Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia

Anastasia Mikhailovna was born on 28 July 1860, at the Peterhof Palace, St Petersbourg. She was the second of the seven children of Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich of Russia and his wife, Grand Duchess Olga Feodorovna (née Cecilie of Baden).

Known in the family as Stassie, Anastasia was the only girl among the seven children of the couple. She was an object of devotion: she was her father's favourite and she was spoiled by her six brothers. Mikhail was always occupied with his militaristic and governmental activities; Olga was a strict disciplinarian who showed little affection and raised the children with an iron fist. She was raised separately from the boys, only joining them on Sundays, when they were allowed to take a walk together.
Anastasia grew up to be very independent, intelligent and strong-willed, with a happy and warm personality. Tall and slim, she had dark hair and green eyes, Her education was centred in languages and she could speak French, German and English, besides her native Russian.

In 1878, when Anastasia was not yet 18, her mother and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, arranged her marriage with Maria's eldest brother: Friedrich Franz, Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who was 27 years old. In the spring of that year, while Anastasia was visiting St Petersburg with her mother, Friedrich Franz asked for her hand in marriage. He was rich, the heir of a German Grand Duchy, and good hearted. However, he had delicate health, suffered from asthma, a rash, and a weak heart. The engagement was resented by Anastasia's brothers, who did not want to be separated from her. Anastasia herself was not happy with her fiancé, appalled by his skin condition.

The betrothal was announced on 4 May. In the following days, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna described Anastasia in a letter: She is enchantingly dear in both her character and her appearance. I do not doubt for a moment that she will fill her place and her new position to perfection now, and will be equal to the future. In her movements, her carriage and her speech she will remind you of Queen Olly [Olga Nikolaevna of Russia, Queen of Württemberg] though she has big, clear expressive eyes, that promise much. To the outward appearance, her figure is still very slim and childlike, but when she speak this impression is wholly dispelled. She is very well educated and carefully raised.

In October, Anastasia and her family travelled to St Petersburg to prepare for the upcoming wedding. The marriage took place on 24 January 1879, in the Winter Palace. Anastasia was given away by her uncle, the Tsar Alexander II.

On 8 February 1879, the newlyweds arrived in Schwerin. The young couple settled in the Marienpalais, but Anastasia was not allowed to arrange her apartments according to her own taste. She was homesick and found that the strict and old-fashioned court had an oppressive atmosphere. Although her own mother was German, Anastasia never managed to overcome her dislike for her new country. Anastasia was soon pregnant, and her eldest child, Alexandrine, was born in December on the first year of the marriage. Shortly after, her husband's ill health forced them to travel to a warm climate.

She would return to Russia for the funeral of her uncle, the Tsar Alexander II, in 1881. While there, her husband suffered one of his asthma attacks. His frail health gave Anastasia the perfect excuse to spend as little time as possible in Schwerin. She travelled frequently to Russia, to visit her family, and spent long periods abroad, looking for a warm climate for her husband's ailments. They were living in Palermo when, in April 1882, a second child was born: Friedrich Franz.

In the spring of 1883, while Anastasia and her husband were in Palermo, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin died. Friedrich Franz was too ill to attend his father's funeral. As soon as he recovered, they returned to Schwerin with the children. There, her husband took the throne as Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin; Anastasia was now Grand Duchess. At first, she enjoyed her new position and took residence in sumptuous apartments in Schwerin Castle. However, she soon wanted to return to Italy or France. The population of Mecklenburg-Schwerin didn't want their sovereign to live somewhere else, and Anastasia was heavily criticised. A compromise was reached: the Grand Duke and his wife would live in Schwerin for five months and for the rest of the year they could live wherever they wanted, as long as their children were born in Schwerin. The youngest child, Cecilie, was born in Schwerin in 1886.

While in Schwerin, Anastasia spent as little time as possible in Schwerin Castle, preferring her residence in Gelbensande. There, the couple lived the simple life they loved: Friedrich Franz spent most of his time hunting, while Anastasia and the children rode or drove out, visited local people, or enjoyed the beach and the forest. In the winter, the family moved to Cannes, where they celebrated Christmas.
Anastasia brought up her children with simplicity and more freedom than she received from her parents, and kept a close relationship with them. She was a keen tennis player, loved Italian music and the theatre. Her letters reveal a warm and caring person, who always seems to have been happy about life.

In the winter of 1896-1897, the health of her husband deteriorated. In the spring, Anastasia took her husband to Grasse in the hope that the change of location might initiate a recovery. It was during this time that their eldest daughter, Alexandrine, was engaged to the son of the Danish Crown Prince (the future King Christian X of Denmark). A few weeks later, at the beginning of April, Anastasia returned with her husband to Cannes. Anticipating the worst, she sent for their son. On 10 April, Friedrich Franz died, aged 46.

The Grand Duchess and her two elder children took the body back to Mecklenburg for the funeral. Anastasia seemed to have mourned her husband sincerely, telling her lady in waiting I have lost my best friend.
Once the mourning period passed, in July 1897, Anastasia took Alexandrine to Denmark to meet the Crown Prince's family in private. On her insistence, the wedding took place in Cannes on 26 April 1898.

Anastasia was only 36 years old when she became a widow. From then on, she rarely visited Schwerin, preferring to live in the Riviera or to travel to St Petersburg, Paris or England. While she remained very attached to her family, her thirst for living, strong personality and independence was the cause of gossip.
She started an affair with her personal secretary, Vladimir Alexandrovich Paltov, and fell pregnant. At first, she pretended the swelling was the result of a tumor. When the time came to deliver, she claimed she had chicken pox and she needed to be quarantined. Her illegitimate son, Alexis Louis de Wenden, was born in Nice on 23 December 1902. She brought up the child herself and when time came for him to study in a boarding school, she wrote to him every day.

In the first decade of the 20th century, the Grand Duchess occupied herself visiting her relatives, her children, growing number of children and her hobbies. Always the eccentric, one contemporary described her as completely indifferent to anything but her own desires. 

In the summer of 1914, just before World War I broke out, Grand Duchess Anastasia visited her brother, Mikhail Mikhailovich, and his family in England. While many eagerly greeted the outbreak of war, she wrote to Tsar Nicholas II: I hope that the war will not happen and that we even can say 'perhaps in a few days, we'll all be together again'.

The conflict split her family. Her son was a reigning prince in Germany, and her younger daughter was the Kaiser's daughter-in-law. In the opposite side, her brothers in Russia were fighting to defeat the Central Powers. Anastasia sided with her native country and settled in neutral Switzerland. During the war, she gave her villa in Cannes for use as a hospital for wounded officers of the Russian Expeditionary Force in France. During the war, she managed to obtain news of her daughter Cecilie and her son through Alexandrine, now Queen in neutral Denmark. The Bolsheviks killed three of her brothers during the Russian revolution: Nicholas, George and Sergei. The fall of the German monarchy after the war resulted in the loss of the crown for Cecilie and Friedrich Franz.

After the end of the war, Anastasia went back to France. There, she created a charitable foundation to help Russian exiles who had immigrated to France.

In the first week of March 1922, shortly after attending a party given by her nephew, Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich, Anastasia fell ill. She had a stroke and died on 11 March 1922, in Èze, aged 61. The Baroness de Stoeckl, who had known her well commented: And so passed on the last great character of the Romanov dynasty. First, she was always an Imperial Highness who knew how to carry her rank but, no least, a woman who loved and who lived. 

Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia

c. 1878