#misha alexandrovich

[otmaaromanovas]

New photographs of the last Romanov family (scroll to see them all!)

Some of the photographs were previously only available for viewing in very low resolution - see these photos for before vs after to show the difference!

The photos mostly originate from the meetings of the Romanov family with their Hessian relatives: the Tsarina’s brother Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig, his wife Grand Duchess Eleonore, and their children, Georg Donatus and Ludwig. Photographs include the family on the Standart yacht, in the Livadia Palace dining hall, and at events greeting the public, from around 1910 to 1912.

Sources and photos: 

📍Ольга, @om871218 (Pinterest), [accessed November 2024]

📍Darmstadt (Hesse), Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt

— I have cropped the photos so just the images are shown, and no background walls/screens 

[fashionhistory]

A third video from my TikTok (this is the last one today)

[foreverinthepagesofhistory]

Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich being himself 🤭, 1901

[queenalexandraofdenmark]

THESE PHOTOS ARE JUST 🥹❤

Unfortunately low quality pictures of Princess Victoria (‘Toria’) of Wales and Grand Duke Michael (‘Misha’) Alexandrovich, 1899

[romanovsonelastdance]

Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich with a bear.

I don't know the particular identity of THIS bear, but in her memoirs, Mikhail's sister Olga Alexandrovna recalled a pet bear named Mashka that Misha especially loved. She described "wrestling matches" they used to have where Misha and Mashka would grab each another around the waist until one of them ended up on their back. Misha always won, until one day it took him longer to defeat Mashka than usual and he admitted that was the last time he'd wrestle with her because she had gotten too strong. She was sent to a zoo, and both Olga and Misha cried.

[imperial-russia]

Q1;Is it true that Grand duke michael alexandrovich( the tsar's brother) liked Princess Victoria of Wales? Or Princess Beatrice of Saxe-coburg and Gotha? He had a Lover right olga's lady in waiting or she wasn't? Or if she was what happen to her?

Q2; How did he end up with Countess Brasova?? Natalya was it?

I am very much curious about him.

It was actually Nicholas, the future tsar, who had a teenage crush on Victoria (and only ever a crush it remained). But yes, Mikhail was in love with Beatrice, though apparently not as half as much as Beatrice was in love with him. When it became clear that Nicholas would not give his consent to their marriage (due to them being first cousins), the relationship was broken off and Baby Bee suffered an emotional breakdown, which very much caused an enmity between her mother and the tsar.

Misha found solace with Alexandra Kossikovskaya, who served as a lady-in-waiting to his younger sister Olga, but yet again the relationship was doomed to fail on the basis that Mikhail could only legally marry a woman from a ruling house. When Misha was threatened with exile and loss of his military ranks, he yet again gave into the pressure and gave Alexandra "Dina" up.

But then he fell in love with Natalya and I am sure his family was fondly remembering the days of exalted first cousins and ladies in waiting with good reputations, because Natasha was not only a complete commoner, but she was already once divorced, re-married, and a mother. Apparently, Misha was just too smitten this time and no doubt Natasha was an attractive and clever woman who knew how to keep her man. She abandoned her second husband and moved to Moscow. The point of no return for Mikhail was when Natasha became pregnant with his child. He felt he could not possibly give her up - and insisted upon marrying her. Then the whole ugly mess with him promising NOT to marry Natasha but using the tragic period of Tsarevich Alexei´s Spala agony to do exactly that happened. The truth is that even though Mikhail definitely acted under-handedly and paid for it, his personal life with Natalya was happy and I don´t believe he ever regretted it.

If you are interested in Misha, I definitely recommend THIS BOOK.

[loiladadiani]

Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich and his son George Mikhailovich, Count Brasov

Sadly, they spent such a short time together in this world. Misha had such a playful personality I could see father and son having a lot of fun together.

[queenalexandraofdenmark]

LOVE THOSE TWO!! 🥺���

‘Mischa & Thyra’.

Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich and his cousin Princess Thyra of Denmark being silly. Fredensborg Palace, 1903.

Source: 🏰

[whileiamdying]

KRONOS QUARTET AND DAVID KRAKAUER Osvaldo Golijov: The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind

I have this image of my great-grandfather, who shared my bedroom when I was seven. I'd wake up and see him by the window, praying with his #phylacteries in the early light. I think of him always praying, or fixing things, his pockets full of screws. I remember thinking, three of his children are dead; how does he still pray? Why does he still fix things? But we were taught that #God had assigned that task of repairing the world to the #Jewish people— Tikkun Olam. Incomprehensible.

About eight hundred years ago, Isaac the Blind—who was the greatest #Kabbalist rabbi of Provence, France —dictated a #manuscript saying that everything in the universe, all things and events, are products of combinations of the Hebrew alphabet's letters.

The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind is a kind of epic, a history of #Judaism. It has Abraham, exile, and redemption. The movements sound like they are in three of the languages spoken in almost 6,000 years of Jewish history: the first in #Aramaic; the second in #Yiddish; and the third in #Hebrew. I never wrote it with this idea in mind, and only understood it when the work was finished. But while I was composing the second movement, for example, my father would sit out on the deck with the newspaper, the sports pages, and, every once in a while, he would shout, "There you go! Another Yiddish chord!"

In the prelude, the music is like a celestial #accordion, rising and falling like breathing, like praying...like air...then the air is transformed into a pulse and heart.

The whole first movement is a heartbeat that accelerates wildly...becoming frantic. It's built on a single chord, rotating like a monolith. The Quartet obsesses in eighth notes, the #clarinet starts a huge line in long notes, but zooms in and is caught up in the gravitational spin. The forces of #God and man, they never unite, but they do commune; you can hear the dybbuk and the shofar, searching for a revelation that is always out of reach.

The second movement opens with a hesitating, irregular pulse, a skipping heartbeat, the rhythm of #death. The #violin and the clarinet hold forth in monologue at the same time, like those The Bashevis Singers stories told in a poorhouse on a winter night. The same four notes, the same theme, playing in endless combinations.

Kronos is an #accordion in the prelude, a klezmer band in the second movement; now, in the third movement, it's a shepherd's magic flute. The last movement was written before all the others. It's an instrumental version of K'VAKARAT, a work that I wrote a few years ago for Kronos and Cantor Misha Alexandrovich. In this final movement, hope is present but out of reach. There is a question woven into the hardening, inescapable pulse: why this task? Repairing a world forever breaking down, pockets full of screws. The question remains unanswered in the postlude.

— Osvaldo Golijov

Excerpts from a conversation With Brook Gladstone, October/1996.

Osvaldo Golijov grew up in La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina during the #DirtyWar. He lived in Jerusalem, Israel for three years before moving to the United States in 1986, and now lives in Newton, Massachusetts.

#Spotify Spotify #NowPlaying

[thepompandcircumstance]

Toria and Misha cycling during their annual family reunion at Denmark, c. 1899-1900. 

They were first cousins through their mothers, the Princess of Wales [later Queen Alexandra] and Empress Marie, respectively.

[otmaaromanovas]

Mikhail Alexandrovich with his step-daughter, Natalia Sergeievna, whom he accepted as his own child

"Having kissed us both, Uncle Misha went away. He never came back. Thus, almost casually, there went out of my life a man whom I shall always love and who I regard more than anybody else as my parent. I owed and owe everything to him"

Natalia writes very fondly about Mikhail, whom she called 'Uncle Misha, in her memoirs, 'Step-Daughter of Imperial Russia'.

"Then eventually I met the Grand Duke. He came to tea one summer afternoon- I was decked out in a white silk smock, which I secretly thought rather plain, my two long straight black plaits were undone, my nails cleaned, and I was ushered in. To my immense surprise and disappointment, I did not see anybody resembling Jehovah, but a very slim and tall young man, with the thinnest waist and a charming smile, rose from a chair and said "So that's it, is it? My God, what eyes!". I was completely tongue-tied and speechless, even the gift of a large box of delicious sweets could only produce a very inaudible thank you." "Now he was part of the household and I accepted him quite normally and was told to call him Uncle Misha. I soon lost my shyness of him and used to clamber on his knee and follow him about..."

Mikhail wrote about Natalia often in his diary, affectionately calling her 'Tata':

"...we slid down the hill to the greatest pleasure of Tata and Baby." "At 9 1/4 Tata and I went to the Farm, rode from there on horseback through Remiz past the tea house. Farther along we crossed the railroad and rode past Paritz, Kolpano and to Priorat. By the guard house near Warsaw Station we got into an automobile and went home." "...In the morning Tata and I took a ride on horseback at the Zoo."

Sources:

Step-Daughter of Imperial Russia, Natalia Majolier

Michael Romanov : Brother Of The Last Tsar, Diaries And Letters, 1916-1918, Helen Azar , and Nicholas B.A. Nicholson

[queenalexandraofdenmark]

Love the first photo of Misha with Olga! 🥹🫶

Misha, Olga, Xenia and a dog walking in Gatchina, June 1903

@sledstvie

[carolathhabsburg]

Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich of Russia. Early 1890s

[foreverinthepagesofhistory]

just Misha being Misha 😂, Peterhof 1898

[leifgrandeduchesse]

My cousin [Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich], who was then a young man of twenty-two, was a very keen soldier and a real sportsman; his jovial nature endeared him to all. [...] Misha hated oysters more than anything. One day for lunch Emperor Nicholas's chef prepared what he imagined to be a particularly savoury dish, consisting of boiled oysters covered with jelly. It looked "murderous". Misha was nearly sick when he looked at them. The Emperor asked him if he would eat three of these oysters for a wager. His brother hesitated; but the Emperor repeated his challenge, adding, "You can ask for whatever you like." Misha closed his eyes, and with disgust written all over his face, gulped down three oysters, one by one. After he had successfully performed the operation, and recovered, he declared that he wished to have a motor-boat as a reward for his feat. The Emperor, of course, kept his promise.

My Fifty Years by Prince Nicholas of Greece

[queenalexandraofdenmark]

THESE PHOTOS ARE MAKING MY DEAR HEART MELT🥹❤

Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich and his sister Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna 1896-1897.