The Letters of Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna

A recent discovery has been made: five important letters by Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna to Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna have been released from the newly digitized archive of “Letters from Grand Duchess Victoria Melita, 1917-1920” from the Grand Duchess Ksenii͡a Aleksandrovna papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives. These originals are available at the following link: https://n2t.net/ark:/54723/h36m33g23

After the February Revolution, the abdication of Nicholas II for himself and his son, and the deferral of the throne by Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, the Russian empire faced a precarious spring. The quickly shifting politics and declining power of the Provisional Government created instability which made life in the capital of Petrograd both frightening and dangerous, particularly for members of the former Imperial House. On 7/20 March, 1917, the Emperor and his family were placed under house arrest at Tsarskoe Selo.

By March 9th or 10th, in Petrograd Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich handed in his resignation of all of his military appointments, followed by Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich in Gatchina, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhaikovich in Kiev, and Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich at Tsarskoe Selo, all of whom resigned in protest over the emperor’s arrest. The next day, on March 10th, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, who did not wish to resign, received a letter from Prince Lvov and the Provisional Government stating “The Provisional Government … has come to the conclusion that the situation which has arisen and exists at the present time renders necessary your resignation. The national feeling is decidedly and insistently against the employment of any members of the house of Romanov in any official position.” Nicholas Nikolaevich did so, requesting the right to wear his uniform in retirement guaranteed to him as a Knight of the Order of St. George, and then ordered his brother, his nephew Roman, and the members of his suite to recognize the Provisional Government.

This left the members of the imperial family jobless and exposed as the tide turned away from them and towards the Bolsheviks. Petrograd became unsafe, and it was at this time that Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna realized she was pregnant. Having witnessed the desperate attempt to save the throne for NIcholas II carried out by Grand Duke Michael, Grand Duke Paul, and her husband, Grand Duchess Victoria realized that even barricaded in the Kirillovsky Palace in Glinka Street, her family was in a dangerous situation. Her appeals to the British government and other foreign courts for assistance were rebuffed. Grand Duke Kirill’s mother and brothers had been in the Caucasus since Easter, and communication and travel had broken down. Grand Duke Michael was being detained at Gatchina, Grand Duke Paul at Tsarskoe Selo. Grand Duchess Xenia and her family had fled to their estates in the Crimea. The Kirills were alone in Petrograd, and they were the last remaining Romanovs in the capital. 

In April of 1917, as the spring broke, the Kirills received an invitation from Alexander von Etter, who had served as Chamberlain of the Suite of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna the Elder and was a longtime family friend, to come and spend the summer at their estate in Haiko, Finland. Finland was part of the Russian empire, and Grand Duke George Mikhailovich had already moved there. As a male dynast, Kirill was required to request permission to leave the capital. It appears that he met with Kerensky, and was granted permission to go to FInland provided that he promised not to leave the country (again, Finland then still being part of the Empire, and considered “Russia”).

Kirill went first and took their daughters, the Princesses Maria and Kira Kirillovna, while Grand Duchess Victoria stayed behind to organize papers and the house, and to retrieve as many valuables as she was able to travel with without attracting too much attention. Victoria Feodorovna arrived in Finland in May of 1917 at the end of her second trimester. Immediately, she began a letter-writing campaign to find out where the rest of their family was, and to attempt to assist them wherever they were. This period has long been poorly documented, but letters from the period have survived and were recently released by the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.

Historian Nicholas Nicholson has transcribed and annotated these letters from the originals, and Russian Legitimist publishes these annotations with his permission. The original letters are digitized and have been released from the archive of “Letters from Grand Duchess Victoria Melita, 1917-1920” contained among Grand Duchess Ksenii͡a Aleksandrovna papers, now at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in California. These letters significantly add to our understanding of the role Grand Duke Kirill and Grand Duchess Victoria played during the February Days, their relationships with other members of the House of Romanov, and their daily lives in exile before they we able to leave FInland in 1920.

Editors’ note:

The official transliteration into English of the Christian name of Nicholas II’s sister was Xenia.  This was the spelling used by the imperial court and by the Grand Duchess herself.  The preferred academic Library of Congress transliteration is Ksenii͡a.  Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna referred to her first cousin Grand Duchess Xenia by the nickname “Zelly.” 

Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna signs some of her letters “D”, which refers to her nickname within the extended royal families of Europe, “Ducky.”

The copyright to the original documents is held by the Hoover. Any citations should credit “Letters from Grand Duchess Victoria Melita, 1917-1920” from the Grand Duchess Ksenii͡a Aleksandrovna papers, Hoover Institution Library & Archives.”

The copyright to the annotations is held by Nicholas Nicholson and is useed with permission of the author.

LETTER ONE

13th / 26th July 1918

Xenia dearest,

Since two days we are living with such a profound and overwhelming despair in our hearts that life itself seems to be over. They all try to make us believe that it is really true that Nicky is gone. That his martyrdom is over, but we still refuse to believe it. This terrible news of this death has been spread several times before and it was not true then. Why can’t it be untrue now? Why must we believe that such a crime could come true.

God cannot have meant you all to suffer like this. Or did He find that Nicky had suffered enough and that for a kind and pure heart like his, eternal rest might be granted sooner. Perhaps He knew that poor heart had borne its trials of breaking point and He took him out of this world of suffering and wrong doing, that he, who had never meant harm to anybody should no more be at the mercy of the wicked. That God knows best is the only hope that is left to us, the only thought that makes life still possible.

Our only raison d’etre [i] was the firm hope of seeing Nicky one day back on his throne, all our striving to that one point. Now if this news is true we are all nothing but useless things left behind without an object or a goal in life. All seems to have gone with him.

As long as he remained, Russia did not seem so lost. Your Mama! Day and night we think of her. Your Mama I have always loved with all my heart and soul and to think of her sufferings seems worse to me than all the rest. This & Nicky’s children, those innocent creatures. And poor Alix- that poor hard heart that has to suffer so much more alone & bitterly than others because it always found difficulty in letting other hearts come near it.

Oh Zelly dear, I don’t talk of you, you have always seemed to me a bit of my own heart, I can’t think of your dear face without crying. And to be all separated like this and each to bear the horror of his broken life alone in different corners of the earth. We have no news of anyone of our family since months. We have borne here many things; the red terror, the German invasion- just the same as you poor things. Did your Mama have to see any Germans, how did she bear it. If only we could know a little about you all. There was a moment when we had the hope of joining Mama and sister Baby in Switzerland but then the Germans, who had themselves proposed it to us, prevented it & we are now practically prisoners who cannot move from Finland. One would find life intolerably hard if one did not think how much harder it has been for others.

We had a visit from Erni Hohenlohe [ii] for a few hours. It was of course a pleasure but as to consolation it brought none. It only showed how aged we will find one another after years of separation and how far apart our thoughts & feelings have grown. Such meetings will be hard moments in our lives to come still. Our children are all well thank God though always hungry. Our little boy [iii] is the most beautiful little object and always gay and good humoured. I nursed him until I became nearly a skeleton & now we are worried often how to feed him. We can get no rational foods [sic] [iv] any more. Kirill is also a shadow of his old self though mightily patient. He & I think of you all always & always.

God bless you all.

There is nothing else to say, for a grief like yours there is no other help.

Your old D

Please tell Vera Orbeliani [v] how I have thought of her & how all my life I will be grateful for the love she showed me. Tell her that her brother’s brave last words ought to wipe out all sorrow she feels for him, and tell her that one should never make oneself self reproaches for having done one’s best for those one loves.

The children kiss you tenderly.

LETTER TWO 

6th August 1917

Zelly dear,

It was such a joy to hear from you, and to hear all about you all from V.O. [vi], but a sad joy as all is so heartbreaking for you. And now that “they” [vii] have been moved what must your Mama’s and your feelings be. Whereto have they gone, did they wish it themselves & what does it mean? Day and night we wonder. V.O. comes today from Petersburg and as she sees many leading people perhaps she will know. That they saw M. [viii] before starting is a good sign, perhaps it means the beginning of something new- how tormenting and awful to know nothing.

The way you are all treated I call such a screaming shame that I can’t bear to think about it. If only we had you here for a time of rest and complete change what good it would do you, such complete calm & lovely weather and seems such miles away from all that is going on, an untouched corner of the earth. I’ve not been able to enjoy it much myself as have been laid up now nearly five weeks with great pain in my legs, unable to walk or stand and aching for the moment of deliverance. Can do nothing any more for myself with stiff unusable legs and a fat tummy like a drum. Am miserable and exasperated, sweating all day long in the great heat.

Kirill and the children thank God profit of the good quiet & perfect weather and are out all day long have Günst [ix] with me, fussy but devoted. Kisses your hand. My great comfort are the family Etter[x] who are angels of goodness to us & help us with all household difficulties. There is plenty to eat here except bread & sugar which one has to learn to do without often.

I have no news from Mama [xi] in fact the whole of the year 17 have not had one word personally from her, also not sister Baby. Even Missy [xii] with whom it had been easy to correspond has not given sign of life nor answered anything since more than two months. Makes me feel desperate. If I have a nice little boy soon will feel better! So glad to know Olga [xiii]is doing well- hope she will have a good time. Thank God she is so happy. How is the little dog? Have you received any of your papers and things back again? Think of you always & long & long for you.

Kiss you all

Your old (D)

LETTER THREE 

9th 22nd Oct 1918

Haiko

Zelly dear,

What a joy to receive your letter & at last to have real genuine news of you. I positively cried with joy in reading your dear words. To know you & your Mama are well & that you don’t believe any of those dreadful things one hears gives one new courage to live. You dear thing you can’t believe what joy your letter gave us.

Yes life has been such a cauchemar [xiv] that one scarcely knows how one came through it.

Thanks so much for giving news of Kirill’s family. We knew nothing about them anymore since last winter. But now we hear that Kislovodsk [xv] is cleared by Krasnow’s army [xvi]. They are advancing rapidly at last. We saw now one of his ADC’s, they hope in a few months to have the whole of Russia cleared in the name of the Emperor. I cannot tell you what it was to hear someone speak in the real old way again. One’s heart really burst with joy. God grant it may all work out as they say. All are so sick of all the horrors of these last two years, all are craving for order & peace again and join readily when they see a chance of it succeeding. 

Poor Георгий [xvii] and Nicolas M. [xviii] are still shut up in prison in Petersburg. Uncle Paul [xix] and Dmitri C.[xx] also, also Gabriel [xxi] - They must have suffered too dreadfully. Some gentleman or other who arrived in Helsingfors [xxii] had been shut up in the same prison & saw them during their short daily outings but only from afar, no one allowed to talk to them & each of them kept separately- too unthinkable. Nicolai it seems talked & argued & joked with his gaolers & is now “Старший something” [xxiii] in prison but the others he said were completely broken. For some days we thought they were all killed- dreadful days and one still trembles for them. I telegraphed to Minnie [xxiv] telling her all & urging speedy help and also wrote to her (all through Stockholm by someone I could trust,) but never received any sort of answer. I thought she would come at last as other wives have done (the women are in no particular danger in Petersburg). If he were to be killed, poor stupid old Георгий, she & her children would never forgive one another for having left him so hopelessly alone.

Poor Mavra [xxv] spent all this time in Petersburg, living in some wretched lodging with Helen’s [xxvi] children [xxvii]and later Tatiana [xxviii] and her children [xxix] when her Uncle was brought back to prison in Petersburg. Now we see in the papers that Mavra & four children have arrived in Stockholm. During her life in Petersburg Mavra had hidden her own two youngest children [xxx] out of town in some servants’ families. All too awful to think of.

Nothing to eat in Petersburg at all. Every day some wretched hunted officers manage to cross the Finnish frontier at dreadful risks & from there we get occasional news. Heart-breaking conditions. We put our pride in our pockets & asked the Germans to try and save the Grand Dukes who were in prison in Petersburg, but their friends the Bolsheviks don’t listen to them any more since their prestige is diminishing. What a huge downfall for Germany, all in the space of a few weeks. Could one believe that they would collapse like this. The villainous mischief they spread in our poor Russia has now spread back to them, & is poisoning their own army and homes. It will take other forms there perhaps but will ultimately destroy them whilst Russia may very soon be over the worst. 

Life here though outwardly calm has been very hard. One is so surrounded by spies that one can trust nobody. Also the food question is dreadful. Also morally to live in this country that still seems to us part of Russia & to be treated as strangers (pas meme de distinction) is more than painful. In consequence I am snappy and unamiable all round and every word I said stupidly at table was immediately reported to the Germans so what I received “une verte remonce” [xxxi] from Germany for soi-disant mixing in Finnish German politics.

Unpleasant as it was it made me chuckle and the childishness of the accusation. But funny as it was it was a dreadful shock to feel that times have so changed that one can no more even trust the friends one is living with. This poisons our life here. All our Russian servants basely left us, even my old maid Elena deserted me soon after the birth of the boy, so that we have not one faithful soul left except Nana who has been an angel. The desertion of Kirill’s old Kammerdiener [xxxii] Spiridon & my maid was a crushing blow. We could & could not believe they really meant to do it but they did, & I believe helped to rob our house. What devil entered the soul of all those faithful old servants I wonder as you say that yours also turned against you?

To have so utterly have lost everything is an atrocious feeling & yet there is something rather grand in being left entirely ‘vis a vis de roi inconnu’ [xxxiii] which makes one’s strength grow. We owe nothing to anybody any more, and our position gives us also nothing any more so if we are ever worth anything again in this life it will be thanks to ourselves. Don’t you feel a satisfaction in this knowledge? I do. I always felt that we ought to have been greater than we were in the olden days thanks to our huge prerogatives. Now one can’t accuse us of having any advantages sur la masse [xxxiv]! Thank God. All the same Zelly dear I am by no means as happy as I was, something is broken & one does not yet know what to put in its place.

Kirill is marvellously (sic) brave and patient; neither he nor I ever contemplate for a moment the possibility of having to leave Russia [xxxv] later on, why do you think it will come to that?

A few days ago peace seemed quite near, but now I fear the allies are rather too flushed with success and are overdoing the hardness of the conditions and vengeance towards Germany. If they go too far perhaps she will pull herself together again. Events change so rapidly nowadays. Oh Zelly dear I wish I could talk to you. One can’t put down one’s thoughts and arguments in a stupid short letter which may take weeks to reach you.

From Maddy[xxxvi] I’ve no news since a year, till then she always managed to write but since Roumania made peace (so called) I have had no sign of life nor message from her. The news of Carol’s vulgar marriage [xxxvii] in the papers is an awful shock - even princes are contaminated by the spirit of revolt against law & order. A thousand shames upon him at such a time when his country is trembling on the brink of a new life, to risk starting fresh quarrels & intrigues round the remnants of the throne itself. What a grief for Maddy not only as a blow to her pride but because it opens out so many new ways for hateful tongues to hurl fresh insults at her through her children. What a world Zelly dear what a world!

The Fishy and Mossy [xxxviii] question is as much in the vague here as ever. Three quarters of the Country are against a King- what will be the end of it! They have been fitting up the palace for them and made all sorts or [OF?] preparations.

From Mama [xxxix] no news since months. Only Erni H.[xl] wrote but chiefly on this idiotic spying story & without news. I was too angry about the semonce [xli] (official if you please) which I received to ask him for news of my family. Sister Baby [xlii] has never written to me once. A few days ago a post card from Ellen [xliii] from Switzerland without news. That is all we have heard since a year. From England I received through Daisy [xliv] some food & clothes for the baby but no letters. Nobody cares for us abroad nasty selfish brutes! I tried to get help for your Mama [xlv] a year ago from England at the time when you seemed to have neither money nor food but they refused and said perhaps Denmark would help. It filled my soul with boiling wrath. The Danes have all through been the kindest and the best. The Danish minister and his wife they say have been angels in Petersburg. One says she even went almost daily into the den of murderers at Cronstadt to get news of the unfortunate officers shut up there, for their families. Adeni has been awfully nice and kind.  

Well Zelly dear I’ve tried to give you all the news we can. At present we can’t move still prisoners. Goodbye for today I shall write by every occasion.

Fondest love to you and your dear Mama.

Your old,

Ducky

LETTER FOUR

15-28 August 1919

Borgo

Finland

Xenia dearest,

What a joy it was to get a letter from you. I had so been longing to hear from you on your arrival in England [xlvi] after all the last terrible experiences of leaving the Crimea. I felt so in my innermost heart what it must have meant to your Mama & you to leave Russia, especially after all had seemed so safe and quiet again. All my thoughts were with you the whole time. And now to live away from home, in strange surroundings, however nice they may be, I understand your miserable homesickness. Xenia dear at least it may be good for your children & England is good for boys, even if they are a little miserable at school at first, it will teach them certain things that they would never learn in Russia. Not learned things but a good manly education is what all our Russians need and that one gets best in England. Alas for all our suffering Russian youth and that their education has not been good enough to help them stand up to all the necessities of the moment. You can think how in this moment of greatest importance they all quarrel and waste time and opportunities. It makes one’s heart bleed.

What volumes I would have to write and tell of all that is going on here on this front. Of the vast opportunities lost, of times wasted which all those in Petersburg might have been saved long ago. Of the impressions our hopeless representatives abroad have given to the allies. Lies & falseness all round. We do our best to keep and stay on & on in these almost unbearable surroundings. At least we are no more hungry and the children have recovered and are thank God well and strong. The boy is the joy of our hearts, is well tempered, clever, strong and beautiful. You don’t know what a treasure of delight he is. Life is not pleasant anywhere that is why we don’t make an effort to move. One may be useful here at least and at least it is near Petersburg.

Poor Minny [xlvii]- I can’t think calmly about her and her children [xlviii]. The thought of them dancing and going to theatres whilst their Father was facing his death in prison torments my soul. What it all means I don’t try any more to understand and my aching soul has learned not to judge or criticise things that are beyond one’s own feelings. So much now is incomprehensible, so utterly inhuman.

From Mama I hear news often. Old weary & broken down, dreaming only of olden days, Zarskoe as it used to be in her youth & so on, and breaking her heart for Russia. So soft & kind to me- she at least understands & suffers as we do, Xenia dear. If only I could talk to you again. I long for you so. From my sisters I have no news except through Mama. Of Aunt Miechen [xlix] nothing but believe her to be back in Kislovodsk.  Etter is arriving here soon & then at last we will know and understand something of what she has been through. I have good teachers for my children and at least they are making progress in languages. They talk fluently Swedish thanks to the servants. So unnecessary to talk Swedish for their future life and such an ugly, ridiculous language.

Mme. Reutern[l] will bring you this letter. You know her de plus longue date than I do- so I add nothing. Kirill is lonely & too sad, it breaks my heart. We got too many details here of all that happened in Russia and the cauchemar is ever present. One goes to sleep with it and wakes up with it. Nicolai Etter said he had news from Neratoff in Paris about Misha. «Он жив и здоров и я зчнаю где он находится»[li] were his words to Etter, but unless you know something certain I’m afraid Neratoff was saying more than he really knows. But it filled us once more with hope- about the others Xenia dear unless you can give us hope, you & your Mama, I have none & the thought makes one scream to God for help. I sometimes feel we really cannot go on living if all one hears is true and he [IT?] is only the thought of you & your Mama still not believing it all that helps one to exist.

I must stop now Xenia dearest & best. I love you & long for you.

Yr. Ducky

LETTER FIVE 

Zürich 13th Nov. 1920

Xenia dear,

Many loving thanks for your letter. You really understand the complete and hopeless grief Mama’s death means to us. I feel quite as if life were over, my own life I mean, so much have we lived for and in Mama ever since I can remember. I sometimes hardly know how to bear the void now. All these years have been one long straining to reach her again & hardly had I found her only to be separated for ever. Nothing matters to me any more now only to live for the children, educate them well and give them as happy a life as possible.

Also many thanks for your letter after Aunt Miechen’s death. That was quite another kind of grief, & such terrible sufferings and remorses, but I miss her also. I never disliked her as much as she did me. I never wrote to you all this last year, as you never answered my last letter from Finland sent through Mme. Reutern in which I so much implored you for news of Nicky & Alix. I felt so hopeless when you did not answer that letter. Gradually one feels as if it was no more worthwhile caring for anybody. Nobody seems to stick together any more and all one’s family feelings and struggles become utterly fruitless and useless. Indifference & ingratitude all round. Most of the members of our family behaving badly as possible, giving an ugly picture to the world of what remains of the Romanoffs. Our own brothers[lii] the worst example of all.

I am utterly discouraged & disgusted- have no more wish or hope for anything.

Kiss you tenderly, Xenia

Love from your old

D

NOTES

[i] “Raison d’être” (Fr) purpose for living

[ii] Prince Ernst von Hohenlohe, the husband of Victoria’s sister, Princess Alexandra.

[iii] “our little boy” HH Prince Vladimir Kirillovich of Russia, later HIH Grand Duke Vladimir, born August 1917.

[iv] “rational foods” Technically, during WW1, each Russian received a daily ration of Rye bread, groats, meat, vegetables, dried fruit, and butter.  These rations were rarely fulfilled, and after the February revolution, ceased entirely.

[v] Princess Vera Orbeliani, born countess Kleinmichel, a former lady-in-waiting to the two empresses.

[vi] “V.O.” Princess Vera Orbeliani, née Countess Kleinmichel

[vii] “They” Nicholas, Alexandra, and their children.

[viii] “M” Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich.  Nicholas II and Michael saw each other at Tsarskoe Selo one last time on July 31, 1917 (N.S.).

[ix] “Gûnst” Adolph Günst, chamberlain to Grand Duke and Grand Duchess Kirill after their return to Russia in 1910.

[x] “Etter Family” A family of Finnish nobles. Sebastian von Etter was in service to Alexander II, and his son Alexander Sevastianovich was later a member of the suite of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna.  Close friends of Grand Duke Kirill and Grand Duchess Victoria, they invited the couple to spend the summer in Finland with them after the February revolution, so that Grand Duchess Victoria could finish her pregnancy away from the disturbances in the capital.  This invitation saved their lives.

[xi] “Mama” Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

[xii] “Missy” Queen Marie of Romania, Grand Duchess Victoria’s sister.  Also called Maddy.

[xiii] Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, Mrs. Kulikovsky.

[xiv] Nightmare (fr.)

[xv] “Kislovodsk”. A former spa town in the Russian Caucasus where Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna the Elder and the Grand Dukes Andrei and Boris Vladimirovich had been since Easter 1917, and where they remained until 1918.

[xvi] General Peter Krasnov (1869-1947) commanded the 2nd Combined Cossack Regiment during WWI, and after the revolution, participated in the loyalist Kornilov Affair, against the Provisional Government. In May 1918, in Novocherkassk, he was elected Ataman of the Don Cossack Host, and with German support, removed the Soviets from the Don region from May-June of 1918. While a hero in 1918, Krasnov later became too associated with the Germans for either the Whites or the Reds, and after WW2 was forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union, tried, sentenced to death, and hanged in 1947.

[xvii] “Georgii” Grand Duke George Mikhailovich

[xviii] “Nicolas M.” Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich

[xix] Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich

[xx] Grand Duke Dmitri Konstantinovich of Russia

[xxi] Prince Gavriil Konstantinovich of Russia

[xxii] “Helsingfors” now Helsinki, Finland

[xxiii] “Senior Something” – Victoria Melita mocks an internal collaborative prison title “Starshii Dneval’nyi” or “Senior Orderly” indicating that he served in an appointed position acting as an intermediary between prison staff and inmates, overseeing daily routines, taking attendance, and distributing rations.  Nicholas Mikhailovich was an active collaborator with the constitutionalists and the provisional government, and the Grand Duchess likely saw this as typical of him.

[xxiv] “Minnie” in this case, the nickname for Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna, wife of Grand Duke George Mikhailovich. She was then in London with her daughters Princesses Nina and Xenia. In the family, she was known as “Greek Minnie”.

[xxv] “Mavra” Grand Duchess Elizabeth Mavrikievna, widow of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich.

[xxvi] “Helen” Princess Helen of Serbia, the widow of Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia.

[xxvii] “Helen’s Children” Princess Ekaterina Ioannovna and Prince Vsevelod Ioannovich of Russia.

[xxviii] “Tatiana” Princess Tatiana Konstantinovna, Princess Bagration-Moukhranskaya.

[xxix] “her children” Prince Teymouraz and Princess Natalia Bagration-Moukhransky.

[xxx] Prince George Konstantinovich and Princess Vera Konstantinovna of Russia were hidden with servants.

[xxxi] “une Verte remonce” a sharp reprimand, but in a French which was antique even in 1918.

[xxxii] “Kammerdiener” (Gr.) Valet, or personal manservant.

[xxxiii] “vis-à-vis de roi inconnu” (Fr.) Literally ‘face to face with an unknown king’ but more accurately, standing before an unknown authority.

[xxxiv] “advantages sur la masse” (Fr.) advantages over anyone.

[xxxv] It is important to note here that Victoria, in Finland, does not feel that she has “left Russia” as the Grand Duchy of Finland was part of the Russian Empire.  It is also clear that she is writing in response to GD Xenia, who has written they may have to leave “Russia”, sent to GD Victoria in Finland, indicating that no one felt that Finland was anything but part of Russia,

[xxxvi] “Maddy” Queen Marie of Romania, sister of Victoria.

[xxxvii] “Carol’s vulgar marriage” Crown Prince Carol of Romania, Victoria’s nephew, married a Romanian commoner Zizi Lambrino in 1918. Their marriage was annulled in 1919 after the birth of their son, Mircea.

[xxxviii] “Fishy and Mossy” Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse and his wife, born Princess Margaret of Prussia. Prince Frederick was elected King of Finland on 9 October 1918, but the act was widely opposed by Nationalist Finns who sought independence and freedom from German control.  The “King” renounced the throne on December 14 of that year.

[xxxix] “Mama” in this case, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, then living in Switzerland.

[xl] “Erni H.” Prince Ernst von Hohenlohe, the husband of Victoria’s sister, Princess Alexandra.

[xli] “semonce” (Fr.) Reprimand

[xlii] “Sister Baby” Princess Beatrice, Duchess of Galliera, Victoria’s sister.

[xliii] “Ellen” Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna, Princess Nicholas of Greece & Denmark.  Sister-in-law of Victoria.

[xliv] “Daisy” Princess Margaret of Connaught, Crown Princess of Sweden. A first cousin of Victoria.

[xlv] “Your Mama” Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna

[xlvi] Grand Duchess Xenia and her family arrived in England in May of 1919, and began tenancy first at Wilderness House, and later at Frogmore Cottage, Windsor.

[xlvii] “MInny” in this case, Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna, born Princess Maria of Greece and Denmark, known in the family as “Greek Minnie”.  Wife of Grand Duke George Mikhailovich, executed by the Bolsheviks in 1919.

[xlviii] “Her Children” Princesses Nina and Xenia Georgievna of Russia.  The family had been in London since 1914, partially because of the disintegrating relationship between the Grand Duchess and her husband, and partly because of World War I.

[xlix] Grand Duchess Vladimir remained in Russia until 3 March, 1920.  She was the last Romanov to leave the territory of the empire.

[l] “Mme. Reutern” possibly Theodora von Reutern (born Baroness Manteufel), daughter-in-law of Michael von Reutern, finance minister under Alexander II.

[li] “He is alive and well, and I know where he is.”  The Grand Duchess is correct that Neratoff did not know the truth.  The Grand Duke was the first Romanov to be murdered in June of 1918.