Marie of romania autobiography sampler
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The Education of a PrincessandA Princess in Exileby Maria, Grand Duchess of Russia
As an exiled member of the Russian royal family, there were legions of readers keen to hear about Maria, Grand Duchess of Russia’s early life. And with few other options available to her, she was willing to cash in on the connection, writing two memoirs, The Education of a Princess, and A Princess in Exile. A cousin of the tragic Tsar Nicholas II, she was one of a handful of Romanovs who escaped Russia following the collapse of the monarchy, living in exile in Bucharest, London and Paris before emigrating to the US. Her story begins happily enough, enjoying the lavish childhood typical of Imperial family members in St Petersburg. Yet like in a fairytale, it turns tragic, when her father is exiled for remarrying without the Tsar’s blessing, and she is left behind with a cruel aunt in Moscow. She witnessed the violence of revolution first hand, later training as a nurse during the First
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Tea Blog
The story of how a British princess brought tea to Romania begins in 1874 when Queen Victoria’s son Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, married the daughter of Russia’s Tsar Alexander. The duke and duchess’ eldest daughter, Marie, was born a year later. A bright, free-spirited girl, Marie was blessed with exceptional beauty and was gifted with talents for writing and art.
Admired as the most beautiful princess in Europe, Marie had many suitors. Her mother was determined to see her eldest daughter on a European throne, and so Marie was married off at age seventeen to Prince Ferdinand, nephew and heir to King Carol of the far-away country of Romania.
The transition to a new country, language, husband, and family was difficult and lonely at first for the young princess. She found solace in solitary tea times in a private corner of the palace.
By the early 1900s Princess Marie had entered the royal social scene, hosting English-style afternoon teas at the royal palaces. Knowing
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Photographs of her dressed in a simple nurse's habit were a revelation. Romanians had, until then, been suspicious of their imported, apparently detached princess, but here she was kneeling in mud and human faeces to help her adopted country defeat the Germans. When her husband became King, it wasn’t his name they chanted, but that of his wife, 'Regina Maria!'
But it was a display of diplomatic luminosity that sealed Marie’s legacy. When borders were being redrawn at the end of the Great War, Romania looked likely to shrink in size as penance for signing a truce with the Germans. But Marie swept into the negotiations in Paris and charmed the fusty old delegates into a change of heart. The territorial award she achieved was so generous, Romanian territory more than doubled in storlek overnight.
Marie in her boudoirRomanian National Archive
With that, she sealed her place in Romanian history and folklore: her heart rests in a golden casket in Pelisor Castle, a fairy-t