part 2
During the stormy night of April 13th, several Russian destroyers were sent to search for the Japanese fleet. Many of them were lost in teh storm and when the Japanese ships, which were superior in number than the Russains, appeared , panic and confusion spread among Makarov's men. When the Petropavlovsk rushed out form Port Arhur to engage the enemy, it ran into a mine, which exploded at the ship's passing. Makarov and Kirill were standing on th ship's bridge at the time of the explotion. The Admiral was killed and Kirill, with his face burned and his body bruised by the force of the explosion, jumped form the bridge, with everybody dead around him, into the freezing water as far as he could from the foundering vessel but the suction of the sinking ship caught him anyway. Later he would tell his experience in his own words: " Something struck me a violent and stunning blow in may back. There was the sound of a huricane around me.Then I was seized by the uncanny force of a swirling whirlpool. It gripped me and dragged me into the black depht of its funnel. Round and round I went with a mad corkcrew motion, rushing around in ever narrowing spirals until all around me bacame dark as night. All seemed lost now. It is the end! I tthought. There was a short prayer and a last thought for the woman I loved." He didn't try to fight against the whirlpool; when he suddenly felt it had decreased, he swam maddly to teh water's surface amd seized himself to a piece of wood from the sunk ship. There he waited, floating on the freezing water, until another Russian ship rescued him. Severely burned, with his back muscles seriously damaged and suffering from shell shock, he was sent home on the next Trans-Siberian Express. Grand Duke Vladimir was terribly distressed and said it was a miracle Kirill was alive, and Kirill's mother, Maria Pavlovna, was found in tears; and as for Ducky, she had sent several telegrams and letters to her beloved , who received them during his way home.
In St. Petersburg he was given the reception of a war hero. Some days later Kirill had an interview with the Tsar, who did not even asked him about the disaster or anything about the war, but he granted Kirill permission to leave Russia when the doctors allowed. Once he had the doctors permission, hew rushed for Coburg. Ducky, accompanied by her sister Sandra, was waiting for him at the station. He spent in Coburg the spring and summer of 1909 with ucky and her mother. Both lovers lived during this perios the most sublime iterlude in all their lives. Kirill wrote: "....one of those very intimate and lovely episodes in one's life, which are part of that secret recess in one's memory that cannot be shared with the world".
Having being so close to death had decided him to have Ducky near him forever. "To those over whom the sahdow of death had passed, he wrote, life has a new meaning . It is like a daylight. And I was now within visible reach of fulfillment of the dream of my life..." On August 12, 1904 the long awaited heir was born to the Imperial couple; now Kirill was not any more in the direct line of succesion to the throne and his marriage to Ducky was beginning to seemed possible.
During the following autumn Kirill returned to work to the Admiralty. He sternghtened his ties with the Tsar by accompaining him to a naval conference to teh flagship Suvorov. This approachment between both cousins made Kirill think that Nicholas would accept his marriage to Ducky. At the end of the spring of 1905, Kirill was on his way back to the front, when he learned of the Russian defeat at Tsushima which meant the end of the war and a definitive defeat for Russia at the hands of Japan.
The year of 1905 was a tragic one for the Russian Empire. The war had engine the revolution and there were uprisings and strikes everywhere. Kirill's uncle, Grand Duke Serge, was murdered by a terrorist. Kirill was shaken by both, the defeat and his uncle's murder, and decided that Coburg was a safier place for a Russian Grand Duke, so he left for an indefinite stay in the German city. Before leaving, Kirill asked Father Yanishev, Alexandra's confessor about the possibilities of marrying Ducky. The confused priest answered him that according to tha CanonLaw, there was no problem. It's unknown why Father Yanishev answered Kirill such things since the Orthodox Church forbade marriages between first cousins .
So Kirill went to Coburg and he and Ducky married on the afternoon of October 8, 1905 in the Orthodox chapel at the hoiuse of Count Adelerberg. The ceremony was performed by the Duchess of Coburg's private confessor, Father Smirov. It was a simple wedding where the only ones present besides the bride and bridegroom were the Duchess of Coburg and her daughter Beatrice, Count Adelerberg, his housekeeper and three servants. Kirill and Ducky's common unlce, Grand Duke Alexis, arrived later. Ducky's favourite sister, Missy, was not present; she confessed to he friend Pauline Spender Clay that she was glad about her sister's wedding but thta she didn't know to what sort of happiness it would lead.
Ducky and Kirill went to spend their honeymoon to the Bavarian Alps and meanwhile the whole Russia collapsed into a general strike. In the middle of the chaos his Empire was sinking into, Nicholas was unable to understad Kirill's conduct; for him, Kirill had challanged the Imperial law, and besides the Tsar was under the influence of his wife, who still hated Ducky for having divorced her brother, and her wrath was to fell over Kirill and Ducky. When Kirill returned to St. Petersburg he was ordered to leave Russai within 48 hours; he was deprived of all his honours and decorations, stripped of all his titles and privileges and he would stop receiving his imperial allowance and was expelled from the Russian navy.
Kirill and his parents were shocked and outraged with such punsihment for what they considered a minor fault. The next day Grand Duke Vladimir rushed into Nicholas's study at Tsarkoe Selo and shouted at him violently demanding his son's punishment to be rescinded inmediatelly. Nicholas remained silence and calmed and gave his uncle the impression that he was trying not to listen, but on the contrary he was quite affected bby the viloent scene and after thinking it so much, he decided to return Kirill his lost title, but insisted his cousin must go into exile as an outlawed and accepted Vladimir's resignation from the Naval office.
So Kirill left Russia and joined Ducky in Coburg. They decided that Paris would be a suitable place for establishing their residence in exile. They had no money since Kirill had been deprive of his income and Ducky received only an extreme modest settlement from her ex-husband; but the Duchess of Coburg and Kirill's parents helped them to buy an appartment near the Champs Elysées where they established their home, but spending part of the winters in the Chateau Fabron and part of the summer at the Duchess's home at the Tegernesee in the Bavarian Alps.
In the summer of 1906, Ducky and Kirilll made their first public apearence at the Romanov International Exhibition which was held in Bucharest to conmemorate the 40th anniversary of King Carol I in thr Romanian throne. Missy recognized publicly her sister's and brother-in-law's status as husband and wife, by which she intended to persuade other royal relatives to do the same.
Life for Kirill and Ducky became pleasant but uneventuful. They spent their time playing golf, visiting friends, playing cards or attending to th theatre. At the beginning of 1907, Ducky embraced the Orhtodox faith and on January 20th she gave birth to her first child from Kirill, who she named Marie, after her grandmother, the Duchess of Coburg, and her aunt the Crown Pirncess of Romania. The little girl was nickname Masha.
In the autumn of 1908, Ducky and Kirill received a telegram from St.Petersburg announicng the death of their beloved uncle Grand Duke Alexis, who had died suddenly of a heart attack ath the age of 58. This "huge, handsome amd bachelor" Grand Duke had done so much to help Kirill and Ducky so they were really shocked to hear of his death. Nicholas granted Kirill permission to attend the funeral, but without Ducky.
In January 1909, Grand Duke Vladimir's health began to seriously deteriorate. If his ftaher died, Kirill would be the third in the line of succesion to the throne. The first one was Nicholas's weak and haemophiliac son; the second was Nicholas's youngest brother, Grand Duke Mijhail, who had fallen in love with a twice divorced commoner and was living with her abroad. Nicholas considered his brother's conduct and in comparisson with it, the conduct of Ducky and Kirill was "virtually blameless".
All these facts, added to the advise of King Edward VII of Great Britain, who told the Tsar that the "continued sentence of banishment of his cousin was unwise", made Nicholas to think about reconsidering Kirill's situation.
By early February it seemed obvious that Grand Duke Vladimir was going to die. Nicholas realized that it was impossible, for the fate of Russia, that Kirill continued in exile, and that he must be restored to his former position. Kirill suddenly received a telegram from his mother announcing him that his wife had now been accepted as a Grand Duchess. A few days later, on February 13th, 1909, Grand Duke Vladimir died and Kirill and Ducky, who was pregnant again, traveled to St. Petersburg to attend the funeral. During the visit, Nicholas confirmed his cousin that his wife was now to be Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna. Although Victoria was not a Russian name, Nicholas allowed Ducky to keep it to honoured the late Queen Victoria and to make up his cousin's injured feelings.
Ducky's second child was born on April 26, 1909 in Paris. It was another girl who was named Kira after her dissapointed father, who would have prefered a boy. Soon after, Kirill was appointed second in command at the light cruiser Oleg and he left his wife and daughters in France. A year later he was promoted to the rank of captain.
On May 1910, Ducky and Kirill moved at last to St. Petersburg. They established their residence at the Cavalier's House art Tsarkoe Selo. Now that she was a Grand Duchess, Ducky devoted herself to be a true Romanov; she embraced everything Russian and surrounded herself with Russian art and literature and learned Russian, altough she had little oportunity to practise it since the Russian aristocracy spoke French
The Russian Imperial family was divided in two antagonist groups and Ducky was becoming the centre of one of them. The other was the one that surrounded her enemy the Empress Alexandra. As Nicholas and Alexandra had isolated themeselves from the St. Petersburg Society becuase of the Tsarina's shynnes and because of the Tsarevitch's illness, two other ladies had become socila leaders among the aristocracy. One was the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, Nicholas's mother, whose parrties at the Anichkov Palace were famous for their brilliance and ellegance, but who was most of the time in Denmark visiting her family or in England visiting her sister Queen Alexandra. The other lady, who was the most active one was Kirill's mother, Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, whose parties and balls at her Palace by the Neva River, were so magnificent that had even shadowed those few at the Winter Palace. Marie Pavlovna was ambitious; she didn't like Alexandra and wanted Kirill to become Emperor. Society loved her and had formed around her a group known as the Vladimir Circle. Ducky had got along vey well wityh her mother-in-law from the beginning and she had joined her circle inmediately. Besides her active social life, Ducky fulfilled her domestic duties, attending her husband and daughters. She also painted and decorated gardens.
By the spring of 1892, Kirill had joined his ship Oleg again. His bad experience at the Ruso-Japanese war which had placed him at the edge of death, had left him a terrible panic to the sea. When he was sailing he was constantly haunted by the "spectre of the disaster" having nightmares with the vision of the "dark depth of the swirling whirlpool". When he was attacked by what he called "the evil" (his incotrollable oanic to the sea) it was impossible for him to remain on the water, so he decided that the best for him was to abandon his naval career.
In 1913 Russia celebrated the tricentenary of the Romanov dinasty in the throne with brilliant festivities in which Kirill and Ducky actively participated. That summer when the festivities had ended, they spent some weeks at the Duchess of Coburg's summer home at the Tegernsee with Ducky's three sisters and their husbands. In Fecruray 1914, Ducky hosted for the first time in St. Pertersburg to her beloved sister Missy and her brother-in-law, Crown Prince Ferdinand of Romania, who had brought their son Carol with the purpose of a possible marriage between him and Nicholas and Alexandra's eldest daughter Olga. Ducky and Missy spent a wonderful time together although the main purpose of the trip did not come to an end since Carol and Olga did not get along.
VICTORIA MELITA
