she's next to a bed.

[Kalafrana]

I'm not sure a 'camp bed' necessarily means the kind of folding up canvas bed that we think of. Franz Josef's 'camp bed' in the Hofburg is a plain single bed but definitely a bed!

Ann

[Sarushka]

They were indeed folding cots. Here's a photo showing the Little Pair's camp beds in their bedroom:



You can also see the folding legs of one of the Big Pair's cots next to Nicholas in this photo:

[Kalafrana]

The bed in the upper picture looks like a folding bed of the kind I used to sleep in when my parents had visitors. It was a bit basic but had a mattress, not like a camp bed, which is simply canvas on a metal frame.

Ann

[Holly]

Our wounded officers - recited and sang and played. Since even put some scenes from the operetta "Ivanov Paul. . Usually accompanied by Grand Duchess Olga who ,had a wonderful ear for music. For her, for example, had no trouble to pick up the accompaniment to a completely unfamiliar melodies. Her playing  was fine and noble,its  touch - soft and velvety. I still remember one of the waltz, an old grandfather's waltz - a soft, graceful and delicate as expensive porcelain  toy - a favorite waltz of Grand Duchess Olga. We are often asked  Princess Olga to play us the waltz and somehow the feeling  from her  is always very sad.

I was reading the Russian version of these memoirs and I was trying to figure out what waltz he could have been referring to. The only thing I could think of was the Grandfather's Dance by Tchaikovsky.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ub4f5Pgm1Y

I wonder if that was the same waltz Olga played?

[blessOTMA]

....I was reading the Russian version of these memoirs and I was trying to figure out what waltz he could have been referring to. The only thing I could think of was the Grandfather's Dance by Tchaikovsky. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ub4f5Pgm1Y

I wonder if that was the same waltz Olga played?

Fascinating idea and excellent guess . I was wondering if he said Granfather as a way to say  an old waltz ...impossible to  know for sure . But at least thanks to this document  we do know Her playing  was fine and noble, its  touch - soft and velvety.

[GrandDuchessAndrea]

Is that really Olga at the piano? It looked like Alix at first glance. 
lovely description of her playing, by the way. 

[blessOTMA]

Is that really Olga at the piano? It looked like Alix at first glance. 

It is indeed Olga Nicholaievna.

lovely description of her playing, by the way. 

Really. It comes from  the memoirs of a soldier who convalesced at their hospital. He also tells of Olga writing a letter home for a  soldier  because he had lost his right arm and couldn't write it himself .

http://www.pravaya.ru/govern/391/2311


It's in Russuian , but one can  have google translate it

[voyageroffreedom]

I thought it was Alix in that picture at first, thanks for clearing things up.
I think both Olga and Tatiana inherited from their mother the love for music and both of these girls played very well. (Nicholas was a good piano player as well)

[JamesAPrattIII]

I have some information pertaining to Olga's breakdown that people might find interesting:
Often during heavy fighting during WW I the medical care of the wounded broke down. in Russia besides a casualty evacution and treatment system that left alot to be desired they had to transport the wounded long distances over a rail system thatwas not up to the job. See the books "Tide at Sunrise" (which is on the Russo-Japanese War but things hadn't changed much when WW I broke out) and "Nicholas and Alexandra"  So Olga probably found herself dealing with men who had been wounded 2 or 3 weeks earlier who the only medical care they recieved was a field dressing when they finally got to her their wounds were no doubt extremely putrid to put it mildly. Sadly, other countries such as France weren't much better. The French had the worst medical care on the Western Front they had 3 times as many men die do to gangrene as the british and Germans. in one case there was a french Soldier found in a hospital in the rear 5 weeks after being wounded still wearing his field dressing! As for the Turkish army during WW I they had 305,085 men killed or missing and 466,459 die of disease. The British granted pensions to 49 ex nurses for neurasthenia and 24 for disorders active of the heart. Note these records are incomplete no doubt there were many others who didn't get them who realy needed one.

[RealAnastasia]

   Thanks for this EXTREMELY interesting insight, James. I've read in old medicine books (my great-grandpa was physician and had his diplome in 1919, having also studied for  a year in France while WWI was still there) that this phenomene was known as " putrid diesease of hospital" (I don't know how to translate it to English; in Spanish it's "podredumbre de hospital". My great-grandpa died when I was eight, and I remember clearly when he talked about wounded people who "smelled awfully". Some of them died quite fast if they didn't have their putrid legs or arms removed...If the wound was in other parts of the body the fever would take out patient's life. And yes...many nurses had breakdowns...and many doctors too! 

   I was aware of it, but for some reason, I didn't make the connection with Olga's breakdown case...

RealAnastasia.