Marie Feodorovna, her correspondence - letters, diaries etc

[Ena]

Thank you for the information.  Krog's books can be difficult to find.  Once located, they tend to be quite expensive.  Still, I'll be on the lookout for this title because these books only get more scare through the years.

[Eric_Lowe]

I know. Should buy them when they came out. these books are good investments as they appreciates in prices. 

[abbigail]

I read today in "Ripley's Beleive it or Not" about how Maria Feodorovna was sending a telegram, and her mistake in comma placement saved a prisoner's life. Apparently she meant to write "Pardon impossible, send to Siberia" but accidentally wrote, "Pardon, impossible send to Siberia" isntead. Therefore the man was set free and was spared banishment to Siberia. Has anyone else read this? Is this incident true?
Thanks!

[aleksandr pavlovich]

I have no earthly idea about the veracity of this anecdote, but things can and DO happen in haste or transcription, etc.  Please note in your posting, your spellings of "believe", "instead," and use of the small letter "i" in "It."  All unintended, of course (and with no Siberian consequences).  Thank God for "Edit," which I use frequently, especially if I have an additional thought!   Humorously,  AP

[Douglas]

I have no earthly idea about the veracity of this anecdote, but things can and DO happen in haste or transcription, etc.  Please note in your posting, your spellings of "believe", "instead," and use of the small letter "i" in "It."  All unintended, of course (and with no Siberian consequences).  Thank God for "Edit," which I use frequently, especially if I have an additional thought!   Humorously,  AP

Pardon?  That Alex Pavlovich is such a softy.  Send Abbi to Siberiana immediately.  We can't have these misspellings on the AP.

Tsar Douglas...;=))

[abbigail]

Very sorry for the misspellings...I didn't notice them . But thank you both for your replies.
Ahh...no Siberia for me, I guess! Thank God! XD

[nena]

I like ''Ripley's Beleive it or Not". It is published frequently every Friday in magazine I occasionally buy (On the 1st page, after cover page). Some facts are really unbelievable. But still, I do believe in those. Most of them have humorous contain that I like. (This is topic - off partly). Thanks for sharing it,  abbigail.

[Eric_Lowe]

It shows Marie's mercy to the prisoners. It must have happened before the railroad accident.

[Dominic_Albanese]

I'm sorry, but I find it hard to believe that Marie had the power to pardon anyone (under either Alexander III or Nicholas II) - Maybe someone more knowledgeable then I can confirm this.

dca

[Eric_Lowe]

She didn't. The story was that she changed the lettering so the original command would not be carried out. It is done without her husband's knowledge.

[Svetabel]

I'm sorry, but I find it hard to believe that Marie had the power to pardon anyone (under either Alexander III or Nicholas II) - Maybe someone more knowledgeable then I can confirm this.

dca

Of course she hadn't the power for such actions, as she wasn't the Emperor. She hadn't the power to change the lettering either.

[Eric_Lowe]

She hadn't but she did it. I wonder what her husband would have done had he known.

[Svetabel]

She hadn't but she did it. 

Your sources? Did she personally tell that to you?

[Belochka]

I'm sorry, but I find it hard to believe that Marie had the power to pardon anyone (under either Alexander III or Nicholas II) - Maybe someone more knowledgeable then I can confirm this.

dca

Dominic is correct. The Imperial Criminal Code stipulated that only the Emperor had the legal capacity to grant a pardon.

As for the magazine "Ripley's Believe it or Not", it is best to read it with caution in mind and recognize that this anecdote is one that falls into the absolutely "not" category.

Margarita

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

Just returning for Mardi Gras, day of extravagant self-indulgence.

I too think this may be a an urban legend. The classic example is a sovereign mixing up "Wait not, execute" and "Wait, not execute". This works better in languages which don't use "to do" in such negations, like English does. Our Russian posters can perhaps shed some light on whether the MF incident is linguistically possible in Russian.

So far I've only heard this story about letters, the telegram aspect was new to me. Were commas even possible in telegrams? (Perhaps they were, as I just read that STOP was spelled out because punctuation was especially expensive.) Anyway the story fits very well relating to a telegram, as they usually were without punctuation.

And it fits very well relating to a Glücksborger! Having read quite a few excerpts from their letters in Tor Bomann-Larsen's recent, excellent, multi-volume Norwegian-language biographies of Carl/Haakon and Maud, I can say that the whole family exhibited a total disregard for proper punctuation, making the style in their frequent letters even more flowing.