Danes Bid Farewell to Russian Czarina Maria Feodorovna, aka, Princess/Empress Dagmar
Hoodoo
September 23, 2006
By JAN M. OLSEN, Associated Press Writer
http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-denmark-czarinas-reburial,0,7776274.story
COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Czarina Maria Feodorovna's descendants joined
Danish royals, officials and dignitaries Saturday to bid farewell to
the mother of Russia's last emperor, 78 years after she died in exile
in Denmark.
The casket of the Danish-born Feodorovna -- who was Princess Dagmar
before marrying Czar Alexander III -- was then paraded through the
Danish capital before being put on a ship to St. Petersburg. The casket
will be buried alongside relatives at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in
the former Russian imperial capital, where a ceremony is planned next
week.
"Empress Dagmar now will be begin her final journey to the country she
loved so much," Paul Kulikovsky said about his great-great-grandmother
during the solemn ceremony at the Roskilde Cathedral, west of
Copenhagen. Feodorovna is known in Denmark as Empress Dagmar.
Her descendants, including members from the Kulikovsky and Romanov
families, sat on the right side of the coffin draped in a yellow
Russian imperial flag inside the cathedral. On the left sat Denmark's
Queen Margrethe, Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary, among
other members of the royal family.
A Russian government delegation, headed by Culture Minister Alexander
Sokolov and deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov, also attended the
ceremony in the 12th century red-brick cathedral.
To end the 50-minute Lutheran service, Royal Chaplain Christian
Thodberg asked for "peace to shine over Empress Dagmar."
Ten officers from Denmark's Royal Life Guard and the Russian
Presidential Guard then carried the coffin out of the cathedral 25
miles west of Copenhagen, where Maria Feodorovna's casket has been
resting alongside Danish kings and queens since her death in 1928.
A hearse took the remains to Copenhagen, where it was transferred to an
open horse-drawn carriage that was escorted by a mounted army regiment
through the city. Outside Copenhagen's Russian Alexander Nevski church,
orthodox priests stood on the sidewalk burning incense and chanting
prayers for the dead.
The coffin was then taken to the harbor and put aboard a Danish navy
support ship that left Copenhagen shortly after. It is due to arrive in
St. Petersburg on Sept. 26, and a ceremony is planned in the Russian
city two days later.
Since the end of the Cold War, the Romanov family have been working for
the remains of Maria Feodorovna to be sent to Russia.
Born in 1847 as Princess Dagmar, the daughter of Denmark's King
Christian IX and Queen Louise, she converted from the Lutheran Church
to the Russian Orthodox faith when she married Alexander. The couple
had six children, including Nicholas II, who became czar in 1894 and
was executed a year after the Bolshevik revolution.
Nicholas II and his family were killed in 1918, 16 months after he
abdicated the throne. His remains were ceremoniously buried in 1998 in
St. Petersburg.
Feodorovna fled St. Petersburg in 1917 and reached Copenhagen through
the Crimean Peninsula and London.
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