Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (1890–1958)

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna was born in Saint Petersburg. She was the first child and only daughter of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia and his first wife, Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna of Russia, born Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark. The baby was named after her late paternal grandmother, the Empress Maria Alexandrovna, and her paternal aunt, maternal grandaunt, and godmother, the Empress Maria Feodorovna, and was known by the nickname "Marisha" Maria was not yet two years old when her mother died from complications after giving birth to Maria's younger brother, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich of Russia in 1891. Grand Duke Paul was so distraught by the unexpected death of his young wife that he neglected his two small children, who were left in the care of his elder brother, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who had no children of his own. Once he recovered emotionally, Grand Duke Paul took the two children away with him. A commander of the Imperial horse Guards, Grand Duke Paul loved his children, but as was customary at the time, he refrained from showing them spontaneous affection. Maria and her brother were raised by governesses and tutors, but they adored their father who visited them twice a day. The couple set aside a playroom and bedrooms for the youngsters at their country home Ilinskoe. Maria Pavlovna's childhood was spent in splendor. Her early memories were of magnificent palaces and lazy country estates populated by armies of servants. Until she was age 6, Maria spoke Russian badly as all of her governesses and the immediate family spoke English. ==Education==

In 1895, Grand Duke Paul began an affair with Olga Valerianova von Pistolkors, a married woman. Left fatherless, 12-year-old Maria and 11-year-old Dmitri moved to Moscow placed under the custody of their uncle Grand Duke Sergei and his wife Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, a sister of the Tsarina Alexandra. Maria Pavlovna also commented that she could not entirely disagree with those who thought Grand Duke Sergei heartless, self-centered and cruel. Maria had a somewhat strained relationship with her aunt. Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna found it difficult to relate to the children, and she was cold and distant toward them. The teenage Maria was described by her maternal aunt Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna of Russia as "full of life and very jolly, but inclined to be self-willed and selfish, and rather difficult to deal with." Grand Duke Sergei, who served as Governor General of Moscow, was a polarizing figure. Targeted by the SR Combat Organization, he was assassinated by a terrorist bomb at the Kremlin in February 1905. After the assassination of their uncle, both children were emotionally distraught, particularly Dmitri. Grand Duke Paul claimed the custody of his children, but the tsar made Elisabeth their guardian. Grand Duke Paul was allowed to visit them, but not to return to Russia permanently. After her husband's assassination, Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna regretted treating the children poorly, and she became closer to them. == First marriage ==

During the next two years, Maria's aunt turned toward religion and charity work. Planning to retire from court and to form a religious order, Grand Duchess Elisabeth decided to find a husband for her niece, along with the help of her cousin, Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden. Shortly after Easter 1907, Prince Wilhelm, Duke of Södermanland, the second son of King Gustav V of Sweden and Victoria of Baden, visited St Petersburg, and he was introduced to the 16-year-old Maria Pavlovna. She was plump, mischievous and proud. The prince was tall, thin, dark and distinguished looking "with beautiful grey eyes", Maria recalled. per year thereafter . As a Russian Grand Duchess, she also was reported to have received a dowry of 1,000,000 roubles upon her marriage, as well as a share in the estimated 8,000,000 rouble fortune left by her father upon his death. From Peterhof, Maria Pavlovna went to Grand Duchess Elisabeth's rural estate Ilinskoe, near Moscow, where Wilhelm joined them for a month before he left on a cruise to the United States. In October, Wilhelm returned to Russia joining Grand Duchess Maria and her brother Dimitri who introduced the Swedish prince to their father, Grand Duke Paul, who was permitted to come back to Russia for his daughter's wedding set to take place after she turned age 18 the next April. At Wilhelm's departure, Maria wrote to him: " I love you, so much with every day, every hour more and more. I wish it were April now, how lovely it would be". As the wedding day approached, she began to have doubts and wished to break off the engagement, but Princess Irene of Hesse, who was visiting her sister Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, persuaded her otherwise. Soon Maria Pavlovna was again looking forward with enthusiasm to a new life. The wedding took place at Tsarskoye Selo on . == Swedish princess ==

After a honeymoon in Germany, Italy and France, the newlyweds went to Sweden, where an official ceremonial reception awaited them with the state flags of Russia and Sweden waving in Stockholm. They spent the summer there, returning in October to Stockholm. Maria Pavlovna, known in Sweden as the Duchess of Södermanland, was pregnant by the fall, but she quickly realized that she had little in common with her husband. Their relationship was cold. She had little interest in him and he in her. The couple's only child was born on 8 May 1909. He was Prince Lennart, Duke of Småland, later Count of Wisborg (1909–2004) In the autumn of 1910, Maria Pavlovna moved with her husband and their son to Oak Hill, a house she had built for herself outside Stockholm. Maria went hunting, attended horse races, practiced winter sports and even played field hockey on her sister-in-law, Crown Princess Margaret's team. She enrolled at the art school and took painting and singing lessons. However, life at the Swedish court had as many restrictions on Maria Pavlovna as she had had in Russia. Her husband Wilhelm, as a naval officer, had little time to spend with her. She told her husband she wanted a divorce. He was devastated by her decision, begging her to give their marriage another chance, "but since he blamed most of our failure on me, we did not make any progress" Maria wrote. At a court ball in Moscow, the two danced seven dances in a row and the Tsar sent an equerry to separate them. Instead, she stopped in Berlin, where her brother joined her. Decades later, she described the horror she had felt toward the Swedish royal family because of their unlimited support of Munthe as the main reason she fled them and filed for divorce from Prince Wilhelm. At age 22, she felt the future looked hopeless and noted that in her diary: "A terrifying thought – year after year with this young geezer and surrounded by that idiotic family! My God!" Relatives in both Russia and Sweden viewed a divorce as unavoidable, and on 13 March 1914, her marriage officially was dissolved, an action then confirmed by an edict issued by Nicholas II on 15 July 1914. Maria left her son behind in Sweden under his father's custody. He was raised primarily by his paternal grandmother, and he saw his mother rarely in the years thereafter. In Paris, Grand Duchess Maria re-established ties with her father, who had provided her with three half-siblings. Maria Pavlovna studied at a painting school, and then traveled to Italy and Greece. She lived near her younger brother Dmitri, to whom she was intensely attached. Troubled by her strong need for him, Dmitri distanced himself somewhat from his sister, hurting her terribly. A few months later, World War I began. ==World War I, revolution and second marriage==

At the outbreak of the war, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna trained as a nurse. With Princess Helen of Serbia, the grand duchess was sent to the northern front, at Instenburg in East Prussia, under command of General Paul von Rennenkampf. For bravery under airplane fire, she was awarded the George Medal. Maria Pavlovna was at Pskov when she learned that Dmitri had participated in the murder of Grigori Rasputin on 17 December 1916; she was stunned. "For the first time in my life," she wrote, "my brother appeared to me an individual standing apart from me, and this feeling of unaccustomed estrangement made me shiver." Maria signed a letter along with other members of the Imperial family, begging Nicholas II to reverse his decision to exile Dmitri to the Persian front. Two months later, the February Revolution erupted, and Tsar Nicholas II, Maria's first cousin, abdicated. Maria Pavlovna left Pskov for Petrograd joining her father and his family at Tsarkoe Selo. Earlier in the war, she had been reacquainted with Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Putyatin (1893–1966), the son of Prince Mikhail Sergeyevich Putyatin (1861–1938), palace commandant at Tsarskoye Selo, the tsar's country residence. They returned to Petrograd with their lives, but without the jewels. With the situation quickly deteriorating in Russia for the Romanovs under the Bolshevik regime, Maria Pavlovna decided to leave for exile, leaving her baby under the care of her in-laws. From the train station, they went to the frontier with German-occupied Ukraine. She had concealed, inside a bar of soap, a Swedish document identifying her as a former royal princess of that country. From there, they continued south until reaching Kiev, where new adventures followed. In November, the fugitives made their way to Odessa. After reaching Kishinev, Moldavia, they received an invitation from Queen Marie of Romania, Maria's first cousin, who had used Joseph W. Boyle to track them and bring them to safety. Ill with influenza, the grand duchess arrived in Romania, beginning her life in exile. ==Exile==

In December 1918, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna and her second husband arrived in Bucharest staying at a local hotel. A couple of weeks later, she received the news that her aunt Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna and half-brother Prince Vladimir Paley had been murdered with several other Romanov relatives in the summer 1918. Maria Pavlovna's parents-in-law arrived in Bucharest with her son Roman, but once she obtained a traveling visa, Maria Pavlovna left with Putyatin for Paris, finding a house in Passy. While in Paris in 1919, the grand duchess received a letter from her husband's parents telling her that one-year-old Roman had died of an intestinal disorder on 29 July. Maria Pavlovna was reunited with her brother Dmitri in London. She rented a small apartment with her husband to be close to her brother, but relations between Dmitri and Putyatin soon soured. In the spring 1920, Maria Pavlovna returned to Paris to meet with her stepmother Princess Olga Paley and Maria's two half-sisters. She decided to stay in the French capital in order to be close to them. Lennart was age 12 and taller than his mother. Two years later, they were reunited for a brief holiday in Germany. They saw each other again in the autumn of 1927 in Brussels when Lennart was age 18. He always harbored a resentment toward his mother, who had abandoned him, and their relationship remained strained. In Paris, Grand Duchess Maria opened a quality embroidering and sewing textile shop named Kitmir. Through her brother, Maria Pavlovna met Coco Chanel in the autumn 1921. Chanel became her main patron buying Kitmir's embroideries for her fashion house. For a time, Kitmir was a success in the Parisian fashion industry. The grand duchess was helped by her mother-in-law Princess Sophia Putyatina (1866–1940), and she employed Russians refugees in order to help them. However, Kitmir was plagued by organizational problems, resulting in the dissipation of Maria's money from the sale of her jewels and leaving her heavily in debt. While she devoted all her energies to her work, Putyatin preferred to spend his time in the company of Russian officers, fast living and squandering money. Disillusioned with her husband, she divorced him in 1923 "over a fundamental difference in attitude," but she continued to offer Putyatin and his relatives financial assistance. After her divorce, Maria Pavlovna continued to work in Paris, but she moved to Boulogne, the south west suburb of Paris, where many Russians had taken residence. She began an affair with the famous fashion designer Jean Patou, who was 10 years older than her and who had a large fortune. They lived with great luxury, appearing together in Parisian society events and spending time in Biarritz, Deauville and the French Riviera. Having suffered a defeat, but not surrendering, the grand duchess moved to London in the spring 1928 where she started selling Prince Igor, her own perfume, following in the footsteps of Chanel No. 5 and Patou's perfume Joy. Failings in advertising and distribution made that Prince Igor was not a success. Undeterred, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna emigrated to the United States hoping for a new start. On 8 December 1928, she set sail for America from Le Havre. ==In the United States==

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna's arrival in New York City was greeted by the press with great enthusiasm and curiosity. In January 1929, while recuperating from an ankle injury, she worked on her memoirs which she had been writing for many years. She sent the manuscript to a number of publishers, and on 18 April 1929, it was accepted for publication. She prepared her memoirs for publication, and gave lectures at universities. The Hearst Corporation invited her to write fashion articles and reviews. In 1941, the United States entered World War II as an ally of the Soviet Union. The friendly alliance of the U.S. toward the Communist country repulsed her. ==Last years==

In Argentina, Maria Pavlovna rented a small house with a garden in the Barrio Norte in Buenos Aires and devoted her spare time to painting, even managing to sell several of her works. Argentinian newspapers published her articles about interior design, fashion, and art. The cosmetic line did not take off, but Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna remained in South America. There was a large Russian émigré community in Buenos Aires, and she became close friends with the family of Prince Meshchersky, Prince Michel Aleksandrovich Gorchakov (1905–1996) and his wife Princess Olga, née Orlova-Davydova (1904–1991). During weekends, she went to Los Leones, a huge property owned by Prince Karl von Auersperg (1895–1980) and his wife, Countess Henriette von Meran (1904–2000), member of a morganatic branch of the House of Habsburg. In 1942, she received news of the death of her brother Dmitri in Davos, Switzerland. She grieved over his death. He was the only person she had loved. In 1947, Maria Pavlovna's son Lennart came from Germany on a business visit that lasted several months. For the first time, they genuinely got to know each other. Maria told Lennart that she had felt lonely all of her life due to her rootless childhood. She spent much of her adulthood looking for love, having affairs, and finding it hard to fill the empty spaces inside of her. Two years later, Maria Pavlovna returned to Europe, where, at the home of her son on the island of Mainau in Germany, she re-encountered her first husband Prince Wilhelm of Sweden for the first time in many years. They departed as good friends. During the 1950s, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna stayed with friends or appeared unexpectedly in Mainau in the house of her son Lennart with her camera, easel and paints. She died from pneumonia, at age 68, on 13 December 1958 in Konstanz, West Germany. She is buried in a side altar of the palace church in Mainau, next to her brother Grand Duke Dmitri. ==Ancestry==

• Education of a Princess (1930) ==Notes==