WI: One Grand Duchess lives to see fall of Soviet Union

NibiruMul

NibiruMul

This is another post about the Romanovs surviving.

In this timeline, only Nicholas and Alexandra were killed, while the children (Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) are spared and flee to Denmark with their grandmother, the Dowager Empress Marie. Marie dies in 1928 just like in the regular timeline. Alexei is dead by his 40th birthday due to complications from hemophilia, but Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia all make it to their 65th birthdays. One of the sisters is lucky enough to be still alive when the Soviet Union collapses towards the end of 1991. She is invited to see Russia again, but her advanced age prevents her from visiting. Whoever she is, she doesn't live too much longer and dies a few years later. (The other three sisters are all dead by 1983.)

Which Grand Duchess do you think would have been the most likely to live to see the fall of the Soviet Union? How do you think she would react to seeing the fall of the Soviet Union (assuming her memory is still good)?
 
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Lalli

In theory anyone of Nicky's daughters could live long enough to see collapse of USSR altough they all would be incredible old and even yoiungest one Anastasia would had turned 90 in 1991.

Hard to say anything about that last one's reactions assuming that she hasn't gone totally senile. Perhaps she could try speak for restoration of monarchy. But it much depends what kind of life she has spent and what are her views about Russia.
 

Vaporized

Banned
She becomes one of the richest women in the world. Her great grand children serve as the constitutional monarchs of the Russian Federation after the fall of the Soviet Union.
 

Lalli

Vaporized said:
She becomes one of the richest women in the world. Her great grand children serve as the constitutional monarchs of the Russian Federation after the fall of the Soviet Union.
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I can't see restoration of monarchy happening. And remember that Russian Empire had agnatic succession so women can't become monarchs.
 

dcontreras

Lalli said:
I can't see restoration of monarchy happening. And remember that Russian Empire had agnatic succession so women can't become monarchs.
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Don't forget, regardless of whether a monarchy restoration had a chance or not, most likely, if Alexi dies at age 40, he may have married and had sons of his own.
 

Vaporized

Banned
Lalli said:
I can't see restoration of monarchy happening. And remember that Russian Empire had agnatic succession so women can't become monarchs.
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That was the old Russia. This is the new, moderate post-Soviet Russia. Plus, who says she doesn't have a son.
 

Lalli

dcontreras said:
Don't forget, regardless of whether a monarchy restoration had a chance or not, most likely, if Alexi dies at age 40, he may have married and had sons of his own.
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True. If Alexei lives at age of 40 him might has at least one legimitate child.

Vaporized said:
That was the old Russia. This is the new, moderate post-Soviet Russia. Plus, who says she doesn't have a son.
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Well, it is possible that Duma changes law of succession but it is quiet rare that line of succession is changed retroactively.

But it is still very implausible that monarchy is restored. It is quiet badly discredited no matter is there last tsar's grandchildren or not. We haven't seen other restorations in East Europe too so Russia seems implausible too.
 

cra0422

Lalli said:
I can't see restoration of monarchy happening. And remember that Russian Empire had agnatic succession so women can't become monarchs.
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I agree. Plus don't forget that the Nicholas II's reign had left a really bad taste in the mouths of the Russian people of the time and 74 years of Soviet propaganda against the Tsar would definitely work against a restoration.
 

kruscica

cra0422 said:
I agree. Plus don't forget that the Nicholas II's reign had left a really bad taste in the mouths of the Russian people of the time and 74 years of Soviet propaganda against the Tsar would definitely work against a restoration.
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I think it more likely that the Grand Duchesses are turned over to the Soviets by the Americans and shot as ‘traitors to the motherland’, war criminals and nazis, just like any number of the White exiles who were hunted down in the 20s and 30s by the NKVD, found themselves in France under German occupation, were offered the chance to help liberate their homeland, and were handed over to the Soviets for liquidation despite not being Soviet citizens (having left Russia during the Civil War or been born in exile). It would fit with the murky views of the Anglo-Saxons in those years - criticise the Soviets in 1944-5 and be imprisoned as a traitor, defend the Soviets in 1946 and be imprisoned as a traitor - be consistent with American anti-imperialism and anti-monarchism, and avoid the discomfiture of the English Royals toward their German origins and foreign relatives (and that they’d allowed Nicky and Alix to be killed).

Alternately perhaps the Russians win their liberation struggle by eliminating the communists before turning on the Germans due to the Germans Ill-treating them. Without the Soviets a Slovak and Polish Uprising that fails but does not result in Communist control but rather democracy much like Eastern Europe was liberated from German control by the Versailles Treaty revoking Brest-Litovsk.
 

Thomas Jefferson

The most likely candidate to be alive by 1989 is Anastasia, who would have been 88, although any of the Tsar's daughters could have lived into their late 80s or early 90s (By way of comparison, Queen Mother of the UK who was born between Maria and Anastasia lived until 2002). It's unlikely that they would make any serious attempt to restore the monarchy, but they probably would have been overjoyed to see the fall of the USSR, and may have given some public support to Yeltsin. If the surviving Duchess's health permitted, she would likely travel to Russia at some point, but not live there, and if she lived until 1998, she would have participated in the reinterment of the tsar's remains.
 
Alcsentre Calanice

Alcsentre Calanice

Gone Fishin'
Thomas Jefferson said:
By organizing a coup against her husband, having Ivan VI killed before rebels could break him out of prison and set him up as a rival claimant to the throne, and keeping her son isolated.
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Yes, but were women in Russia really completly excluded from the throne, or were they just disregarded as long as there was a male heir?
 
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