Grande Duke Nikolay Nikolayevich, His Spouse Laid to Rest at WWII Memorial Chapel

Interfax ^ | 5/5/15

[marshmallow]

Moscow, May 5, Interfax - The remains of Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolayevich Romanov and his spouse Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolayevna have been reburied in Moscow to the sound of funeral tunes and artillery gun firings.

The remains of the princely couple arrived from France on April 27 and were reburied at the Chapel of the Transfiguration at a military cemetery in the Russian capital.

"The Duke and the Duchess have returned to their Homeland, their names are acquiring a worthy place in the Russian public memory," State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin, who chairs the Russian Historical Society, said at the ceremony. It is impossible to overestimate the merits of the Duke as a military man and a statesman, the supreme commander-in-chief of all land and naval forces of the Russian Empire, he said.

"During the First World War, the name of the Grand Duke became a symbol for Russian soldiers and generals and our allies, for the Russian society and everyone who linked their national liberation to Russia's victories," Naryshkin said. That Nikolay Nikolayevich spent the last years of his life in France is "symbolical" because the French "were well aware and remembered how the braveness of Russian soldiers on the eastern front helped prevent the enemy from taking Paris," Naryshkin said.

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, performed a liturgy, following which the coffins with the remains of the Grand Duke and his wife were laid to rest at the chapel.

The ritual took place at the Memorial Park of the First World War Heroes.

Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolayevich Jr. (1856-1929) was a grandson of Emperor Nicholas I. At the beginning of WWI he served as the Supreme Commander-in-chief of the land and naval forces of the Russian Empire until he was replaced by Nicholas II. Nikolay Nikolayevich lived in Italy from April 1919 before moving to France where he headed up the Russian Soldiers Union. The grand duke died at his villa on the French Riviera in 1929 and was buried at the crypt at the St. Michael the Archangel Church in Cannes.

[C19fan]

One of the most bone headed decisions on the part of Tsar Nicholas II was replacing the Grand Duke as Commander-in-Chief with himself.

[Leaning Right]

Grand Duke Nicholas was not a military genius. But he was tough, smart, and greatly respected by the troops. It is is a real shame for Russia - and Europe - that he was not Tsar when the Revolution broke out.

[Verginius Rufus]

According to the historian Paul Kennedy, Tsar Nicholas II was a Potemkin village in person. But it is still shameful that he was not allowed to leave Russia after his abdication. Even the Kaiser was allowed to live out his life in exile.

[NRx]

Memory eternal!

[CorporateStepsister]

His wife was an anti-social, neurotic who relied heavily on the fraudulent starets Rasputin. I do think that if not for her influence Nicholas II would have been more sociable, handled things better, but also less likely to make choices that he couldn't foresee the consequences of. As a ruler, his isolation was fatal to his reign.

[laconic]

Yes, instead of the stupidest and most incompetent man just running the country of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II also ran the Army and the war effort, only from Stavka which was 500 miles from the front. He fired the Grand Duke Nicholas and took his place; a habit this boob had with the competent officers on his staff, keeping on the bootlickers. The Grand Duke in Paris was a constant target for the Bolsheviks during his remaining life.

[IronJack]

the French "were well aware and remembered how the braveness of Russian soldiers on the eastern front helped prevent the enemy from taking Paris,"

Where a century before, the braveness of Russian soldiers on the eastern front helped prevent the French from taking Moscow ...

[Verginius Rufus]

So wives often make bad rulers worse?

Let's see: Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, Alexandra and Nicholas II, Eleanor and Franklin, Hillary and Bill, Michelle and Barack...

Rachel Jackson is off the hook for anything done by King Andrew I.

[Conan the Librarian]

Difference between what happened in Germany vs what happened in Russia. In Russia the Communist took over. In Germany, the navy mutinied, the infrastructure collapsed, but, the core of civilization remained.

That, and the Russian tradition of killing off Tzars that were unpopular, that’s the reason.

[Paid_Russian_Troll]

You said it like if killing tyrants is a bad thing.

[Conan the Librarian]

OH, it’s a good thing, but, not all the Tzars that were killed off were tyrants...just most.

Even so, if Nicholas was a tyrant, he children weren’t.