Tatiana Nikolaevna & Dmitri Malama

[Katharina]

What do you know about Dmitri Malama?
Was Dmitri Malama in any way related to Dr. B. Z. Malama, honorary physician to the Tsar?

A few months ago I found the following information:

Peter de Malama, Bournemouth: "I recently read a book about Group Captain Peter Townsend, best remembered for his ill-fated romance with Princess Margaret in the 1940s and 1950s. It put me in mind of an incident in my family which predates his by 30 or 40 years.
In 1914 at the start of World War One my cousin Dimitri de Malama was a young officer in the Imperial Russian Cavalry. In August he was decorated for gallantry and soon afterwards seriously wounded. In the autumn of 1914 the wounded hero found himself in a hospital in St Petersburg. There he was introduced to the Grand Duchess Tatiana, daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, nursing as a sister of mercy.
In early 1915 when he had recovered Dimitri was appointed as an equerry to the Court of the Tsar at Tsarskoe Seloe near St Petersburg. (Thirty years later Group Capt Peter Townsend, a Battle of Britain hero would be appointed to the British Court also as an equerry.) There at Tsarskoe Seloe, during 1915, under the approving eye of the Empress Alexandra and to the amusement of the young Tsarevich and delight of royal observers, a romance blossomed.  Rather like the Townsend-Princess Margaret romance 35 years later there was however to be no fairytale ending. The Russian Revolution intervened in 1917 and the Grand Duchess was murdered along with her family in July 1918. As for Dimitri, he outlived his beloved Tatiana by little over a year. He was killed in the Ukraine while commanding a unit of the White Russians during the civil war in August 1919. He lies buried in the town of Krasnodar.“

Please compare this article with the following information from www.alexanderpalace.org
Extracts from the letters of Tatiana
Oct.12 "...Anya brought me from Malama (probably she speaks about Dmitry Malama, officer of the Life-Guards Uhlan Regiment) a small French bulldog (Ortino). It's a very cute little thing. I am so happy..."

Extracts from the letters of Anastasia to her Father
"...Ortino and Tatiana are running about the room now. Mother is going to receive Maklakov at 9 a.m. and Malama will come, too, which is very pleasant."

Letters of the Tsaritsa to the Tsar - November 1914
"Now Malama comes to tea to say quite goodbye. Goodbye my Angel huzzy. God bless and protect you"

Alexandra to Nicholas, March 17, 1916
"...Ortino had to be shown to his Father [the visiting Dmitri Malama, who had given the dog to Tatiana] of course..."

[Joanna]

Hi Katharina & Elisa !

In the complete correspondence by Fuhrmann there is a Dimitri Yakovlevic Malama, officer in Alexandra's Life Guards Lancer Reg.  There are six references about him in Alexandra's letters particularly as Elisa writes of A's letter dated March 17, 1916:

"...My little Malama came for an hour yesterday evening, after dinner at Anias. We had not seen him for 1 1/2 years. Looks flourishing more of a man now, an adorable boy still. I must say, a perfect son in law he wld. have been - why are foreign Pces. [princes]  not as nice! - Oritpo [the dog] had to be shown to his "Father" of course..."

Joanna

[Katharina]

Dear Joanna,

Thanks for posting this complete entry. I did not know the first part. I guess I should try to get hold of Joseph T. Fuhrman's book.

[Katharina]

Dear Elisa,

What a surprising new information! Both Olga and Tatiana loved Dmitri?
So is it possible that "Mitya, the golden one" refers to Dmitri Malama?
Please have a look at the thread called "Olga Nikolaevna's first love" and let me know what you think!

A lot of further questions arise anyway:
Both sisters in platonic love with the same officer?
Did they realize each other's feelings?
Did Malama prefer Tatiana's presence ? (As far as I know, Ortino was a present for Tatiana only, not for both of them).

[Janet Whitcomb]

Although it has been stated in several places that Dmitri Malama was the "Mitya" of Olga's affections, I wonder if she would be in love with someone who was the focus of Tatiana's affections.    :-/   From what I've read, the sisters had a close and harmonious relationship.  No signs of competition seem to have ever been noted, perhaps because each had strengths and abilities that the other did not have.  So a relationship of mutual respect and admiration would not, I don't think, have included a serious competition for the affections of one man.

Remember also that Dmitri was a fairly common name.

[Lanie]

The ball book you're talking about talks about Pavel Voronov, a Standart officer, who Olga apparently had a crush on, who ended up married (and OTMA were at the wedding!).

[Janet Whitcomb]

Yes, I have read of this attachment.

Does anyone have any information re: Pavel Voronov? (Maybe this query should be placed in a different category?)

[Namarolf]

I wondered about Paul Voronov several years ago, when I read "The Hunt for the Czar", by Guy Richards, a book written to support the claim of Michal Goleniewski to be Tsarevich Aleksey Nikolaievich. The edition I have (London 1977) includes a list of 31 illustrations, the 31th being "The Cazarevich Alexei and Paul Voronov" -however, the actual illustrations end with the 30th, and the 31th is simply not included. The text mentions Voronov only once (p. 170), saying:

"He (Clark R. Mollenhoff, a Pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter) would be ideally suited to ask the CIA why it never questioned the four men now in the United States who knew the real Alexei N. Romanov well and were in a position to determine whether Goleniewski is he. They are Kyril de Shishmarev; Count Alexis Buxhoeveden, cousin to Baroness Buxhoeveden, the Empress Alexandra's lady in waiting; and two officers on the Czar's yacht Standart -Baron George Taube and Paul Voronov."

Does anyone knows more about Voronov -where he lived, when he passed away, etc.?

[Katharina]

Thanks to all for your postings!


Another idea: There are hardly any references to the Malama family. For instance, if you do a Google search you will only find a page mentioning Yakov Dimitrievich Malama, a Vice King of Georgia (1904-1905)

So I would like to repeat my initial question: Was Dmitri Malama in any way related to Dr. B. Z. Malama, honorary physician to the Tsar? Actually that would fit in perfectly:

1) According to Ian Vorres, Dr. Malama was in contact with Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna and Colonel Koulikovsky.

2)

Check p. 114 of The Fall of the Romanovs.  On June 21, 1917, Olga Nicholievna writes to her Aunt Olga and speaks of wanting to have had a "heart-to-heart" when they last saw each other.  She also passes on a kiss to her and to Mitia.
 

How these small pieces of information fit in, don't they?
Is it really that easy or am I just overwhelmed by the idea that all the time I have had the answer just before my eyes and did not realize?

[Janet Whitcomb]

Katharina--

And the plot thickens . . .  

Now, would Mitia be the nephew of Dr. Malama? And in 1917 would he be with Olga Alexandrovna and her family in the Crimea and the other Romanov refugees and their associates?

And if it is him, did he then elect to stay and fight, rather than leaving as many of them did, eventually dying in Ukraine in August 1919 as the first posting notes?

Or, is Mitya someone other than Dmitri Malama--i.e., a member of the party that leaves Russia?  

Also, I remember reading that Olga N. records in her diary how Mitia is very much like his mother. So, would Mitia's mother have therefore been a lady of the court? Or someone associated with the hospital?

And if Mitia, Olga's special friend, is Dmitri Malama, where does that leave Tatiana?     She seemed to receive the most gifts and attention from Malama . . . or did she?!  

I do think we're on to something . . . The pieces may be fitting together, but we need a few more critical pieces . . .

[Marlene]

What do you know about Dmitri Malama?

Peter de Malama recently wrote about his cousin's romance with Tatiana.  The article "The Romanovs - the Forgotten Romance" was published in the December 2004 issue of Royalty Digest.

[matushka]

In Lanie s Romanov Web, in album of november, there was a photo of Tatiana with Malama: she is standing in her nurse form and smiles, he is in a chair. Near them, a doctor. If it is not a mistake. I have seen this photo in an other book, the author wrote it was Malama...

[Candice]

elsa, who wrote "Amidst the sound of the ball" please.

Katharina, Can you please tell me what the title of the book by Joseph T. Fuhrman is.

Malama is new to me. I didn't know Tatiana liked anyone.

Many thanks.

Candice

[Yoyo22]

Matushka,

You mean there is a picture of Malama  ? Would you please post the link  . Thanks, I always wanted to see the guy.

This is might be slightly off-topic but I think it was on this site I read that according to Anna Virubova, lieutenant Rodionov had a crush on TN. There are quite a few pictures of him with OTMA, including some cute ones of him holding hands with TN (as on p.162 of Prince Micheal of Greece's "The Family Albums"; sorry, no scanner :-/).

Thanks
Yoyo

[Lanie]

Here's one photo of Tatiana with Malama:



There's another one with Tatiana and Olga inbetween Malama from a larger group at the hospital but I'm too lazy to go get it.  From what I understand Tatiana named her dog Ortino because Malama's favorite horse was named Ortino!