Famous Landmarks of St. Petersburg I Yusupov Palace 

I have a first edition of Lost Splendour which I keep safely tucked away. I have downloaded it from the internet to read on my own. I am fascinated by the Yusupovs.

It runs behind the Yusupov Palace.

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The suffixes “-ovna” or “-evna” mean “daughter of”, and “-vich” means “son of”-they are what is called a patronymic. So the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas II was officially Anastasia Nicolaevna. His only son was Alexis Nicolaevich. Nicholas himself was Nicholas Alexandrovich, since his father was Alexander. Empresses were also required to convert to the Russian orthodox religion. Their studies were supervised by high ranking priests, but presumed to be guided and blessed by Saint Theodora. In Russian she is referred to as Feodorovna...hence the assigned patronymic. Alexandra could not have used her actual fathers name for her patronymic, since he was named Louis, and that’s not a Russian name! Hope this helps!

@@giorgioarturociompi9313 Thank you very much for the information! I knew the suffixes "-ovna" and "-evna" for daughters of the czar - although I never understood what differentiates them - and "-vich", but the "Feodorovna" had always baffled me. I had asked several Russians, but none of them were helpful; they didn't know either!

There are a couple of ‘layers’ to this question, each of which needs to be addressed in turn in order to give a comprehensive answer (so please forgive in advance the length of this reply). In a nutshell, foreign-born Russian empresses were known as X + Fyodorovna (where X stands for the given name) because they had to have a name that complied with the requirements of the Russian Orthodox Church as they were before the Revolution of 1917. Let’s now ‘unravel’ that in small, bite-sized pieces: (1) Russians, both then and today, are often referred to in a semi-formal way composed of their given name and their patronymic. The patronymic is a second or ‘middle’ name but, unlike ‘middle’ names in the West, the parents do not have a choice in what ‘middle’ name to give to their child: instead, all patronymics are formed on the basis of, and determined by, the name of the father plus a patronymic ending, which is -(e)vich or -(o)vich for males (‘son of’) and -evna or -ovna for females (‘daughter of’’), hence Ivan Vladimirovich is ‘Ivan, son of Vladimir’ and Maria Vladimirovna is ‘Maria, daughter of Vladimir’. As mentioned, how the patronymic is formed is not a matter of choice but is determined by the name of the father of the child in question. All Russians, regardless of social background, can be addressed in this semi-formal way by using the the given name and patronymic: it is more formal than addressing someone by his or her given name alone (’Ivan‘, ‘Maria’’), but less formal and more personable than addressing someone by his or her surname (‘Mr.’ or ‘Monsieur Tchaikovsky’, ‘Mrs’. or ‘Madame Tchaikovskaya’). Traditionally, therefore, all Russians have a given name and a patronymic. (2) In Tsarist times, the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia was subordinate to the Tsar. Therefore, all reigning Russian emperors and their spouses as empresses were required to be adherents to the Russian Orthodox faith. Almost all of the empresses of Russia from the 1700’s onwards were from foreign (usually German) royalty or aristocracy, hence they converted to Russian Orthodoxy immediately before marriage into the Russian imperial family. Not all of the foreign-born princesses who married into the Russian imperial family actually did convert, but anyone who married a Russian grand duke who was in the line of succession to the Russian imperial throne was required to do so. This is what happened to the last two reigning empresses of Russia, both of whom married the then heir to the throne and later Emperor of Russia: Princess Dagmar of Denmark (became Empress Maria Fyodorovna of Russia) and Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine (became Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna of Russia). (3) Adherents to the Russian Orthodox faith are required, at least for baptismal purposes, to have a given name that is selected from an approved list of given names that are recognised by the Church (basically, saints’ names). This limits the given names under which adherents to the Russian Orthodox faith can be baptised (it also in effect limits the patronymics that can be used by adherents to the Russian Orthodox faith, remembering of course that patronymics are formed from given names). In the case of Princess Dagmar, her originally Danish given name was changed upon her religious conversion to the acceptably Orthodox ‘Maria’, and, in the case of Princess Alix, her originally German given name was changed upon her religious conversion to the acceptably Orthodox ‘Alexandra’. As newly converted adherents to the Russian Orthodox faith, both of these foreign-born princesses had to have a patronymic in addition to a given name. However, in neither case did they have fathers whose own given name was acceptable to the Russian Orthodox Church (being ‘Christian’ and ‘Louis’, respectively). In such cases where a patronymic in conformity with the rules of the Russian Orthodox Church could not be given, the convention was that foreign-born princesses, upon conversion to the Russian Orthodox faith, would be given the ‘deemed’ patronymic of Fyodorovna - ‘daughter of Fyodor’, where ‘Fyodor’ is the Russian rendering of ‘Theodore’. Why ‘Fyodor’? Because it ís one of the given names on the ‘approved list’ of the Russian Orthodox Church and because of its intrinsic meaning in its original Greek - ‘gift from God’. And that, in a nutshell, is how Dagmar of Denmark and Alix of Hesse and by Rhine became Maria Fyodorovna of Russia and Alexandra Fyodorovna of Russia, respectively.

I sent you a thank you note some days ago but I am not sure if you received it; could you please confirm?

@@eoghannp8619 Thank you! You explained it thoroughly and clearly.

Bi