Hi everyone.
I'm new in this forum and the happy owner of Alexander III's villa in Fredensborg.
Today it's called: The Emperors villa.
You can view the house, restoration etc at: www.kejserensvilla.com
Sincerly
Henrik Christensen
Det er s'gu et dejligt hus!Very cool and very interesting to see you taking such good care of this interesting legacy.
Now, as you know the reactionary Alexander III was much more liberal abroad, including in his Nordic realm Finland, not at least thanks to Maria Fyodorovna. If you don't know it, I recommend the Swedish-language Finnish book
Kejsaren i skärgården. Den ryska tsarfamiljens sommarvistelser i Finland by Jorma and Päivi Tuomi-Nikula for many fun anecdotes about your house patron in a Nordic environment. A summary can be found here:
http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php?topic=14873.0
Suggestion for poetry in your bathroom, illustrating how the "pro-Nordic image" of the Romanovs went down the drain (!) in Nicholas II's time:
Verse from Norwegian republican and Scandinavist Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's poem
Ved modtagelsen av sidste post fra Finland (At the Reception of the Latest Post from Finland) from 1903, about NII's role in the Russification of Finland:
Men han som et folk henretter,
(det lykkes dog ingensinde!)
er født af en nordisk kvinde,
og leged' på danske sletter.
Å Danmark, hvis bøddelen kommer,
da vær ham en folke-sund dommer:
Forbyd ham at træde på jorden;
thi den er de fries i Norden!=
But he who is executing a people,
(though it will never succeed!)
was born to a Nordic woman,
and once played on Danish plains.
Oh Denmark, if the henchman comes,
then be a national-sound judge of him:
Deny him to step on the earth;
because in the North it belongs to the free!
