Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia

Who was Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia?

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia was the third daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna. In 1900 and later, her birthday came on June 27 new style. 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 the famous Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, whose alleged escape from the assassination of the imperial family was rumored for nearly 90 years. 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. However, further remains were discovered in 2007, and DNA analysis subsequently proved that the entire Imperial family had been murdered in 1918.

Famous Quotes:

• ''Do you play on the swing, or has the plank already broken?''
• "God doesn´t abandon us".
• 'Oh, how complicated everything is now. We lived so peacefully for eight months and now it's all started again.'
• "Dear and beloved Father! I'm always with You in my thoughts and prayers."
• "It is very sad we don't see each other, but God will arrange for us to meet, and what joy it will be then."
• "Today we have been rehearsing an English play. Tomorrow is Sunday and we shall perform it. I've played male roles sometimes it's very easy now since I have short hair."
• "How dull it is to be back to Tsarskoe Selo again. Our daily routine again - classes in the morning, our hospital, the Grand Palace and a walk in the afternoon, the sisters' hospital in the evening."
• "Time flies by with a horrible quickness. Soon it will be a year since we saw our friends. Well, it's nothing. God will grant us all to meet again."
• "Why are you not disgusted with yourselves when you use such shameful words? Do you imagine that you can woo a well-born woman with such witticisms and have her be well disposed towards you? Be refined and respectable men and then we can get along."
• "I am happy that we'll have no lessons on Friday because of the holiday. It's such fun."