Teenage dress-up - the daughters of Nicholas II, circa 1916

Maria, Tatiana, Olga, and Anastasia.

Anastasia.

Maria.

Tatiana.

Olga.

***

Four teenage girls. Innocent to a degree unusual, even for the time. In a room they share, family photographs all around, books and papers, a bust of their father on the table. Just a happy evening playing dress-up. But is there something else about the poorly focused photographs, taken without sufficient light, bearing the scratches and fading of time? Are they more than casual snapshots; is there something other to the images? Or is it merely our inability to overlook their deaths, only two years later - shot and bayoneted in a basement - and see these as just five photographs of loving sisters at play? 

From my collection - Imperial/royal cousins, imperial/royal sailor suits

The iconic sailor suit was the uniform - both casual and dress - for little boys beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century and continuing well into the twentieth. (Girls often wore a version as well, but usually only for day wear.) From my own collection of antique postcards, this is a selection that demonstrates that even young princes were far from being exempt from the prevailing trend. Furthermore, all these little boys were cousins or otherwise related by way of the tangling dynastic threads of European royalty, mostly the imperial or royal families of Russia, Denmark, and Great Britain.

(The vertically oriented images are obviously reproduced much larger than in the original postcards, the two horizontally oriented images are only slightly larger than original.)

The image above and the two below are, of course, of Alexei Nikolaevich (1904-1918), the ill-fated last Tsarevich of Russia, son of Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra.

Three of Alexei's paternal first cousins - Princes Feodor (1898-1968), Nikita (1900-1974), and Dmitri Alexandrovich (1901-1980) - three of the six sons of Nicholas II's sister, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna. They were also related, though less closely, through the three brothers' father, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich; all of the above were descendants of Tsar Nicholas I.

Prince George of Greece (1890-1947) - later George II, King of the Hellenes - was a second cousin, through his father and paternal grandfather, of the four boys pictured above; their shared great-grandfather was King Christian IX of Denmark. He was also less closely related to them through his paternal grandmother, Olga, Queen of the Hellenes, born a grand duchess of Russia, so he was likewise a descendant of Tsar Nicholas I.

Prince Lennart of Sweden (1909-2004), only child of Prince Wilhelm and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, was a first cousin once removed of Prince George of Greece, through his maternal grandmother, the aforementioned Queen Olga. Also, he was a second cousin to Alexei, Feodor, Nikita, and Dmitri through his maternal grandfather; their shared great-grandfather was Tsar Alexander II.

Prince Lennart with his father, Prince Wilhelm... and a lion cub? Tiger cub?

Prince Lennart with his father's mother, Queen Victoria of Sweden, and her mother, Grand Duchess Luise of Baden.

Interestingly, these postcards were not only printed and sold in the subject's own country; this example is from Germany rather than Sweden.

Princes Gustaf Adolf (1906-1947) and Sigvard (1907-2002) of Sweden, sons of the future King Gustaf VI Adolf, were paternal first cousins of Prince Lennart. Also second cousins to Tsarevich Alexei through their mothers, both of whom were granddaughters of Queen Victoria.

Crown Prince Olav of Norway (1903-1991), son of King Haakon VII, was a maternal second cousin to Gustaf Adolf, Sigvard, and Alexei; his mother, Queen Maud of Norway, was also a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. He was also related to Princes George (second cousin) and Lennart (second cousin once removed) through both of his parents. (Who were, incidentally, first cousins themselves.)

The short-lived Prince John (1905-1919), youngest child of Great Britain's George V and Queen Mary, was a first cousin of Crown Prince Olav. He was a second cousin to Alexei, Gustaf Adolf, and Sigvard, again thanks to their shared great-grandmother Queen Victoria. He was also a second cousin to George of Greece and to the Russian Princes Feodor, Nikita, and Dmitri - and a second cousin, again, to Alexei - due to their shared great-grandfather, King Christian IX of Denmark. Finally, he was a second cousin once removed to Lennart because of their mutual descendance from King Christian.

Princes Georg Donatus (1906-1937) and Ludwig (1908-1968) of Hesse-Darmstadt - Don and Lu* - were second cousins with John, Olav, Gustav Adolf, and Sigvard, again all through their connection to their great-grandmother Queen Victoria. And they were first cousins with Tsarevich Alexei; indeed, this may have been one of the closest of the cousin connections as the Russian Empress and her brother, Grand Duke Ernst-Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt, were very close, and their families came to be as well.

***

* Don and Lucy - quite often shortened to Lu - just happen to be the names of my much-loved parents-in-law.

Hijinks in Darmstadt - Wolfsgarten, Fall 1899

Left to right: Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, Tsar Nicholas II (Nicky), Empress Alexandra Feodorovna
(Alix), Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse (Ernie), Prince Nicholas of Greece (Greek Nicky), Grand
Duchess Victoria Melita of Hesse (Ducky), Grand Dukes Andrei and Boris Vladimirovich.

As I mentioned in a previous post, there was little love lost between the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia and her first cousin* and soon-to-be-former sister-in-law, Grand Duchess Victoria Melita of Hesse. But in the early days of their respective marriages, before the ill-considered union of "Ducky" and the Empress' beloved brother Ernie ended in all-but-inevitable divorce, the Russian couple and Hessian couple spent some happy days together in the Empress' "old home", Darmstadt, together with their children and other members of the extended family.

Wolfsgarten.

They were all young adults in October and November of 1899 - Andrei was just 20, Boris 21, Ducky and Kirill 23, Alix and Greek Nicky were 27, Ernie 30, with Nicky the oldest at 31 - and most were living lives that were heavy with responsibility and rigid protocol. But staying at Schloss Wolfsgarten, the Grand Ducal country estate north of Darmstadt, the differences between the two young women which would soon harden into enmity, and the pressures of public life that the group often struggled with, were forgotten in unseasonably sunny and warm, lighthearted days spent with their children and surrounded by family.

There are photographs propped up in front of Nicky; I'd love to know of whom they are.

Kirill, Nicky, Greek Nicky.

Ernie and Nicky. (That's probably Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna, the Tsar's second daughter, in the foreground.)

Ernie and Greek Nicky.

Same as above.

Nicky and Greek Nicky.

Nicky, Greek Nicky, Boris.

Ducky.

Alix. (Quite a different - rather appalling, actually - image of the famously stiff and unsmiling Empress Alexandra.)

Boris.

Boris, Ernie, Andrei, on top Greek Nicky and Kirill.

Alix taking a photograph of Nicky, Ernie, and Greek Nicky. (The man in the middle of the image is unknown.)

Greek Nicky with Tatiana.

Ernie with Tatiana.

Nicky and Alix's two eldest daughters, Grand Duchesses Tatiana and Olga.

Tatiana and Greek Nicky.

Ernie and Nicky with their daughters, Princess Elisabeth - who would die at the age of eight - and Grand Duchess Olga.

Boris. At left, Nicky and Greek Nicky.

Ducky and Kirill. (Her future second husband.) This decorative - dry - well seemed to inspire a lot of silliness.

Greek Nicky, Boris, Kirill. Princess Elisabeth is in the background.

 ***

* Alexandra and Ernst Ludwig (by their mother) and Victoria Melita (by her father) were first cousins. (And grandchildren of Queen Victoria.) Victoria Melita (by her mother), Nicholas II (by his father), and the three Vladimir bothers (by their father), were all first cousins. Nicholas II (by his mother) and Nicholas of Greece (by his father) were first cousins; they were also second cousins via the former's father and the latter's mother, born a Russian Grand Duchess. Nicholas of Greece (by his mother) was second cousins with the Vladimir brothers (by their father). Got all that?

Of course, famously, Victoria Melita divorced one first cousin, Ernst Ludwig, and married another, Kirill. Though unions between first cousins weren't always so frowned upon at the time - as they certainly are today - the Orthodox church did not permit such marriages. This is one of many factors that have always troubled Russian monarchists in respect to the current pretender to the Imperial throne, the granddaughter of Kirill and Victoria Melita.