anastasia's cousin, princess irina alexandrovna

Today is the anniversary of the death of Princess Irina Alexandrovna, the daughter of Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Ksenia (or as is more commonly written, Xenia) Alexandrovna, Nicholas's sister.

Irina was born on July 15, 1895, the first of Alexander and Xenia's seven children. In a family of perpetual sons, she was also their only daughter. Like most of her family, she spoke French better than she spoke Russian and was sometimes called by the French version of her name, Iréne.

Her husband, Prince Felix Yussupov, was incredibly scandalous for the time period. He was known to dress in women's clothing and had several homosexual relationships. Despite this, Irina still wanted to marry him, and they would go on to have a very happy relationship. Their only child, Irina Felixovna, was born in 1915.

Felix is more known for his part in the murder of Rasputin. Because of this, Irina and Felix were banished from Russia in 1916, effectively saving their lives. They lived out the remainder of their lives in Paris. Felix died in 1967; Irina died three years later.

And the story comes full circle: a DNA sample was taken from Irina's granddaughter Xenia Sfyris to identify the remains of Nicholas and his family in 1997.

the romanov's cincinnati connection

Audrey Emery and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to visit the Cincinnati Museum Center, where they had an exhibit on the Romanovs. The exhibit included clothing (the baptismal gown was featured, as well as a uniform Tatiana wore as a child), toys, Faberge jewels and photographs taken from negatives that had never been published.

Why was all this in Cincinnati? Incredibly, the Romanovs have a very interesting connection to the city in Ohio that comes from Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. (Read about his mother, Alexandra Georgievna, in this post.) Dmitri was exiled from Russia when he and Felix Yussupov murdered Rasputin. He was a notorious womanizer and had several affairs, including one with Coco Chanel. (Come on - handsome royal with a Russian accent. I dare you resist that!) He eventually settled down with an American heiress, Audrey Emery, whose family was from Cinci. While the marriage did not last, the couple had one child, Paul, who eventually became the mayor of Palm Beach, Florida, and died in 2004.

anastasia's family: maria nicholaevna

Anastasia had four siblings, but the sister she was brought up closest to was her third-eldest sister, Maria Nicholaevna.

Often called Marie or Masha, she was born on June 26, 1899. She was named for her grandmother, the former Empress, Maria Feodorovna. Margaret Eagar stated the other girls called Marie their stepsister, because she never got into trouble. She and Anastasia made up the "Little Pair" (Olga and Tatiana were the "Big Pair")

Marie was very flirtatious - she once wrote she wanted to marry a soldier and have 20 children.

When her family was in captivity, she was chosen by Nicholas to accompany her parents to Ekaterinburg. It was there that a curious incident happened on Marie's 19th birthday. A soldier named Ivan Skorokhodov snuck a birthday cake in for Marie, and she disappeared into a different room with him. When other soldiers arrived for a surprise inspection of the house, Marie and Ivan were discovered. No one knows what happened between the two, but other soldiers reported that after this incident, Marie's family seemed upset with her. Olga refused to speak to her.

Though this blog is named for Anastasia, I don't have a favorite Romanov daughter - but I do think Marie was the most beautiful! I've included my two favorite pictures of Marie in this entry. What do you think?

Thanks to livadia*org for photos