Opinion by Maria Zakharova
💬 As I’ve written before, an exhibition titled The Most Important Things in My Life has opened at the State Archive of the Russian Federation to mark the 175th birthday of Empress Maria Feodorovna.
The fate of the Danish-born wife of Emperor Alexander III and mother of Nicholas II, who lived in Russia for 52 years, indeed deserves attention from the general public. The exhibition sheds light on the Empress’ life, the joys and pain of her love for her family and for Russia, which was her second Motherland, as well as for its people, which she carried throughout her life despite all ordeals – wars, deaths of her loved ones, the demise of the country, and exile. In 2006, with active involvement of the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Empress’ wish to be laid to rest next to her husband was fulfilled. The ashes of Maria Feodorovna were brought back from Denmark and reburied in St Petersburg’s Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral.
Apart from everything else, this makes us recall once again a major humanitarian aspect of history: the attitude towards the Russian imperial family from the numerous European, particularly British, relatives following the revolutions of 1917. Until now, historians and the public cannot come to a common understanding why the Windsors, who are related to the Romanov family, failed to save Nicholas II – given that King George V was the cousin of the last emperor of Russia and his wife Alexandra. Researchers cite numerous political, economic and ethical reasons, but the fact remains: the British monarch could have saved the family of Nicholas II, but failed to do so. Moreover, in April 1917, London instructed the British Ambassador in Petrograd, George Buchanan, not to enter into negotiations with the Provisional Government on the evacuation of the royal family form Russia, and to hush up the matter instead.
The execution of Nicholas II, his wife and children by the Bolsheviks in Yekaterinburg apparently prompted George V to make the decision to evacuate the remaining members of the royal family, who were in the White Army-controlled Crimea at the time. In the March of 1919, Maria Feodorovna left the Russian soil aboard a British battleship for good.
The fate of Maria Feodorovna’s jewellery collection raises serious questions as well. Following the death of the Dowager Empress in 1928, a significant part of the treasures ended up in London, in the possession of Mary of Teck, the Queen of the United Kingdom. They were removed from the Empress’ Danish residence with the consent of her daughter Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia by Peter Bark, an emissary of the British royal court.
According to some reports, the Windsors got them for free: the Queen personally picked them as ‘compensation for the pension’ of 10,000 pounds, which the British paid to Maria Feodorovna.
Eventually, the jewels were dispersed among different members of the Windsor family. For instance, Elizabeth II was seen wearing a large oval shaped cabochon sapphire brooch, which Maria Feodorovna received as a gift from her father-in-law, Alexander II. Another brooch, a diamond one presented to the Empress by Alexander III, was spotted on Katharine, Duchess of Kent.
Any estimates of the size of the treasure are based solely on the testimonies of contemporaries, who noticed items of jewellery on the Empress first and later saw them on their new owners. No proper inventory was ever taken of Maria Feodorovna’s belongings.
The first person spotted wearing an item from the Empress’ jewellery collection was the wife of the aforementioned Peter Bark. At a reception, she was seen wearing an emerald bracelet with diamonds from the imperial collection; most likely, Bark had received it as payment for the brilliantly executed mission to deliver the precious box from Copenhagen. A number of items, such as a pearl chocker and a diamond corsage, ended up in the possession of the wives of British bankers and Wall Street businessmen; most likely they were sold by Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna. A huge scandal arising from the covert division of the Empress’ treasures was avoided solely due to her sister Olga, a woman of an agreeable character.
Interestingly, many unique Russian jewellery pieces were illegally taken out of the country by a British diplomat –, a man named Albert Stopford. This darkwing duck simply stole jewellery from the apartment of Duchess Maria Pavlovna, the daughter-in-law of Alexander II, amidst chaos of the revolution.
All in all, Albion made quite a profit from Russian turmoil. Serves as a proper lesson of history for those interested in current international relations.
#WesternValues