Diaries of the empress Maria Feodorovna

DIARIES OF THE EMPRESS MARIA FEODOROVNA

This unique historic document, unpublished till now and unknown to the wide public, has been bought at the Sotheby's auction by the outstanding Russian musician Mstislav Rostropovitch who offered it for the publication to the publishing house "Vagrius". The diary documents the events of the most tragic years of the Russian history in the XXth century. The pictures of war, revolution, and emigration pass before reader's eyes, presented by not a simple participant and witness, but the historic figure whose role in the events is unvaluable.

By the will of the faith she lived two, completely different lives. An external observer would mean that in the first one everything what a woman can wish to herself was fullfilled. Princess Dagmar, representative of the Danish Royal Court, seen in the XIXth century Europe as a "second row" one, became wife of the heir of the Russian thron, the future Alexander III. Her marriage - which happened at those time not often - was not motivated solely by the dynastic interests but relied on love, and resulted in a numerous posterity. Finally, Empress Maria Feodorovna - as Dagmar became known after her conversion to the Russian Orthodox Church - earned appreciation and love by the Russian people for her restless charity work.

But then there was a second life… With the early death of her husband, and the eldest son, with the dramatic decrease of the authority of the Romanoff's dynasty, with the World War I, and finally the revolution of 1917 that deprived her of two sons that she still had (Emperor Nikolai I, and the Grand Duke Michael), four granddaughters, and the grandson - the crown prince/heir of the thron Alexei. Empress Maria Feodorovna herself escaped only by wonder to the atrocities of the revolution. She portrayed her life of that period in the diaries dated from 1914 to 1923.

The diaries supplied with the detailed comments, the name's register, and a number of unique photographs.

Proofreader: Julia Kudrina

Published: 2005

Pages: 704

Publisher: Vagrius

Language: Russian

ISBN: 5-98264-016-6, 5-9697-0235-8