Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia

For the daughter of Nicholas I, see Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, Duchess of Leuchtenberg. For other uses, see Maria of Russia (disambiguation).
In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Nikolaevna and the family name is Romanova.

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna
Photo, c. 1914
Born(1899-06-26)26 June 1899[1]
Peterhof Palace, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died17 July 1918(1918-07-17) (aged 19)
Ipatiev House, Yekaterinburg, Russian Soviet Republic
Burial17 July 1998
Peter and Paul Cathedral, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation
Names
Maria Nikolaevna Romanova
HouseHolstein-Gottorp-Romanov
FatherNicholas II of Russia
MotherAlix of Hesse and by Rhine
ReligionRussian Orthodox
SignatureGrand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna's signature

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (Maria Nikolaevna Romanova; Russian: Великая Княжна Мария Николаевна, 26 June [O.S. 14 June] 1899 – 17 July 1918) was the third daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. Her murder following the Russian Revolution of 1917 resulted in her canonization as a passion bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.

During her lifetime, Maria, too young to become a Red Cross nurse like her elder sisters during World War I, was patroness of a hospital and instead visited wounded soldiers. Throughout her lifetime she was noted for her interest in the lives of the soldiers. The flirtatious Maria had a number of innocent crushes on the young men she met, beginning in early childhood. She hoped to marry and have a large family.

She was an elder sister of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, whose alleged escape from the assassination of the imperial family was rumored for nearly 90 years.[2] However, it was later proven that Anastasia did not escape and that those who claimed to be her were imposters. In the 1990s, it was suggested that Maria might have been the grand duchess whose remains were missing from the Romanov grave that was discovered near Yekaterinburg, Russia and exhumed in 1991.[3] Further remains were discovered in 2007, and DNA analysis subsequently proved that the entire Imperial family had been murdered in 1918.[4] A funeral for the remains of Maria and Alexei to be buried with their family in October 2015 was postponed indefinitely by the Russian Orthodox Church, which took custody of the remains in December and declared without explanation that the case required further study; the 44 partial bone fragments remain stored in a Russian state repository.[5]

  1. ^ In 1900 and later, her birthday was celebrated on 26 June new style.
  2. ^ Kurth (1983), p. xiv
  3. ^ Klier and Mingay (1995), p. 203
  4. ^ ""DNA proves Bolsheviks killed all of Russian Czar's children", CNN, March 11, 2009". Cnn.com. 11 March 2009. Retrieved 13 July 2012.
  5. ^ Neil MacFarquhar (13 February 2016), "Russian Orthodox Church Blocks Funeral for Last of Romanov Remains", The New York Times, retrieved 29 March 2020