Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna-younger, her life and relations

[Ally Kumari]

[Carolath Habsburg]

 

[Ally Kumari]

I am currently reading “Education of a Princess”, which is a biography by Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna the Younger, and it is quickly proving to be both a wonderful read and a fascinating source of information. Maria Pavlovna is often dismissed as spoilt and problematic, but from the book it is clear she had a sharp mind, was intelligent and also literally gifted, with wild imagination.

Even though one has to be critical, as autobiographies can be tricky and the writer rarely discloses everything that should be disclosed, Maria Pavlovna strikes me as a person who is not filled with nostalgic pining, which would make her see the past with pink-coloured glasses (as it is in cases of Anna Vyrubova, Sophie Buxhoeveden or Lilly Dehn) and while she treats the issues from her subjective point of view, she still remains very honest.

The insight she provides into the lives and personalities of Sergei and Ella is extremely intimate and fascinating, and definitely sheds some more light on both their personalities as well as their mysterious relationship. I am definitely engulfed by the book.

[Svetabel]

Even though one has to be critical, as autobiographies can be tricky and the writer rarely discloses everything that should be disclosed, Maria Pavlovna strikes me as a person who is not filled with nostalgic pining, which would make her see the past with pink-coloured glasses (as it is in cases of Anna Vyrubova, Sophie Buxhoeveden or Lilly Dehn) and while she treats the issues from her subjective point of view, she still remains very honest.

That's exactly what fascinates me in MP - she didn't sit around and dream about old-good days in Russia,she preferred to be honest and pragmatic,without that nostalgic tune of many exiled Romanovs. They didn't approve MP's ways, but personally I like her will to revive and live in her own way. She was a fighter and explorer,not a dreaming princess in a gold cage.

[Ally Kumari]

What was Maria´s standing in the Romanov family in exile anyway? Did she maintain contact and relationship with anyone else besides her brother?

She is one of the members of the Imperial family who is hardly ever talked about, even though she is rather fascinating.

[Svetabel]

What was Maria´s standing in the Romanov family in exile anyway? Did she maintain contact and relationship with anyone else besides her brother?

The Romanov clan lined up in opposition with her, not that was a war but  a moral condemnation. She had a contact with her half-sisters Irina and Natalia and I think that's all her real realtionships with her Romanov relatives. She was really alone, she understood well her "outsider" position, she was quite frank in her memoirs when she said that the clan threw her out...Recently I read a reaction of GDsses Xenia and Olga A. on MP's memoirs - they spoke as if in a single voice that the memoirs were disgusting, obviuosly they didn't approve MP's style of writing and her point of view on many events and people.

[Ally Kumari]

She apparently felt like an outsider since childhood itself... I suppose she was just really tough, realistic and no-nonsense kind of a person. And critical. While other Romanovs still held onto some of the illusions and maybe were oposed to what they might consider "washing dirty linen" in public, especially if the "linen" was of murdered member´s of the family.... I am not that far into the memoirs just yet, but this is the first book in which Ella is not presented as perfection, where Sergei is clearly described as possesive and intimidating rather then "misunderstood" (which is the favourite description by most of the other Romanovs apart from Sandro, who purely hated him) etc....

[Eric_Lowe]

I think she was spoilt and tend to blame. Ella wasn't perfect but she did strive to be. Even in MP's account she apologized to her niece on her cold behavior. In Christopher Warricks's book she was happy to marry Prinz Vilhelm of Sweden and move out of her Aunt's orbit.

[katmaxoz]

MP's memoirs were one of the first Romanov autobiographies I ever read. Even now I can still remember how good they were to read. She seemed to have a very good recall with interesting details thrown in and a willingness to look at both the positive and negative of Royal existence. I think she got thrown out of the royal bubble after her first marriage broke apart. She seemed to be willing to confront the fact that royal training left little practical skills for making a living and gave it a genuine go do better and what was probably her third of fourth attempt to re-invent herself (not any easy thing to do for anyone and harder as you get older).

I had the impression she was bitter about how the Imperial family treated her father and never truly appreciated what Ella and Serge did for them - but maybe she simply saw them as part of the "system" that tore her family apart. At any rate, along with Vorres memoir of GD Olga and GD Alexander's memoirs I think hers are still among the most accessible and informative of the Romanov memoirs today.

[Kalafrana]

I think that's a fair assessment, though I still have yet to read the book. We should remember that the defining events of Marie's life took place when she was very young - she was 14 when Serge was killed. Whatever the reasons why she and Ella never hit it of, she always suffers in comparison with someone who is regarded as 'perfect'.

Ann

[Ally Kumari]

I think she was spoilt and tend to blame. Ella wasn't perfect but she did strive to be. Even in MP's account she apologized to her niece on her cold behavior. In Christopher Warricks's book she was happy to marry Prinz Vilhelm of Sweden and move out of her Aunt's orbit.

First of all, Maria Pavlovna in her book clearly admits her own faults, including insecurity and jealousy, towards Ella. And I have no reason not to believe, to a great degree at least, that Ella had problematic relationship with her that at least partly she was responsible for. From what I understand Ella was jealous of the children because Sergei loved them so possessively, and adding to it she had no children of her own I can imagine she suffered by their constant presence as a painful reminder. Such emotions could very easily turn into aloofness and hurtful behaviour towards them, something that apparently Maria felt, as it happened in her formative and sensitive years.

As for Maria´s "happiness" over her Swedish marriage: Apparently she wanted to back out, even wrote a letter to Wilhelm and sent it, but being still young, impressionable and uncertain she let herself be persuaded (if we want to avoid the word "pushed") into marriage by others. And as a person, who obviously tried to make the best out of her situation, she then decided to see the upcoming nuptuals optimisticly, aware that it did offer her some advantages and new possibilities. I personally am definitely leaning towards believing Marie herself than a biographer of her aunt in such matter.

Basically I refuse to accept "spoilt Maria/saint Ella" black and white theory that sometimes appears.

[Forum Admin]

I have mentioned this before, but it was many years ago, so bears repeating here.  My "Tante Lilly" (Grafinya Elizabeta Tarasova) was about the same age and close friends with MP in New York.  Lilly used to speak quite fondly of her, and had many books and gifts of wonderful things MP had given her.  I remember a book of Pushkin poems in an Imperial Binding from GD Paul's library.  MP lived in Buenos Aires in the late 30s sharing a flat with Lilly and Lilly's daughter. Tante Lilly was sent by Elizabeth Arden from Paris to run her Buenos Aires store and Lilly and MP opened up a cosmetics firm together.  They were the closest of friends.

Lilly's daughter Odette told me she and the servants of the house and employees of the firm lived in fear of MP, who was cold, demanding and insisted upon being addressed most formally at all times as if still "At Court" in Petersburg. "It was difficult to live with her," Odette recalls. "Very formal. There were no embraces, there was just a reverence, and you did it every day - "Bonjour, Votre Altesse' and "Bon soir, Votre Altesse'. You had to live with that."

I recommend the biography of MP to you on the main AP website  http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/mariepavlovna.html

[katmaxoz]

Lilly's daughter Odette told me she and the servants of the house and employees of the firm lived in fear of MP, who was cold, demanding and insisted upon being addressed most formally at all times as if still "At Court" in Petersburg. "It was difficult to live with her," Odette recalls. "Very formal. There were no embraces, there was just a reverence, and you did it every day - "Bonjour, Votre Altesse' and "Bon soir, Votre Altesse'. You had to live with that."

I recommend the biography of MP to you on the main AP website  http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/mariepavlovna.html

This is very interesting. She comes across as so different in her books. I wonder if they have been massaged a bit by her editor or if she was simply unable to express any warmth - rather like Alexandra - even if that was not what she really felt.

[Svetabel]

I have mentioned this before, but it was many years ago, so bears repeating here.  My "Tante Lilly" (Grafinya Elizabeta Tarasova) was about the same age and close friends with MP in New York. 

Countess Tarasova? As I read in a Russian bio on MP, the name of that lady was Elizabeth de Bruner (spelling?).

[Ally Kumari]

Maria definitely lacks the "warmth", even in her book. She refers to first husband as "Prince" throughout and to her second husband with his surname instead of the first name. At few points I found that actually pretty weird and definitely impersonal. Neither of her sons´s names is even mentioned and among all the things she describes her relationship to her children is not one of them. The only affectionate bits are reserved for her father and brother.

Is it possible that she was so disliked by her cousins in exile also because unlike most of them, she willingly took the German help to get out of Russia? I cannot really imagine someone like Olga Alexandrovna being squeemish over a divorce....