What's In A Name?

[Georgiy]

In their diaries they write of visiting with Xenia's boys, so I am not so sure that they were kept away as such - even visits with Ieina and Felix were on the agenda. I don't think they were quite so isolated from people (OK family) as we are lead to believe, based on their own writings.

[Janet_W.]

Yes, I don't doubt that they saw their cousins, but although we have some photos of OTMAA with Irina and a few of the brothers, I haven't seen too many group shots to indicate frequent picnics and other shared activities. Perhaps it would have been too much to have coordinated such get-togethers! Or perhaps it's because of the preponderance of boys in one family, and the preponderance of girls in the other . . . and of course Alexei's inability to engage in rough-and-tumble also would be a roadblock.

On the other hand, Xenia was disapproving of "Our Friend," and I do have the feeling--nothing in writing, I admit--that Alexandra, who was initially good friends with Xenia, more and more avoided Xenia for that reason, as well as for possibly unspoken hurt feelings/rivaly having to do with all those healthy boys from the Xenia/Sandro union vs. one hemophiliac boy from the Alix/Nicky union.

[Suzanne]

Sandro states in "Once a Grand Duke" that the two couples - Nicholas and Alexandra, Xenia and Sandro, grew apart as Alexandra continued to have daughters and Xenia had sons - Sandro appears to have felt as though he was being reproached for having a large family of sons when the Imperial couple had only daughters. The memoirs also indicate that Sandro blamed Alexandra for Alexei's condition, believing that there should have been more effort to discourage Nicholas and Alexandra' marriage. Its difficult to determine whether Sandro actually felt this way at the time because he wrote his memoirs long after the fact and he wrote them during the same period as his American lectures tours. Some of the outlandish accounts of his relatives in Once a Grand Duke - and the "uphill both ways" account of his militaristic childhood - clearly demonstrate that the first purpose of his memoirs was to compile a compelling story that would entertain an audience.

[Georgiy]

Still, it seems to me, from reading in OTMA's own words, that there was nothing out of the ordinary in seeing their aunts, grandmother and cousins. In 1914 and 15 (haven't read 1916's diaries and letters yet) they seem to quite often visit with them.
Also they often get together with young officers and wounded at Ania Vyroubova's.

[Elisabeth]

I agree with you Georgiy, that all or at least most of this is anti-Alexandra propaganda. The photographs taken of OTMA during their vacations on the Standart don't seem to indicate a sequestered, nun-like existence... rather, they suggest that the grand duchesses spent a goodly portion of their young lives in an almost endless round of tea parties, dances, innocent flirtations, picnics, hiking expeditions, and so on and so forth. In fact, given their vacation activities alone, I'd be hard-pressed to think of another group of young females in any historical era who had more social opportunities or events to attend... At the very least, there seems never to have been a dearth of courtiers and young officers to talk to and flirt with, even before the outbreak of World War I.

[Janet_W.]

And yet, despite all the young officers and so forth, it seems to have been curiously sterile. The girls could interact with these young men--indeed, were encouraged and even expected--but to fall in love with? To consider marriage with? No. The young men might as well have been eunuchs. Flirtations, of course, were fine, but feelings were not.

I remember at least one letter in which Alexandra tenderly but firmly advised one of her daughters (Marie, I believe) of her position and that she must not fall in love with the young men who served them. This was a very practical approach and quite understandable for those times, but also I think Alexandra, as a caring mother, wanted to spare her daughters any unnecessary heartbreak.

Rather than romantic entanglements, though, I've been more interested in relationships OTMA might have developed with young women their own ages. Beyond Rita Khitrivo, I'm hoping they existed. A number of novels about this period have featured a protagonist who was friends with Tatiana, Marie, or Anastasia, but as far as I know these relationships were strictly story-telling devices.  Perhaps a separate thread could be created on the subject of friendships the grand duchesses had with girls their own age.

[Rodney_G.]

  Back to Janet's original issue. I believe I saw the title of the Alexei thread she mentions but didn't read the actual posts.

I certainly don't object to greater discretion in subject titles, but I'm not averse to graphic language in the posts themselves.  Graphic is not necessarily the same as lurid and sensationalist though they can overlap.
  I think it's up to the reader to exit a post as soon as it's apparent it's too offputting.
  As a rule  I tend to err on the side of free expression. I'd rather risk exposure to the gory details than be denied the truth , however gruesome.
  Specifically with regard to the massacre of the Romanovs, I think it's extremely important on the most basic moral level that the world know exactly who, by name, committed these savage, evil acts , and this means that the details of the murders should , must be included. The comon reference to being executed in a cellar in Ekaterinburg totally fails to convey the true nature of this horror.
 That being said, I must admit that it would be preferable that younger , less mature Forum members pursue this subject on their own,and by choice, rather than by seeing too graphic a topic title.