Anna Stepanovna Demidova ( January 14 [26], 1878 , Cherepovets - July 17, 1918 , Yekaterinburg ) - a room girl of the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna (wife of Nicholas II ), a noblewoman. She was shot by the Bolsheviks along with the royal family.
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Content
- 1 Biography
- 2 Link and doom
- 3 Canonization in the ROCA
- 4 The reburial of the remains in the Peter and Paul Cathedral of St. Petersburg
- 5 Rehabilitation
- 6 Memory
- 7 notes
- 8 Literature
- 9 References
Biography
Anna Demidova was born in Cherepovets . Her father, the tradesman Stepan Aleksandrovich Demidov, was the vowel of the Cherepovets City Council and the district council of members of the city government, as well as the chairman of the Cherepovets Fire Mutual Insurance Society. Anna had a brother (N. Demidov, one of the founders of the Cherepovets "House of industriousness", contributed money for its development, as well as the maintenance of a school and a free canteen for the poor with him) and sister Elizabeth [1] .
Anna Demidova studied at the Leushinsky school. She knew several foreign languages, played the piano .
According to family tradition, the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna became interested in her needlework at the exhibition of needlework of the Leushinsky monastery in Yaroslavl , and thus Anna got into the service of a room girl with the royal family in 1901. [one]
For this service, she and her relatives were granted hereditary nobility . [one]
The authors of the book “Romanovs. The fate of the royal dynasty ” [2] Greg King and Penny Wilson claim that Anna Demidova was in love with the teacher of the royal children - Englishman Sidney Gibbs , although the source of this information is not given.
Link and Doom
After the February Revolution of 1917, she remained with the royal family and followed them into exile in Tobolsk , and then in Yekaterinburg .
She was killed along with the family of Nicholas II and other servants left with the family in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918 in the basement of Ipatiev’s house . In the terrible moments of the murder, she darted in terror in the basement, trying to protect herself from bullets with a pillow. Apparently, the bullets that fell into it bounced off the diamonds that she had previously sewn in the dress, trying in this way to preserve the jewelry for the royal family. The first shots could not kill her, and the executioners had to finish her off. She is known to be tall. Her corpse was even mistaken for the body of the empress [3] .
One of the killers, machine gunner A. Kabanov recalled [4] :
Frölna was still alive on the floor. When I ran into the execution room, I shouted that they would stop shooting immediately, and finish off the living with bayonets, but by this time only Aleksey and fresnel were still alive. One of the comrades in the chest of Fresnel began to stick a bayonet of the American Winchester rifle. The bayonet was like a dagger, but blunt, and the chest did not pierce, and the fresnel seized the bayonet with both hands and began to scream, but then she and the three royal dogs were finished with rifle butts.
Guard A. Strekotin recalled [5] :
Comrade Ermakov , seeing that I was holding a rifle with a bayonet, offered me to stab the survivors. I refused, then he took the rifle from my hands and began to pierce them. This was the worst moment of their death. They did not die for a long time, shouting, moaning, twitching. Especially severely died that person - the lady. Ermakov pierced her whole chest. He made so many hits with a bayonet that the bayonet stuck deeply into the floor each time.
Canonization in the ROCA
In 1981, Anna Demidova, along with all the victims of the Yekaterinburg murder, was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (along with the family of Nicholas II, the servants who were with her were then canonized). The motive for this decision was precedents for the canonization of victims of persecution of Christians who did not accept baptism (for example, pagans who joined Christians during the execution - see Forty Sebastian Martyrs ).
The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate , canonizing the imperial family in 2000, did not mention the other victims in its decision, including Anna Demidova.
Reburial of the remains in the Peter and Paul Cathedral of St. Petersburg
On July 17, 1998, the granddaughter of Anna Demidova, Natalia Demidova, attended the burial ceremony of the remains of the imperial family and their servants in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg [6] .
Rehabilitation
On October 16, 2009, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation decided to rehabilitate 52 close relatives of the imperial family who were repressed, including Anna Demidova [7] [8] .
Memory
In March 2012, the Cherepovets newspaper Rech reported on the planned perpetuation of the memory of Anna Demidova. A memorial plaque will be installed on the house in which she spent her childhood and youth (Sovetsky Prospekt, 31 - the former Resurrection Avenue):
Here Anna Stepanovna Demidova was born and spent her childhood (the date is being specified 1878 - 07/17/1918). The maid of the last Russian Empress, Alexandra Feodorovna, remained faithful to her convictions, voluntarily stayed with the family of Nicholas II and suffered a martyrdom with her on July 17, 1918 in Yekaterinburg. Canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in 1981 - preliminary text for the memorial plaque [9]
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 O.T. Kovalevskaya, 2008 .
- ↑ King G., Wilson P. Romanovs. The fate of the royal dynasty. - M .: Eksmo, 2008 .-- ISBN 978-5-699-25386-9 .
King, Greg; Wilson, Penny. The Fate of the Romanovs: [ eng. ] . - John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2003. - ISBN 0-471-20768-3 . . - ↑ Lukashevsky, E. Royal servants Archival copy of November 4, 2013 on the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Cit. by: Avdonin, A. Mystery of the old Koptyakovskaya road . On the history of the search for the remains of the imperial family // Source . - 1994. - No. 5.
- ↑ Cit. by: Platonov, O. A. Conspiracy of the Regicide. - M .: Algorithm, 2005. - S. 301. - ISBN 5-9265-0166-0 .
- ↑ The funeral of Tsar Nicholas II (July 17, 1998)
- ↑ The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation approved the statement by the Head of the Russian Imperial House on the rehabilitation of repressed faithful servants of the Tsar’s Family and other Members of the Romanov . Official site of the Russian Imperial House (October 30, 2009). Date of treatment May 9, 2013. Archived May 11, 2013.
- ↑ The Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation rehabilitated close associates of the Romanov imperial family
- ↑ Vinogradov, S. Martyr Anna on Sovetsky Prospekt // Speech . - No. 39 (23186). - March 3, 2012.
Literature
- Chernova O. V. Faithful to death. On the loyal subjects of the Sovereign. - St. Petersburg: Satis, 2007 .-- 173 p. ISBN 5-7868-0081-6
- Chernova O. V. Faithful. About those who did not betray the Royal Martyrs. - M .: Russian chronograph, 2010 .-- 576 p. - 6000 copies. - ISBN 5-85134-123-8 .
- Ioffe G. Endured to the end // New Journal. - 2008. - No. 251.
- Kovalevskaya O.T. With the Tsar and For the Tsar. Martyr's crown of royal servants. - M .: Russian Chronograph, 2008 .-- 416 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 5-85134-121-1 .
- Stepanova I. “Draw at least a postcard ...” // Spark. - 1996. - No. 30 (July 23).
Links
- K.F. n Lukashevsky E. Royal servants