Princess Maria of Greece and Denmark
 |
| Princess Maria | |
|---|---|
| Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna of Russia | |
.jpg) | |
| Born | 3 March 1876 Athens, Kingdom of Greece |
| Died | 14 December 1940 (aged 64) Athens, Kingdom of Greece |
| Burial | Royal Cemetery, Tatoi Palace, Greece |
| Spouse | Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia Perikles Ioannidis |
| Issue | Princess Nina Princess Xenia |
| House | Glücksburg |
| Father | George I of Greece |
| Mother | Olga Constantinovna of Russia |
| Religion | Eastern Orthodox |
Princess Maria of Greece and Denmark (Template:Lang-el) (3 March 1876 – 14 December 1940) was the fifth child and second daughter of King George I of Greece and Olga Constantinovna of Russia, and thus a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.
Early life
She was born in Athens as a younger sister to Constantine I of Greece, Prince George of Greece, Alexandra Georgievna of Greece and Prince Nicholas of Greece. Maria (sometimes Marie) was an elder sister of Prince Andrew of Greece (father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh) and Prince Christopher of Greece as well as the short-lived Princess Olga of Greece. Her family called her "Minnie", like her paternal aunt, Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia. She and her aunt Minnie's eldest daughter, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, were very close; the cousins later married brothers, two Romanov Grand Dukes, and stayed together on many occasions.
Marriage
On 30 April 1900, Maria was married in Corfu to Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia, a maternal cousin. He had chased after Maria, who was nicknamed "Greek Minnie" to tell her apart from the elder "Minnie" (the Dowager Empress Maria of Russia). She refused to marry unless her place in the line of succession to the Greek and Danish thrones was secured, and made it clear that she was not in love with the Grand Duke when she married him, but George hoped that her feelings would grow in time. The couple had two daughters: Nina, born 7 June 1901; and Xenia, born 9 August 1903. As they grew older, Maria seized the opportunity to spend more time abroad, ostensibly for her daughters' health, but also to spend more time away from her husband. She was in Great Britain when World War I broke out and chose not return to Russia, living in Harrogate where she was patron of three military hospitals, funding them generously and nursing patients herself.
She became a widow on 30 January 1919, when her husband was murdered by the Bolsheviks. On 16 December 1922, Maria was remarried to Admiral Pericles Ioannides in Wiesbaden. Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna died in her native Athens during the Greco-Italian War (28 October 1940 – 30 April 1941).
Her daughter Xenia lived for years in Long Island and was for a time married to millionaire William Leeds, son of Nancy Stewart Worthington Leeds. She took in for a few months a woman later found to be an impostor, Anna Anderson. Anderson fraudulently claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, the youngest daughter of Emperor Nicholas II, and was forced to leave Xenia's house at the demand of William Leeds. Grand Duchess George never recognised Anderson.
Ancestry
External links
Media related to Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna of Russia at Wikimedia Commons
| 1st generation | .svg) | |
|---|---|---|
| 2nd generation |
| |
| 3rd generation | ||
| 4th generation | ||
| 5th generation | ||
*also a princess of Denmark See also House of Glücksburg | ||
Generations are numbered from the implementation of hereditary monarchy by Frederick III in 1660. | ||
| 1st generation |  | |
| 2nd generation | ||
| 3rd generation | ||
| 4th generation | ||
| 5th generation | ||
| 6th generation | ||
| 7th generation | ||
| 8th generation | ||
| 9th generation | ||
| 10th generation |
| |
| 11th generation | ||
| 12th generation | ||
| 13th generation | ||
1 Also princess of Norway 2 Also princess of Greece 3 Also princess of Iceland 4 Not Danish princess by birth, but created princess of Denmark Princesses that lost their title are shown in italics | ||