# Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia

Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia (Russian: Анастасия Михайловна; 28 July 1860 – 11 March 1922) was by birth member of the House of Romanov and a Grand Duchess of Russia and by marriage Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

## Early life

Anastasia was born as the only daughter and second child of Grand Duke Michael Nicolaievich of Russia and his wife, Princess Cecilie of Baden. Emperor Nicholas I of Russia was her paternal grandfather.

## Biography

She was raised in the Caucasus, where she lived between 1862 and 1878 with her family. In 1879, aged only eighteen, she married Friedrich Franz III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (her second cousin once removed, she great-granddaughter and he being the great-great-grandson of Paul I of Russia) who in 1883 became the reigning Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. She was described in her brother Sandro's memoirs: "We worshipped that tall, dark-haired girl, who was the exclusive favourite of our father; but when talking to her, we liked to pose as faithful knights ready and willing to execute the orders of our "dame sans merci". We put at her feet all the love stored during months and years of dull military drills. We were extremely jealous of her and felt a terrific heartache when the young Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin came to Tiflis."
A strong-willed, independent and unconventional woman, she caused a royal scandal when in 1902 she had a child fathered by her personal secretary. In her widowhood, she lived most of the year in the South of France. During World War I, she decided to settle in neutral Switzerland, living in Lausanne. She died following a stroke a few years later.

## Issue

Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna and her husband, Friedrich Franz III, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, had three children:
* Duchess Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (24 December 1879 – 28 December 1952), who married King Christian X of Denmark on 26 April 1898. They had two sons.
* Frederick Francis IV, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (9 April 1882 – 17 November 1945), who married Princess Alexandra of Hanover on 7 June 1904. They had five children.
* Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (20 September 1886 – 6 May 1954), who married Wilhelm, German Crown Prince on 6 June 1905. They have had six children.
Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna also had an illegitimate son with Vladimir Alexandrovich Paltov (1874 – 1944):
* Alexis Louis de Wenden (23 December 1902 – 7 July 1976), who married Paulette Seux on 25 January 1929. They had two daughters: Xénia Anastasie Germaine Louis de Wenden (1930 – 2021), and Anastasie Alexandrine Paule Louis de Wenden (1935 – 1995).

## Legacy

Her nephew-by-marriage, Felix Yusupov, described the Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna in his memoirs:
   "Although well over forty, she had lost none of her high spirits; she was kind and affectionate, but her eccentric and despotic nature made her rather formidable. She was an early riser and she used to telephone me at eight in the morning. If I happened to be out, she sent her servants all over Paris to look for me and sometimes took part in the search herself. I had to lunch, dine, go to the theater and supper with her almost every day. She usually slept through the first act of a play, and then woke up with a start to declare that the performance was stupid and that she wished to go somewhere else. We often changed theaters two or three times in one evening."
Her daughter, Crown Princess Cecilie, also wrote about her in her memoirs:
   "She was like an ivory statue, delicate and transparent, and at the same time tall and slender and stately in her bearing; she was possessed of great charm and was kind and friendly with everyone. [...] My grandmother, after whom I was named, had brought up her only daughter with exceptional strictness and had accustomed her to submit unconditionally to the will of her mother and of her governess."

## Ancestry

Ancestors of Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia :