Marie Feodorovna--WWI and the Crimea

[Annie]

All balls ended with WW1. 1913 was the last season. There were plenty of balls before that. I always wondered why 1903 was called 'the last ball' when it wasn't. I found out it was because it was the last ball in the Winter Palace. After Alexei was born and was sick the family shut themselves in more. But there were balls for other people in other palaces, and as mentioned recently the two oldest girls even got to go to some in Livadia.

When WW1 broke out, balls were suspended because such luxury and revelry was considered to be in bad taste with so many dying at the front. They were supposed to resume after the war, but by then, the whole thing was gone:(

[Louise]

Very true, Annie. There were balls after 1903. I know for myself, that when I think of "the last of the balls" I think of the balls thrown by the IF and at the Winter Palace. The season highlight in St. Petersburg was the grand ball given by the Tsar and Tsarina in the Winter Palace.
So yes, there was balls after 1903!

Louise

[Belochka]

I find it amazing that because the Dowager Empress chose to move to Kiev and finally to the Crimea she actually saved herself from certain death by the Bolsheviks.

[Annie]

I find it amazing that because the Dowager Empress chose to move to Kiev and finally to the Crimea she actually saved herself from certain death by the Bolsheviks.

Just as the 'exile' of Rasputin's murderers ironically saved their lives

[Belochka]

.... except the difference was that the Dowager Empress's 'exile' from Petrograd was self imposed.

[etonexile]

Why was the Dowager-Empress MF able to make her way to the Crimea...and her son and family not...?

[Lass]

I can't remember the details - was it something to do with her working at a hospital? Someone else, no doubt, will know!

[darius]

She had spent the war in Kiev and not in the hotbeds of Revolution such as Petersburg or Moscow. Probably much easier to make her way to the Crimea.

[DanielB]

The Dowager Empress was able to make her way to the Crimea because, unlike Nicholas and Alexandra, she hadn’t been placed under arrest by the Provisional Government. She did live in Kiev at the time of the February Revolution and Nicholas II’s abdication. But as soon as she learned about it, she rushed to Moghilev to meet him (she arrived on March 4/17). Unknown to them, a power struggle between the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet regarding their fate had taken place and had ended by a compromise. As soon as Nicholas abdicated (on March 2/15), it seems that, at first, the Petrograd Soviet wanted to expel all Romanovs from Russia. The new Government was only prepared to agree in the case of Nicholas II and Grand Duke Michael, and their immediate families, but didn't want to send the other Romanovs into exile. Unfortunately, the Soviet’s mood changed very quickly as, on the next day (March 3/16), its Executive Commitee resolved to arrest all male members of the Romanov dynasty and « to arrest the women of the House of Romanov gradually, depending on the role each played in the activities of the old regime. »

The power struggle between the Soviet and the Provisional Government regarding the fate of the Romanovs ended on March 7/20. On that day the Soviet received a petition from 85 of its members, alarmed « because the deposed Nicholas II the Bloody; his traitorous wife; his son Aleksei; his mother, Maria Feodorovna, as well as all the other members of the House of Romanov, are still completely free and travel around Russia even into the theater of operations. » They proposed that the Executive Commitee « demand that the Provisional Government without delay adopt the most decisive measures to assemble all the members of the House of Romanov in one designated location under the dependable guard of the People’s Revolutionary Army. » On the same day, the Provisional Government agreed to «deprive the abdicated Emperor Nicholas II and his spouse of their freedom and to deliver the abdicated emperor to Tsarskoe Selo. » It seems Nicholas II was informed of his arrest only when he boarded his train back to Tsarskoe Selo (on March 8/21), after having taken leave from his mother. I wonder what she would have said, or done, if she had known before her son left…

As all the other Romanovs, except Nicholas and Alexandra, were still free to go where they wanted, Maria Feodorovna left Moghilev back for Kiev on March 9/22. This probably saved her life, as when the Bolsheviks took over she had already moved to the Crimea. Had she decided to go back to Petrograd or Tsarskoe Selo with her son, she probably would have been later arrested and killed by the Bolsheviks, as was the case of the other Romanovs who didn’t manage to escape from the capital.

[etonexile]

The naive innocense of the Czarist camp vs. the cold,cunning thought of Lenin and Co.,despite Kerensky....fascinating....

[kmerov]

What luck for those who made it to the Crimea.
I just finished MF diary on the years there, and some of my favorit parts was her relationship with "The Black Perils".

[etonexile]

What were the "Black Perils"...?

[kmerov]

I was trying to say Grand Duchesses Stana and Militza Nicholaevna......

[Alexander_II]

The significance of Kiev is not to be understated.  This was Russia's ancient spiritual capital and like many Christians nowadays partake in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, so did many Russians travel to Kiev to seek spiritual enlightenment.

The Mariinsky Palace ajoins the Kiev-Percherska Lavra Monastery.  This magnificant complex of churches and theology schools built between the 11th & 19th centuries predominantely in the Baroque style houses the caves.  Within these catacombs which measure 508 metres in length with a depth of 5 to 20 metres are interred the remains of many saints together with the bodies of prominant figures from Russia's past.

Rastrelli also built in Kiev St Andrew's Cathedral.  The city is very classical and the aristocracy built their grand homes in a district called Lipkii.  The main street called the Khreshchatik was famous for its sumptuous luxurious shops and the climate very agreeable.  It is within this city that Catherine the Great received Joseph II of Austria during his state visit to Russia in the 18th century.

The Mariinsky Palace built on the banks of the river Dnieper and decorated in the French manner was very stylish.  Whatever the Dowager Empresses inital intensions were she greatly enjoyed the rival court she established in Kiev.

[BobAtchison]

I think one can make to much of the rift between Nicholas, Alix and Marie as a cause for the move.  I think Marie was trying to support her daughter by moving away from court where it would be easier for her to be with Olga and Kulikovski.

The nasty atmosphere in Petrograd at the time, the shortages and such - Michael's involvement in a conspiracy against his own brother - there was a lot to get away from.