Thursday, May 13, 2010

Former Dowager Empress and 2 Grand Dukes held at Kiev

May 13, 1918


The New York Times reports on a dispatch from the Ukrainian Press Bureau, which has "received information from Odessa" regarding the whereabouts of the former Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaivitch and Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovitch.
The three members of the former imperial family had been living at Dulbar, near Aitodor, in the Crimea, are now said to be in the hands of the Germans.
"Special dispatches from Moscow," which were published last Saturday, report that the Dowager Empress had arrived in Kiev, the Ukranian capital. It has also been reported that Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovitch is also in Kiev, and had taken a prominent role in the coup d'etat by "which the Ukrainian Radu was overthrown and a Dictatorship was established."
The Dowager Empress has been living in the Crimea "in straitened circumstances" since the Russian Revolution. Grand Duke Nicholas is the former Commander in Chief of the Russian armies and "is regarded as one of the greatest of Russia's military leaders." He has apparently been living in retirement at his estate in the Crimea, "although there have been various reports connecting him with royalist plots."
Grand Duke Alexander, who is married to Nicholas II's sister, Xenia, has probably been living in the Crimea, although little has been heard about him since the Revolution.

No comments: