Throughout the Soviet Union, there were a number of purges and executions which kept
the population in check. Stalin when he was in power would organise the Great Purge and
would even before the Second World War damage the Red Army severely after he ordered the
executions of a number of generals. But before this, there was great bloodshed in Russia
in the time of the Civil War, as the Bolshevik’s fought for power. The Tsar, Tsarina and the
children of the former ruling family had been slaughtered in Yekaterinburg. But there was
another royal who was slaughtered by the Bolsheviks in 1918, and she was a grad daughter of Queen
Victoria, and also the older sister of the last Russian Empress the Tsarina Alexandra.
She was known for her beauty, and charity amongst the poor however in her final days
she suffered greatly. Join us today as we look at the horrific execution of Princess
Elizabeth of Hesse, remember to support our channel please make sure to subscribe.
Born on the 1st November 1864, Elisabeth was the second child of Ludwig IV the Grand Duke
of Hesse and Princess Alice, who herself was the daughter of Queen Victoria. She was linked
to many royal families across Europe, and she was raised modestly by her family. She
did not enjoy the luxuries of servants, and instead was told to keep her own house tidy
and the children were assigned a number of chores. Elisabeth was taken on trips by her
mother to visit wounded soldiers during the Austro-Prussian War, and Elisabeth was fluent
in English and this was her first language. However tragedy would strike when she was
just 14, as diphtheria caused chaos within the royal household and this killed Elisabeth’s
younger sister Marie and also her mother which caused her great upset and distress. Elisabeth
was saved as she was staying with her grandmother at the time, but she believed the loss of
her mother and sister was like a horrible dream that she would never wake up from.
Elisabeth however was a catch for many Princes across Europe, and she was considered one
of the most beautiful in Europe. Her cousin stated that, ‘One could never take one’s
eyes off her,’ and that her beauty almost brought you to tears. With this, she was considered
a woman who could forge alliances with different countries and royal families across Europe.
Her cousin Prince Wilhelm of Prussia as a young woman fell in love with her, and despite
being older, he asked his mother to marry her one day. He wrote her many love letters,
but she rejected her proposal. Many others tried to marry Elisabeth but she rejected
them, and the future Frederick II tried, and Queen Victoria said he was ‘good and steady,’
as well as safe, but the Elisabeth declined to marry him, Victoria found this shocking.
However the Grand Duke of Russia would be successful, and Sergei the son of Empress
Maria Alexandrovna of Russia found himself attracted to Elisabeth. He was a serious and
devout man, but Elisabeth and Sergei bonded over the losses of their parents. He proposed
to her in 1883, and she accepted which shocked Queen Victoria. Arrangements for the wedding
went ahead and this took place on the 15th June 1884 at the chapel of the Winter Palace
in St Petersburg. She became known as Elizaveta Feodorovna, and it was here where the last
Tsar of Russia Nicholas II would meet his future wife, Elisabeth’s youngest sister
Alix.
People in Russia greatly were fond of Elisabeth, and it was said ‘Everyone fell in love with
her from the moment she came to Russia,’ and the couple lived in a palace in St Petersburg.
Her husband became the Governor General of Moscow, and the couple never had children
of their own. But Elisabeth was found of her nieces and nephews, and she had huge parties
for the children on their estate. They fostered Sergei’s niece and nephew, but Elisabeth
was a key part in the marriage of the Tsar and Tsarina Nicholas II and her sister Alix.
She encouraged Nicholas to pursue Alix, and Elisabeth would convince her sister to convert
to his religion and she would later accept the proposal.
However on the 17th February 1905, her husband Sergei was assassinated in the Kremlin by
Ivan Kalyayev. Elisabeth was heartbroken, and she said that ‘God would punish us severely,’
as the Grand Duke kicked out 20,000 Jews from Moscow. He would forcibly remove them using
soldiers, and they were kicked out without any notice. She believed the assassination
was penance for this, and Elisabeth ‘let herself fall weakly into an armchair, her
eyes dry and with the same peculiar fixity of axe, she looked straight into space and
said nothing. She refused to cry, but could not shake her grief. A Russian historian said,
‘Elizabeth spent all the days before the burial in ceaseless prayer. On her husband's
tombstone she wrote: 'Father, release them, they know not what they do.' She understood
the words of the Gospels heart and soul, and on the eve of the funeral she demanded
to be taken to the prison where Kalyayev was being held. Brought into his cell, she asked,
'Why did you kill my husband?' 'I killed Sergei Alexandrovich because he was a weapon of tyranny.
I was taking revenge for the people.' 'Do not listen to your pride. Repent... and I
will beg the Sovereign to give you your life. I will ask him for you. I myself have already
forgiven you.' On the eve of revolution, she had already found a way out; forgiveness!
Forgive through the impossible pain and blood -- and thereby stop it then, at the beginning,
this bloody wheel. By her example, poor Ella appealed to society, calling upon the people
to live in Christian faith. 'No!" replied Kalyayev. 'I do not repent. I must die for
my deed and I will... My death will be more useful to my cause than Sergei Alexandrovich's
death.' Kalyayev was sentenced to death. 'I am pleased with your sentence,' he told the
judges. 'I hope that you will carry it out just as openly and publicly as I carried out
the sentence of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Learn to look the advancing revolution
right in the face.’ Following the death of her husband. Elisabeth wore mourning clothes,
and she sold off large collections of jewels and luxuries including her wedding ring. She
tried to appease God by devoting her life to charity, and she opened a Convent and became
its abbess. She then opened further chapels and a hospital, and she worked with her nuns
to help the poor and sick. The Princess was now helping the poor inside of the slums of
Moscow, but she would act as an adviser to her sister the Tsarina. She warned against
the influence of Rasputin, and she may have even been aware that he ws to be murdered.
However Princess Elisabeth herself would also go the same way as the Tsar and Tsarina, and
she was brutally slain. In 1918, Vladimir Lenin ordered Elisabeth’s arrest, and she
was then exiled to Yekaterinburg like the Tsar was. She was then joined by the Grand
Duke Sergei Mikhailovic, and a number of Princes and workers fort them. They were then taken
to Alpayevsk in May 1918, and they were kept in a house on the outskirts of the town. They
were kept under heavy guard, and for the revolutionaries, they represented the monarchy. On the 17th
July 1918 at mid-day, a Cheka officer and Bolshevik workers came to their place of imprisonment.
They robbed the prisoners of their money, and they then said they would be moved later
in the evening to a factory compound. The Red Army guards left, and they were replaced
by the Cheka secret service officers. In the evening, the prisoners were woken up and were
taken by cart on a road leading to the village of Siniachikha, and they were taken to an
abandoned mine pit. They were then stopped and thrown off the cart.
Princess Elisabeth and the others were beaten badly, and the Cheka prisoners then stood
Elisabeth on the edge of the mine shaft, which was 20 metres deep. She was bloodied and beaten
badly, and the pious and harmless woman was then thrown into the pit first. She would
have been dead or severely injured when she hit the bottom, but then the others were thrown
down the pit too. To make sure they were killed, the Cheka officers then threw grenades down
the shaft. Only one victim died from the grenades, and the rest were killed by the beating and
the fall. One of the Cheka executioners did say that, ‘Elisabeth and the others survived
the fall into the mine, which is why a grenade was thrown at them. But following the explosion,
he said Elisabeth and the others sung a hymn from down the shaft. A second grenade was
then allegedly thrown but the singing continued, but then wood was thrown down the shaft, and
then this was ignited and set on fire, burning all of those including Elisabeth at the bottom.
On the 8th October 1918, White Army officers found the remains of Elisabeth and the others.
Her body was in good condition despite being there for three months, and it was shown that
instead of fire that she died from starvation or her injuries. A post mortem showed Elisabeth
died from injuries sustained in the fall from the mine, but before she died she bandaged
the head of a prince with her Nun’s wimple. The body of Elisabeth was then taken to Jerusalem
and was laid to rest there, and she was made a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church.
Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine was a Princess who did great things for many people
following the death of her husband. She publicly forgave her husband’s murderer, but also
then became a nun turning her back on the imperial court to help others. She was no
threat, but for Lenin she was a symbol of the monarchy and for this she was executed
in horrific manner, and she never deserved the fate she received.
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