#grand duchess natalia alexeievna

[adini-nikolaevna]

Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna of Russia (nee Princess Wilhelmina Luisa of Hesse-Darmstadt).

[roehenstart]

Portrait of Natalia Alexeievna of Russia (1755-1776), wife of Paul I of Russia. By Peter Falconet.

[otmaaromanovas]

The Lost Grand Duchesses: Part 1 - Anna Petrovna

Anna Petrovna was born in January 1708, officially out of wedlock. Her father, Peter ‘the Great’, had six daughters; Ekaterina, Anna, Elizaveta, Maria Natalia, Margarita, and Natalia. Peter planned to marry every daughter that survived infancy to a European house in order to consolidate alliances and friendships with Russia. Peter did not raise Anna, instead giving her to his younger sister Natalia Alexeievna and her husband Alexander Danilovich to raise. Peter’s plan to use the girls as alliance pawns influenced their childhood greatly; their education included embroidery, literature, dancing, and etiquette in order to be perceived as proper and lady-like. By her teenage years, Anna could speak five languages, no doubt to make her more attractive to European houses. Meanwhile, Peter’s sons were taught geography, history, and mathematics.

In 1721, serious marriage was on the table. Karl Friedrich of Schlewsig-Holstein-Gottorp was called to Russia, in order to meet Anna and her father. Karl had just entered his twenties, and his denouncers insisted that he was rude and arrogant. In comparison, Anna was barely thirteen years old, and incredibly shy.

This did not deter Peter, who was incredibly attracted by the idea of a Schleswig-Russian alliance. After a few years of shopping for other potential candidates, the marriage contract was signed. Ironically, the bride was not on the contract, and it was her father Peter and Karl Friedrich who signed. When the men signed the contract, Anna’s right to the Russian throne was instantly revoked.

In 1725, less than a year after the marriage between Anna and Karl Friedrich, Peter ‘the Great’ fell seriously ill. He called for Anna, whom he asked to write his will under his dictation. There has been great speculation over whether Peter planned to name Anna his heir; even though she had been forced to revoke her right to succession when her marriage was arranged, the Tsar of Russia still retained the power to elect his own heir regardless of the marriage contract terms. Peter was unable to speak, passing away shortly after, before declaring his heir. Whether or not Peter desired to make Anna heir remains one of history’s big ‘’what if’ questions.

In 1727, Anna and her husband Karl Freidrich moved to his native Kiel. Anna was deeply unhappy, missing her sister and nephew Peter Alexeievich; the Grand Duchess loved children. She wrote copious letters to her sister, Ekaterina, detailing her depression at being taken away from her home country. The rumours of Karl Freidrich’s arrogance appeared true; he preoccupied himself with affairs, leaving a pregnant Anna isolated.

In February, Anna gave birth to a baby boy, named Carl Peter Ulrich. Just days after, Anna contracted Puerperal fever, then known as ‘childbed fever’, a postpartum infection most likely caused by contaminated medical equipment and/or the medical staff not practicing proper hygiene. Anna became gravely ill, and requested to be buried back in her homeland, alongside her father in St. Petersburg. Her son Carl Peter survived the labour, and outlived his father, becoming the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp. When his aunt Elizaveta, Anna’s sister, died in 1762, Carl Peter became the Tsar of Russia, adopting the name Peter Feodorovich, Peter III.

Despite refusing to parent Anna himself, trying to marry her off when she was a child, and signing a marriage contract without Anna’s signature of consent, Peter claimed that Anna was his ‘favourite daughter.’ Only three of Peter’s fifteen legitimate children survived into adulthood. Anna died when she was only twenty years old. Her brother, Alexei Petrovich was imprisoned and tortured under the order of his father, dying from the torture. Only Anna’s beloved sister Elizaveta survived unscathed - the only out of fifteen siblings.

[thebeautiesofthepast]

Natalia Alexeievna

A Portrait by Alexander Roslin, 1776, rococo

Princess Wilhelmina Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt (25.06.1755 - 26.04.1776) was the daughter of Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt and Countess Palatine Caroline of Zweibrücken. She had been brought up under the strict supervision of her mother and was known for her temperament, outstanding mind and strong character.

When Wilhelmina was seventeen years old, Empress Catherine II decided that her son, Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich should marry her or one of her sisters, even if she was quite displeased with that choice. She sent an invitation to the girls and their mother to come and visit her in Russia.

There, the minute Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich had laid eyes on her, he was in love and so Wilhelmina converted to Russian Orthodoxy and took up the name Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna. They married in 1773. After a few years at court, where she stood out like a sore thumb for refusing to speak Russian, intriguing against her mother-in-law and being a steadfast believer in liberal ideas, she became pregnant.

Her labour lasted five days, after which she delivered a stillborn son and died as well, aged 20. There were rumours that Catherine II killed her by not letting doctors intervene but it was shown that she suffered from scoliosis of the spine, with which it would have been impossible to give birth naturally.

[graceofromanovs]

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝: 𝐏𝐚𝐮𝐥 & 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐚 𝐀𝐥𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐧𝐚

On 29th September 1773, Emperor Paul, when Tsarevich married Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna (née Princess Wilhelmina Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt). The English envoy James Harris, 1st Earl of Malmesbury noted that she "ruled her husband despotically, without even giving herself the trouble to show the least attachment to him." Their union was considered a failure: although Paul Petrovich loved his wife, Natalia was disappointed with her life as a married woman. In 1776, Natalia delivered a stillborn son and died as a result, Paul was devastated to lose his wife but as duty calls, he married a second time in less six months after Natalia’s death.

Paul and Natalia were both 4th cousins (twice), and 6th cousins (twice). Their common ancestors were Frederick IV, Margrave of Baden-Durlach and Louis V, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt.

[imperial-russia]

Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna, the ill-fated first wife of Emperor Pavel

[history-of-fashion]

1776 Alexander Roslin - Portrait of Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna (Wilhelmina Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt)

(State Hermitage Museum)

[tiny-librarian]

A portrait of Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna (Wilhelmina Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt), which forms part of the exhibition: Hessian Princesses in Russian History.

[adini-nikolaevna]

Cameo of Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna of Russia, nee Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt.

[adini-nikolaevna]

Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Darmstadt, later Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna of Russia, by Huin.

[adini-nikolaevna]

Marble relief of Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna of Russia, the first wife of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich (later Emperor Pavel I), by Collot.

[adini-nikolaevna]

Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna of Russia (née Princess Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt) by Strecker.

[adini-nikolaevna]

Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna of Russia, née Princess Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt.

[adini-nikolaevna]

Busts of the future Emperor Pavel I of Russia and his first wife, Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna (née Princess Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt).

[adini-nikolaevna]

Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna of Russia (nee Princess Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt) by Meyendorff.

[adini-nikolaevna]

Grand Duchess Natalia Alexeievna of Russia.