Maria Nikolaevna: Optimistic Stalwart

Maria, though often perceived by those such as Margaretta Eagar to be her father's favorite, in childhood had often felt unloved, writing to her mother piteously in an undated letter, "Tell me if it's true that everyone hates me. I now feel this myself, and I know that I have noticed it a while ago." Alexandra, in what may have been a reply, wrote furiously but lovingly in March 1911 when Maria was nine, "Sweet child you must promise me never again to think nobody loves you. How did such an extraordinary idea get into your little head? ... remember that you are just as presions [precious] & dear as the other 4 [children] & that we love you with all our heart."⁷ Maria was particularly close to her younger sister, Anastasia.

In 1914, the First World War broke out, and Maria, too young to nurse with the Red Cross, instead visited hospitals with the Anastasia. Patients remembered her as being good-natured and kind, but timid and shy, in contrast to her bolder sister, who was unafraid to cheat at games.¹ One such popular game was ruble, which Maria often played with her older sisters Olga and Tatiana at the hospital where they worked as nurses. Despite the grim outlook of the Russian front, Maria's letters to her father Nicholas, away at headquarters, were full of vivacity and fun and humorous incidents, such as falling into a ditch while carrying flowers, her sister Olga tugging on Maria's tassel and falling over, and romantic mentions of Nicholas "Kolya" Demenkov, who had captured her heart. Demenkov, or "Fatso" as Maria and her family dubbed the her crush, had enamored Maria, who called him her "beloved Demenkov," and was not above openly writing about him. Nor were others; Maria's aunt Olga teased her niece in a letter to Anastasia: "Tell Maria that I wrote to Demenkov that she considers him her husband - and he answered the telegram 'Phew! What rubbish!' (this is not at all true of course)." Nicholas was amused and delighted whenever he received Maria's letters, as not only was she a comedic person, but also because of the number of mistakes she made in them.⁷ It was true Maria's education was not up to the standard it might have been, especially during the war, and she admitted that she and Anastasia would pretend to do their work and fool their elderly Russian tutor, Peter Vasilievich Petrov.¹¹

In early 1917, Maria's siblings Olga, Tatiana, and Alexei fell ill with measles, leaving only Maria and Anastasia to assist their mother. Formerly treated as "the little ones," now the pair delighted in running errands and caring for their siblings, picturing themselves as real nurses. When Anastasia too fell ill, there was only Maria left.

When news of her father's abdication came, the news was shared to Maria, but none of the sick children. Family friend Lili Dehn found Maria "bitter[ly] weeping. ... She was so young, so helpless, so hurt, that I felt I must comfort her as one comforts a child."

"Darling,” Lili said, “don’t cry.... You will make Mamma so unhappy. Think of her."

"I’d forgotten, Lili," Maria replied. "Yes, I must think of Mamma," and "Little by little her sobs ceased, her composure returned, and she went with [Lili] to her mother."⁸ Anna Vyrubova asserted that "Never in my life, I am certain, shall I behold such proud fortitude as was shown all through those days of wreck and disaster by the Empress and her children. Not one single word of bitterness or resentment passed their lips."⁹

Soon after receiving the news of Nicholas's abdication, Maria too fell ill with measles, and also developed double pneumonia. Feverish and delirious, Maria's symptoms worsened and it was feared that she was dying, but she rallied and pulled through, despite becoming much thinner and weaker. ("She was very good looking, but got too thin after her illness," Sydney Gibbes sniffed.¹⁸ Before her illness, she was considered too fat; after, too thin. Poor girl, what beauty standards was she allowed to meet?)

When Nicholas returned home, he and his family were placed under house arrest. Then they were moved to Tobolsk, in Siberia, where Maria found it pleasant, remarking that she would be content to stay there.¹⁸ Instead, the family was sent to Ekaterinburg, a city in the Urals where fervor against the imperial family was high. Nicholas, Alexandra, and Maria went first as Alexei was too ill to travel; his other three sisters stayed behind to care for him while Maria, "an angel and the best of us," as Alexandra termed her, traveled forth with her parents. "We lived so peacefully for eight months and now it's all started again," Maria mourned. She needed her endurance and strength: in Ekaterinburg, the guards were rougher, cruder, and often disrespectful and indecent. Once, Maria managed to silence them with a severe lecture after witnessing their treatment of her sister Tatiana: "Why are you not disgusted with yourselves when you use such shameful words? Do you imagine that you can woo a well-born woman with such witticisms and have her be well disposed towards you? Be refined and respectable men and then we can get along." Nevertheless, she impressed them with her cheerfulness of spirit; irrepressible energy; and modest, sincere nature. Despite having grown in courage and bravery since her childhood days, she had kept her kind, caring nature; Maria "always used to speak to the soldiers, questioned them, and knew very well the names of their wives, the number of their children, and the amount of land owned by the soldiers. All the intimate affairs in such cases were always known to her."¹⁸

In the early morning hours of July 17, 1918, Maria and her family were led down twenty-three steps into the cellar, where they were shot and bayoneted to death. Maria was only nineteen.