Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia (Russian: Татьяна Николаевна; romanized: Tatiana Nikolaevna)
(10 June [O.S. 29 May] 1897 – 17 July 1918) was the second child of Tsar Nicholas II, the last monarch of Russia, and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. She was born at Peterhof Palace, near Saint Petersburg.
Tatiana was the younger sister of Grand Duchess Olga and the elder sister of Grand Duchess Maria, Grand Duchess Anastasia, and Tsarevich Alexei. Throughout her life, she was considered to be the most beautiful of all her sisters and the most aristocratic in appearance. She was known amongst her siblings as "the governess" for her domineering but also maternal ways. Tatiana was the closest of all the children to her mother (Tsarina Alexandra), often spending many hours reading to her. During World War I, she chaired many charitable committees and (along with her older sister, Grand Duchess Olga) trained to become a nurse. She tended to wounded soldiers on the grounds of Tsarskoye Selo from 1914 to 1917. Her time as a nurse came to an end with her family's arrest in 1917 after the first Russian Revolution.
Her murder by Bolshevik revolutionaries on 17 July 1918 resulted in her canonization as a passion bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church. Tatiana and all her siblings were soon rumored to have survived the murder, and dozens of impostors claimed to be surviving Romanovs; author Michael Occleshaw speculated that a woman named Larissa Tudor might have been Tatiana. However, the deaths of all the last Tsar's family, including Tatiana, at the hands of Bolsheviks have since been established by scientific evidence.
Tatiana was a famous beauty. She was tall, slender, and elegant. She had dark auburn hair, gray eyes, and fine features. Many viewed her as the most beautiful of the four grand duchesses and the one who resembled their mother most. Her mother's lady-in-waiting Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden reflected that "Tatiana was, to my mind, prettier than her sisters. She was taller than her mother, but so thin and so well built that her height was not a hindrance to her attractiveness. She had beautiful, regular features, and resembled some of the famous beauties among her royal relatives, whose family portraits decorated the walls of the palace.. She had dark hair, a rather pale complexion, and wide-apart eyes, that gave her a poetic far-away look." General Count Alexander Grabbe, wrote that "the prettiest of the Grand Duchesses was Tatiana, the Tsar's second daughter. In her physical appearance and her serious and ardent nature, she most resembled her mother. Slender with auburn hair and clear gray eyes, she was strikingly good looking and enjoyed the attention her beauty commanded." According to Anna Vyrubova, "when Tatiana grew up, she was the tallest and most graceful of all the Grand Duchesses, beautiful and romantic. Many officers fell in love with Tatiana, but there were no appropriate suitors for her." Meriel Buchanan described her beauty as "almost mystical." Alexander Mossolov, head of the Imperial Chancellery, wrote that Tatiana was "the best-looking of all the sisters." Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia called her "the leading beauty of the family". Her nanny Margaretta Eagar wrote that she was "a very pretty child, remarkably like her mother, but delicate in appearance." In 1900, the British magazine, Woman at Home, wrote that "the flower of the flock, as far as looks are concerned ... is Grand Duchess Tatiana." Nicholas wrote that Tatiana was "a very beautiful child" and he often remarked that she reminded him of Alexandra. When she was 8, her tutor Pierre Gilliard said that she "was prettier than her sister."
Despite her high status, Tatiana did not use her Imperial title and her friends, family, and servants called her by her first name and patronym, Tatiana Nikolaevna. The only nicknames that can be found for her using primary sources are 'Tanechka' in a postcard from her cousin Princess Irina Alexandrovna, and 'Tan'ka' in some notes from her sister, Anastasia Nikolaevna. According to one story, Tatiana kicked her lady-in-waiting Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden for addressing her as "Your Imperial Highness" during a committee meeting, and she hissed, "Are you crazy to speak to me like that?" When she was 14, Tatiana called Chebotareva at her home on the telephone, and she spoke first to Chebotareva's 16-year-old son. Unaware of her identity, Gregory asked her to identify herself. She replied, "Tatiana Nikolaevna". He could not believe that he was speaking to a grand duchess, and he repeated his question. Again, Tatiana did not claim the imperial title of Grand Duchess and replied that she was "Sister Romanova the Second".
Tatiana was a practical, nurturing leader. Her sisters gave her the nickname "The Governess" and sent her as their group representative when they wanted their parents to grant a favour. Olga was 18 months older than Tatiana, but she uncomplainingly allowed Tatiana to be the leader of their group. Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden recalled that "It was Tatiana Nicolaevna who took care of the little ones, and who was a constant help to the Household, always willing to help them in arranging that their official duties should not clash with their private engagements."
Gilliard wrote that Tatiana was reserved and "well balanced" but less open and spontaneous than Olga. She was less naturally intelligent than Olga, but she was more hard-working and dedicated. Colonel Eugene Kobylinsky, the family's guard at Tsarskoye Selo and Tobolsk, claimed that Tatiana "had no liking for art" and that "it would have been better for her had she been a man."
Tatiana was interested in fashion. According to Sophie Buxhoeveden, "Tatiana Nicolaevna loved dress. Any frock, no matter how old, looked well on her. She knew how to put on her clothes, was admired and liked admiration." Her mother's friend Anna Vyrubova wrote that Tatiana was talented in embroidery and crocheting and that she could dress her mother's hair as well as a professional hair stylist. Sophie Buxhoeveden remembered that Tatiana once dressed her hair when her hairdresser was unavailable.
Tatiana was the most sociable of the four sisters. According to Sophie Buxhoeveden, "friends would have been welcome, but no young girls were ever asked to the Palace." Vyrubova noted that Tatiana was the most famous of the sisters in their lifetimes because of her vivacious personality and sense of duty. Vyrubova and Lili Dehn claimed that Tatiana longed for friends of her own age but that her high rank and her mother's distaste for society restricted her social life.
Like her mother, Tatiana was deeply religious. She read her Bible frequently, studied theology, and struggled with the meaning of "good and evil, sorrow and forgiveness, and man's destiny on earth". She decided that "one has to struggle much because the return for good is evil, and evil reigns." A.A. Mosolov claimed that Tatiana's reserved nature gave her a "difficult" character with more spiritual depth than that of her sister, Olga. Her English tutor, Sydney Gibbes, claimed that Tatiana viewed religion as a duty rather than a passion.
Only her closest friends and family were aware of her introspective side. "With her, as with her mother, shyness and reserve were accounted as pride, but, once you knew her and had gained her affection, this reserve disappeared and the real Tatiana became apparent," Dehn recalled. "She was a poetical creature, always yearning for the ideal, and dreaming of great friendships which might be hers." Chebotareva loved the "sweet" Tatiana as if she were her daughter, and she claimed that Tatiana would hold her hand when she was nervous. "I am so terribly embarrassed and frightened – I do not know whom I greeted and whom not," Tatiana told Chebotareva.
Like her sisters, Tatiana was unworldly and naive. When she was young, she was shocked to learn that her governess Margaretta Eagar was paid for taking care of her. When Eagar told her that "you have seen me get my money every month," Tatiana replied that "I always thought it was a present to you." When her lady-in-waiting sent a carriage without an attendant, Tatiana and Olga decided to go shopping for the first time. They ordered the carriage to stop near a group of shops and went into one of the stores. The shopkeepers did not recognize them because they wore nurses' uniforms. They left the shop without buying anything, because they didn't carry money with them and had no idea how to use it. The next day, they asked Chebotareva how to use money.