Tsarina Alexandra and baby Anastasia, 1901.
‘Peterhof,
At about 3 o’clock in the morning,Alix started to have strong pains. At 4 o’clock I got up, went to my room and dressed. At exactly 6 o’clock in the morning a little daughter – Anastasia – was born. Everything went off splendidly, quite quickly and thank God without any complications! Thanks to the fact that it all began and ended while everyone was still asleep, we both had a feeling of calm and solitude! After that I sat down to write telegrams to relatives and friends in various parts of the world. At 11 o’clock Yanyshev said prayers. At 3 o’clock there was a Te Deum in our church. Mama arrived from Gatchina. Went for a short walk. After tea, Mama left. Luckily Alix felt quite cheerful. The little one weighs 11 1/2 pounds and measures 55 centimetres. Went to bed early.‘ — Diary of Nicholas II, 5th June (OS), 18th June (NS).
‘Sebastopol, on the yacht Tamara,
Alix feels splendid – but my God! What a disappointment! …a fourth girl! They have named her Anastasia. Mama sent me a telegram about it, and writes ‘Alix has again given birth to a daughter!’‘ — Diary of the Grand Duchess Xenia (Nicholas II’s sister).
‘Strelna,
The new born Grand Duchess Anastasia entered this world at 6 in the morning, the birth was normal and lasted three hours, the baby is quite big. Forgive us Lord, if we all felt disappointment instead of joy; we were so hoping for a boy, and it’s a fourth daughter.‘ — Diary of the Grand Duke Konstantin Romanov (Nicholas II’s cousin).
Grand Duchess Anastasia, 1904.
The Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov, fourth and youngest daughter of Nicholas II and his wife Alix of Hesse was born on this day (or the 5th June as it was styled then) in 1901. As you can imagine, with three elder sisters and a father who was Tsar of Russia, her birth was something of a disappointment as everyone had eagerly anticipated that Tsarina’s latest pregnancy would result in the much longed for son and heir. As evidenced by the Tsar’s diary entry, Nicholas and Alix seem to have felt relatively cheerful and sanguine about the new arrival but there were ripples of discontent through their wider family at the news that there was, as yet, no Tsarevich.
Despite the initial disappointment that marked her birth, Anastasia was adored by her parents and grew into an impishly mischievous and rather naughty girl who was possibly the worst behaved of the four Grand Duchesses although, luckily for her, also apparently the most charming – when she chose to be. Naturally quick witted and intelligent, like so many academically gifted children she preferred to put her talents to use in mimicry, acting up and causing disruption rather than applying herself to school work – in particular mathematics, which she loathed. However she adored reading and her favorite authors included Goethe, Dickens and Charlotte Brontë. She was also a gifted musician and would frequently entertain her family by playing the piano in the evening, often playing quite complicated pieces.
Grand Duchess Anastasia.
Like the girls in Little Women, it often seems like the daughters of Nicholas and Alix had their own clearly defined roles within the family – Olga was the mother hen, Tatiana the ‘governess’, Maria the soothing balm that brought them all together and Anastasia the trouble maker but also the one guaranteed to make everyone else laugh – an annoyance perhaps at first but surely a blessing during their imprisonment.
I feel sorry for Anastasia though – less pretty than her elder sisters (although still a very pretty girl) and never the favorite of either of her parents, no wonder she played up to get some attention and make her mark within the family. If one can’t be The Beauty or The Favourite then The Entertainer is a close but often bitter sweet third place.
Grand Duchess Anastasia.
Within her group of sisters, Anastasia was naturally closest to her elder sister Maria, who was two years her senior and formed the other half of The Little Pair, while their elder sisters Olga and Tatiana were The Big Pair. All of the girls were raised in relatively spartan yet wholesome conditions with plenty of lessons, physical education, much religious contemplation and cold baths in the morning. While the ordinary people of Russia assumed that the Tsar’s daughters were being raised as pampered, spoiled princesses they would no doubt have been surprised to learn that in actual fact quite the reverse was true and that in fact they led a simple life with unsophisticated food and homespun amusements. Another assumption was that the girls, being half German, were not entirely loyal to Russia – this too was a fallacy as each one was deeply patriotic and considered herself whole heartedly Russian.
Although she was closest to Maria among her sisters, Anastasia’s closest sibling was in fact her little brother Alexei, whom she adored absolutely. The two were pretty much inseparable and Anastasia would happily play with him for hours, driving their parents to despair as the two high spirited little children terrorised the court and even disrupted dinner parties with their antics. When Alexei was ill, the usually fidgety, energetic Anastasia would sit with him for hours quietly reading or just holding his hand.
Grand Duchess Anastasia and the Tsarevich Alexei, 1909.
Although much of the world will always be in the thrall to the idea of the Tsar’s pretty daughters, those ‘girls in white dresses’ according to Helen Rappaport, I love that Anastasia, the most famous of them all, was actually the complete opposite of this almost too perfect vision of girlish grace and beauty and was in fact a badly behaved little madam with a passion for chocolate, dogs, piano music, books, general japery and music and who even slyly smoked cigarettes, much to her parents’ horror. On the flip side though, she was affectionate, loyal, amusing, big hearted and easy going, which I think meant that although she must have caused no end of drama when the family were living in state, she was a decided asset when their fortunes changed so dramatically.
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