Marie, Grand Duchess of Russia, 1890-1958

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (Russian: Великая Княгиня Мария Павловна; 18 April [O.S. 6 April] 1890 – 13 December 1958), known as Maria Pavlovna the Younger, was a granddaughter of Alexander II of Russia. She was a paternal first cousin of Nicholas II (Russia's last Tsar) and Marie of Edinburgh (consort of Ferdinand I of Romania) and maternal first cousin of George II, Alexander, and Paul (all kings of Greece), Helen of Greece and Denmark, (second wife of Carol II of Romania), and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (consort of Elizabeth II). She was also both the first grandchild of George I of Greece and the first great-grandchild of his father Christian IX of Denmark. Her early life was marked by the death of her mother and her father's banishment from Russia when he remarried a commoner in 1902. Grand Duchess Maria and her younger brother Dmitri, to whom she remained very close throughout her life, were raised in Moscow by their paternal uncle Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and his wife Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. In 1908, Maria Pavlovna married Prince Wilhelm, Duke of Södermanland. The couple had one son, Prince Lennart, Duke of Småland, later Count Bernadotte af Wisborg. The marriage was unhappy and ended in divorce in 1914. During World War I, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna served as a nurse until the fall of the Russian monarchy in February 1917. In September 1917, during the period of the Russian Provisional Government, she married Prince Sergei Putyatin. They had a son, Prince Roman Sergeievich Putyatin, who died in infancy. The couple escaped revolutionary Russia through Ukraine in July 1918. In exile, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna lived briefly in Bucharest and London, then she settled in Paris in 1920. In the 1920s, she opened Kitmir, an embroidering fashion atelier that achieved some level of success. In 1923, she divorced her second husband, and after selling Kitmir in 1928, she emigrated to the United States. While living in New York City, she published two books of memoirs: The Education of a Princess (1930), and A Princess in Exile (1932). In 1942, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna moved to Argentina where she spent the years of World War II. She returned permanently to Europe in 1949. She died in Konstanz, Germany in 1958.