Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna: The Grandest of the Grand Duchesses

Maria Pavlovna the Elder by François Flameng, 1898. 

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, born Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was the unrivalled society queen during the last years of czarist Russia. Imperious, ambitious and ostentatious, there was no doubt she earned the monicker “the grandest of all the grand duchesses.”  

When she came into St. Petersburg as the young wife of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovitch, the second son of Czar Alexander II, the grand duchess was relatively unpopular. As explained by Count Paul Vasili, Maria Pavlovna detested “every-thing that is Russian, and has remained German at the bottom of her heart."

"Her numerous sojourns in Paris have removed her German awkwardness, but they have also developed certain traits of character which do not accord with her rank,” he added. “The Grand Duchess does not know how to behave, dress, or enjoy herself as a Grand Duchess ; like all Germans, she ceased to be a great lady as soon as she threw off the prejudices in which she had been brought up."

However, close to the end of the Romanov regime, “the popularity of the Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna has been steadily increasing during recent years,”  as recorded in the Russian Court Memoirs, 1914-1916 (1917) by an anonymous Russian. “About seven years ago she — who had been considered so faithfully attached to her German antecedents—surprised the world by suddenly- changing her religion and becoming a member of the Orthodox Church. No one knew of her intention, which had been maturing for years, except her husband and her children.”  One of the assumptions of her conversation was to improve the chances of her sons’ claim to the throne. After Czar Nicholas’ sickly son, Alexei, and his unmarried, childless brother, Michael, her husband Grand Duke Vladimir and her sons were the next in line.

The family of Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Vladimir, c1904. Image under Creative Commons license.

There is no doubt Grand Duchess Maria contributed to the success and popularity at court of Grand Duke Vladimir “… the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, whose splendid gifts and great beauty have made her so many friends that she can afford to treat with scorn and contempt her powerful enemies and detractors, of which she has not a few,”  writes E. A. Brayley Hodgetts in his book The Court of Russia in the Nineteenth Century (1908).

 The author of Russian Court Memoirs gives a colourful description of the grand duchess, as well as the specifics of the amusements, which she hosted in her own court, which was described as “incontestably the most animated and interesting one in Petrograd.”

"The Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna is very energetic in her endeavours to help her adopted country in its hour of trial. She has organised various war hospitals, hospital trains, ambulances ; has started a depot and a workshop in her palace, and has been several times to the front to visit her field-hospitals and take gifts to the soldiers."

“The Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna loathes solitude. She never dines alone, and always has people to spend the evening with her. At one time she and her guests played loto, and the winner received a gift, which the Grand Duchess fetched from a special cupboard where such prizes were kept. At present loto has given way to bridge. She is an ardent adept of this game, and all her privileged friends arrange bridge parties in her honour.”

Maria Pavlovna by B. Kustodiev, 1911.

Queen Marie of Romania, writing in her memoirs The Story of my Life (1934)  (who also noticed the “rivalry between Aunt Miechen [Grand Duchess Maria] and Aunt Minnie [Empress Maria Feodorovna]), noted how elegant her aunt was when she saw her at the coronation of Czar Alexander III and Empress Marie Feodorovna. She was “more gorgeous than the sunset is her gold-embroidered orange gown,” Queen Marie wrong. “Each time she moves the pear-shaped pearls of her diadem sway gently backwards and forwards. She is not thin enough for classical lines but she wears her clothes better than any other woman present; her shoulders are superb and as white as cream; there is a smartness about her that no one else can attain.”

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