Anna Demidova

Infobox Person
name = Anna Stepanovna Demidova


image_size = 180px
caption = Anna Demidova
birth_date = 1878
birth_place = Russia
death_date = death date|1918|7|17|mf=y
death_place = Ekaterinburg, Russia
occupation = Chamber maid
parents = Stepan Demidov, father.

Anna Stepanovna Demidova, (1878 - July 17, 1918) was a chambermaid for Tsarina Alexandra of Russia.

She shared the Romanov family's exile at Tobolsk and Ekaterinburg following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and was murdered with them on July 17, 1918. Like them, she was canonized as a martyr by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in 1981 as a victim of Soviet oppression.

Life

Demidova, whose nickname was "Nyuta," was described as a "tall, statuesque blonde." [King, Greg, and Wilson, Penny, The Fate of the Romanovs, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2003, ISBN 0-471-20768-3, pp. 63-64] She was the daughter of Stepan Demidov, a well-off merchant from Cherepovets. Demidova graduated from the Yaroslavl Institute for Maids with a teaching certificate. [cite web | author= | year=| title="Anna Stepanovna Demidova," a thread at Alexanderpalace.org | work= alexanderpalace.org | url=http://forum.alexanderpalace.org/index.php/topic,4110.0.html| accessdate= February 25| accessyear=2007]

She was a good friend of Elizaveta Ersberg, a parlormaid at the court, and was once engaged to Ersberg's brother Nikolai. In 1900 Ersberg secured her friend a position at the court. During her service at the Romanov court as a chambermaid, Demidova became smitten with the Romanov children's English tutor Charles Sydney Gibbes. Unbeknown to her, he was a homosexual. In his memoirs, Gibbes described Demidova as "of a singularly timid and shrinking disposition." [King, Greg, and Wilson, Penny, The Fate of the Romanovs, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2003, ISBN 0-471-20768-3, pp. 63-64]

Exile and death

Demidova accompanied Tsarina Alexandra, Tsar Nicholas II, and Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia when they were transferred to Ekaterinburg from Tobolsk in April 1918. The remaining Romanov children and other members of the group stayed behind in Tobolsk for a month because the Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia was ill. As the group left, Demidova told Gibbes, "I am so frightened of the Bolsheviks, Mr. Gibbes. I don't know what they will do to us." [King and Wilson, p. 87]

On the night of the murder, the family was awakened and told to dress. Demidova carried two pillows into which gems had been sewed. Demidova, who had fainted after being shot in the leg, revived and, finding herself still alive, exclaimed "Thank God! God has saved me!" Hearing her, the assassins turned on her. Screaming and crying, she attempted to defend herself, but was eventually cut down. [King and Wilson, p. 311]

Funeral

Demidova's great-niece, Natalie Demidova, attended the funeral held on July 17, 1998 in Peter and Paul Cathedral in St.Petersburg for Demidova, the Romanov family, and other victims killed by the Bolsheviks eighty years earlier. [cite web | author= | year=1998| title="17 July 1998: The funeral of Tsar Nicholas II | work= romanovfundforrussia.org| url=http://www.romanovfundforrussia.org/family/funeral.html| accessdate= February 28| accessyear=2007]

Notes

ee also

*Romanov sainthood