The future Empress Maria Alexandrovna was born in 1824 in Darmstadt, the capital of Hesse. The baby was named Maximilian Wilhemina Augusta Sophia Maria.
Origin
Her father was the German Ludwig II (1777–1848), Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine. He came to power after the July Revolution.
The girl's mother was Wilhelmina of Baden (1788–1836). She was from the Baden house of Zähringen. There were rumors at court that her younger children, including Maximilian, were born from a relationship with one of the local barons. Ludwig II - the official husband - recognized her as his daughter in order to avoid a shameful scandal. Nevertheless, the girl with her brother Alexander began to live separately from her father and his residence in Darmstadt. This place of "exile" was Heiligenberg, which was the property of Wilhelmina's mother.
Meeting with Alexander II
Dynastic marriages with German princesses were popular among the Romanovs. For example, Maria's predecessor, Alexandra Feodorovna (wife of Nicholas I), was the daughter of the Prussian king. And the wife of the last Russian emperor was also from the Hessian house. So against this backdropAlexander II's decision to marry a German woman from a small principality does not seem strange.
Empress Maria Alexandrovna met her future husband in March 1839, when she was 14 years old and he was 18. At that time, Alexander, as heir to the throne, made a traditional European tour to get acquainted with the local ruling houses. He met the daughter of the Duke of Hesse at the play Vestal.
How the marriage was arranged
After they met, Alexander began to persuade his parents in letters to give permission to marry a German woman. However, the mother was against such a connection of the crown prince. She was embarrassed by rumors about the illegal origin of the girl. Emperor Nicholas, on the contrary, decided not to cut off the shoulder, but to consider the issue more carefully.
The fact is that his son Alexander already had a bad experience in his personal life. He fell in love with the maid of honor of the court, Olga Kalinovskaya. Parents were sharply against such a connection for two fundamental reasons. First, this girl was of simple origin. Secondly, she was also a Catholic. So Alexander was forcibly separated from her and sent to Europe, just so that he could find a suitable match for himself.
So Nikolai decided not to risk breaking his son's heart again. Instead, he began to ask in detail about the girl of the trustee Alexander Kavelin and the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, who accompanied the heir on his journey. When the emperor received positive reviews, an order immediately followed throughout the court that henceforth it was forbidden.spread any rumors about the Hessian princess.
Even Empress Alexandra Feodorovna had to obey this order. Then she decided to go to Darmstadt herself in order to get to know her daughter-in-law in advance. It was an unheard of event - nothing like it had ever happened in Russian history.
Appearance and Interests
The future Empress Maria Alexandrovna made an excellent impression on her predecessor. After a face-to-face meeting, consent to marriage was received.
What was so attractive about this German girl? The most detailed description of her appearance was left in her memoirs by her maid of honor Anna Tyutcheva (daughter of the famous poet). According to her, Empress Maria Alexandrovna had a delicate complexion, wonderful hair and a meek gaze of large blue eyes. Against this background, her thin lips looked a little strange, which often depicted an ironic smile.
The girl had a deep knowledge of music and European literature. Her education and breadth of interests impressed everyone around her, and many people later left their rave reviews in the form of memoirs. For example, the writer Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy said that with her knowledge, the Empress not only stands out from other women, but even noticeably beats many men.
Appearance at court and wedding
The wedding took place shortly after all formalities were settled. The bride arrived in St. Petersburg in 1840 and was most shockedsplendor and beauty of the Russian capital. In December, she converted to Orthodoxy and was baptized with the name Maria Alexandrovna. The very next day there was an engagement between her and the heir to the throne. The wedding took place a year later, in 1841. It was held in the Cathedral Church, located in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Now it is one of the premises of the Hermitage, where regular exhibitions are held.
It was hard for the girl to wedge herself into a new life because of her lack of knowledge of the language and the fear of not being liked by her father-in-law and mother-in-law. As she herself later admitted, every day Maria spent on pins and needles, she felt like a “volunteer”, ready to rush anywhere on a sudden command, for example, to an unexpected reception. Secular life in general was a burden for the princess, and then the empress. She was primarily attached to her husband and children, trying to do only to help them, and not waste time on formalities.
The coronation of the spouses took place in 1856 after the death of Nicholas I. Thirty-year-old Maria Alexandrovna received a new status that frightened her all the time that she was the daughter-in-law of the emperor.
Character
Contemporaries noted the numerous virtues possessed by Empress Maria Alexandrovna. This is kindness, attention to people, sincerity in words and deeds. But the most important and noticeable was the sense of duty with which she stayed at court and carried the title throughout her life. Each of her actions corresponded to the imperial status.
She always observedreligious tenets and was extremely devout. This feature stood out so strongly in the character of the empress that it was much easier to imagine her as a nun than a reigning person. For example, Louis II (King of Bavaria) noted that Maria Alexandrovna was surrounded by the halo of a saint. Such behavior in many ways did not agree with her status, since her presence was required in many state (even formal) affairs, despite her behavior removed from worldly fuss.
Charity
Most of all, Empress Maria Alexandrovna - the wife of Alexander 2 - was known for her wide charity. Throughout the country, at her expense, hospitals, shelters and gymnasiums were opened, which received the epithet "Mariinsky". In total, she opened and monitored 5 hospitals, 36 shelters, 12 almshouses, 5 charitable societies. The empress did not deprive the empress of her attention to the sphere of education: 2 institutes, four dozen gymnasiums, hundreds of small schools for artisans and workers, etc. were built. Maria Alexandrovna spent both state and own funds on this (she was given 50 thousand silver rubles a year for personal expenses).
He alth care has become a special area of activity, which Empress Maria Alexandrovna was engaged in. The Red Cross appeared in Russia precisely on her initiative. Its volunteers helped wounded soldiers during the war in Bulgaria against Turkey in 1877-1878
Death of daughter andson
The death of the heir to the throne was a great tragedy for the royal family. Empress Maria Alexandrovna - the wife of Alexander 2 - gave her husband eight children. The eldest son Nikolai was born in 1843, two years after the wedding, when his namesake grandfather was still the king.
The child had a sharp mind and a pleasant character, for which he was loved by all family members. He was already engaged and educated when he injured his back in an accident. There are several versions of what happened. Either Nikolai fell off his horse, or hit a marble table during a comic struggle with his comrade. At first, the injury was invisible, but over time, the heir became increasingly pale and felt worse. In addition, the doctors treated him incorrectly - they prescribed medicines for rheumatism, which did not bring any benefit, because the true cause of the disease was not identified. Soon Nikolai was chained to a wheelchair. This became a terrible stress that Empress Maria Alexandrovna endured. The son's illness followed the death of Alexandra's first daughter, who died of meningitis. His mother was constantly with Nicholas, even when it was decided to send him to Nice for treatment for spinal tuberculosis, where he died at the age of 22.
Cooling relations with her husband
Both Alexander and Maria struggled with this loss in their own way. The emperor blamed himself for forcing his son to do a lot of physical training, partly because of which the accident occurred. One way or another, but the tragedy alienated the spouses from each other.friend.
The trouble was that all their further life together consisted of the same rituals. In the mornings it was a kiss on duty and ordinary conversations about dynastic affairs. In the afternoon, the couple met another parade. The empress spent the evening with the children, and her husband constantly disappeared on public affairs. He loved his family, but his time was simply not enough for relatives, which Maria Alexandrovna could not help but notice. The empress tried to help Alexander in business, especially in the early years.
Then (at the beginning of his reign) the king happily consulted with his wife about many decisions. She was always up to date with the latest ministerial reports. Most often, her advice concerned the education system. This was largely due to the charitable activities that Empress Maria Alexandrovna was engaged in. And the development of education in these years received a natural impetus forward. Schools were opened, peasants got access to them, who, among other things, were also freed from serfdom under Alexander.
The empress herself had the most liberal opinion on this matter, which she shared, for example, with Kavelin, telling him that she ardently supports her husband in his desire to give freedom to Russia's largest estate.
However, with the advent of the Manifesto (1861), the Empress was less and less concerned with public affairs due to some cooling of relations with her husband. This was also due to the wayward character of Romanov. The king was increasingly overtaken by whispers in the palace that he too often looks back at the opinion of his wife, that is, he is under her control.heel. This annoyed the freedom-loving Alexander. In addition, the very title of autocrat obliged him to make decisions only by his own will, without advice from anyone. This concerned the very nature of power in Russia, which, it was believed, was given by God to a single anointed one. But the real gap between the spouses was yet to come.
Ekaterina Dolgorukova
In 1859, Alexander II conducted maneuvers in the southern part of the empire (the territory of present-day Ukraine) - the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava was celebrated. The sovereign stopped for a visit to the estate of the famous Dolgorukovs' house. This family was a branch from the Rurik princes. That is, its representatives were distant relatives of the Romanovs. But in the middle of the 19th century, the well-born family was in debt, as if in silks, and its head, Prince Mikhail, had only one estate left - Teplovka.
The Emperor stepped in and helped Dolgorukov, in particular, he got his sons into the guards, and sent his daughters to the Smolny Institute, promising to pay the expenses from the royal purse. Then he met with thirteen-year-old Ekaterina Mikhailovna. The girl surprised him with her curiosity and love of life.
In 1865, the autocrat traditionally paid a visit to the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens. Then, after a long break, he again saw Catherine, who was already 18 years old. The girl was amazingly beautiful.
The emperor, who had an amorous disposition, began to send her gifts through his assistants. He even began to visit the institute incognito, howeverit was decided that this was too much, and the girl was expelled under the pretext of ill he alth. Now she lived in Petersburg and saw the tsar in the Summer Garden. She was even made a maid of honor to the hostess of the Winter Palace, who was Empress Maria Alexandrovna. The wife of Alexander II was very upset by the rumors swarming around the young girl. Finally, Catherine left for Italy so as not to cause a scandal.
But Alexander was serious. He even promised the favorite that he would marry her as soon as the opportunity presented itself. In the summer of 1867 he arrived in Paris at the invitation of Napoleon III. Dolgorukova went there from Italy.
In the end, the emperor tried to explain himself to his family, wishing that Maria Alexandrovna would hear him first. The Empress, the wife of Alexander II and the mistress of the Winter Palace, tried to keep up appearances and did not allow the conflict to go beyond the residence. However, her eldest son and heir to the throne rebelled. This was not surprising. The future Alexander III was distinguished by a sharp temper even at a very young age. He scolded his father, who, in turn, became furious.
As a result, Catherine nevertheless moved to the Winter Palace and gave birth to four children from the king, who later received princely titles and were legalized. This happened after the death of Alexander's legal wife. The funeral of Empress Maria Alexandrovna made it possible for the Tsar to marry Catherine. She received the title of the Most Serene Princess and the surname Yuryevskaya (like her children). However, the emperor was not happy in this marriage for long.
Sickness and death
Maria Alexandrovna's he alth was undermined for many reasons. These are frequent childbirth, the betrayal of her husband, the death of her son, as well as the damp climate of St. Petersburg, for which the native German woman was not ready in the first years of the move. Because of this, she developed consumption, as well as nervous exhaustion. According to the recommendation of a personal doctor, every summer the woman went south to the Crimea, whose climate was supposed to help her overcome illnesses. Over time, the woman almost retired. One of the last episodes of her participation in public life was visiting military councils during the confrontation with Turkey in 1878.
During these years, assassination attempts were constantly made on Alexander II by revolutionaries and bombers. Once an explosion occurred in the dining room of the Winter Palace, but the empress was so sick that she did not even notice it, lying in her chambers. And her husband survived only because he lingered in his office, contrary to his habit of having lunch at a set time. Constant fear for the life of her beloved husband ate the remnants of he alth, which Maria Alexandrovna still owned. The Empress, whose photos at that time show a clear change in her appearance, became extremely thin and looked more like her shadow than a person in the body.
In the spring of 1880, she finally fell ill, while her husband moved to Tsarskoye Selo with Dolgorukova. He paid his wife short visits, but could not do anything to somehow improve her well-being. Tuberculosis was the reason why Empress Maria Alexandrovna died. The biography of this woman says that her life was cut short in the same year, on June 3 according to the newstyle.
The last refuge of the wife of Alexander II found according to dynastic tradition in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. The funeral of Empress Maria Alexandrovna became a mourning event for the whole country, which sincerely loved her.
Alexander briefly survived his first wife. In 1881, he died after being wounded by a bomb thrown at his feet by a terrorist. The emperor was buried next to Maria Alexandrovna.
