title: Palladium

text: When it is finely divided, as with palladium on carbon, palladium forms a versatile catalyst; it speeds heterogeneous catalytic processes like hydrogenation, dehydrogenation, and petroleum cracking. Palladium is also essential to the Lindlar catalyst, also called Lindlar's Palladium. A large number of carbon–carbon bonding reactions in organic chemistry are facilitated by palladium compound catalysts. For example:


title: Palladium

text: When dispersed on conductive materials, palladium is an excellent electrocatalyst for oxidation of primary alcohols in alkaline media. Palladium is also a versatile metal for homogeneous catalysis, used in combination with a broad variety of ligands for highly selective chemical transformations.


title: Palladium

text: In 2010 the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded "for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis" to Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki. A 2008 study showed that palladium is an effective catalyst for carbon-fluorine bonds.


title: Palladium

text: Palladium catalysis is primarily employed in organic chemistry and industrial applications, although its use is growing as a tool for synthetic biology; in 2017, effective "in vivo" catalytic activity of palladium nanoparticles was demonstrated in mammals to treat disease.


title: Palladium

text: The primary application of palladium in electronics is in multi-layer ceramic capacitors in which palladium (and palladium-silver alloy) is used for electrodes. Palladium (sometimes alloyed with nickel) is or can be used for component and connector plating in consumer electronics and in soldering materials. The electronic sector consumed of palladium in 2006, according to a Johnson Matthey report.


title: Palladium

text: Hydrogen easily diffuses through heated palladium, and membrane reactors with Pd membranes are used in the production of high purity hydrogen. Palladium is used in palladium-hydrogen electrodes in electrochemical studies. Palladium(II) chloride readily catalyzes carbon monoxide gas to carbon dioxide and is useful in carbon monoxide detectors.


title: Palladium

text: Palladium readily adsorbs hydrogen at room temperatures, forming palladium hydride PdH with x less than 1. While this property is common to many transition metals, palladium has a uniquely high absorption capacity and does not lose its ductility until x approaches 1. This property has been investigated in designing an efficient, inexpensive, and safe hydrogen fuel storage medium, though palladium itself is currently prohibitively expensive for this purpose. The content of hydrogen in palladium can be linked to magnetic susceptibility, which decreases with the increase of hydrogen and becomes zero for PdH. At any higher ratio, the solid solution becomes diamagnetic.


title: Palladium

text: Palladium is used in small amounts (about 0.5%) in some alloys of dental amalgam to decrease corrosion and increase the metallic lustre of the final restoration.


title: Palladium

text: Palladium has been used as a precious metal in jewelry since 1939 as an alternative to platinum in the alloys called "white gold", where the naturally white color of palladium does not require rhodium plating. Palladium is much less dense than platinum. Similar to gold, palladium can be beaten into leaf as thin as 100 nm ( in). Unlike platinum, palladium may discolor at temperatures above due to oxidation, making it more brittle and thus less suitable for use in jewelry; to prevent this, palladium intended for jewelry is heated under controlled conditions.


title: Palladium

text: Prior to 2004, the principal use of palladium in jewelry was the manufacture of white gold. Palladium is one of the three most popular alloying metals in white gold (nickel and silver can also be used). Palladium-gold is more expensive than nickel-gold, but seldom causes allergic reactions (though certain cross-allergies with nickel may occur).


title: Palladium

text: When platinum became a strategic resource during World War II, many jewelry bands were made out of palladium. Palladium was little used in jewelry because of the technical difficulty of casting. With the casting problem resolved the use of palladium in jewelry increased, originally because platinum increased in price while the price of palladium decreased. In early 2004, when gold and platinum prices rose steeply, China began fabricating volumes of palladium jewelry, consuming 37 tonnes in 2005. Subsequent changes in the relative price of platinum lowered demand for palladium to 17.4 tonnes in 2009. Demand for palladium as a catalyst has increased the price of palladium to about 50% higher than that of platinum in January 2019.


title: Palladium

text: In January 2010, hallmarks for palladium were introduced by assay offices in the United Kingdom, and hallmarking became mandatory for all jewelry advertising pure or alloyed palladium. Articles can be marked as 500, 950, or 999 parts of palladium per thousand of the alloy.


title: Palladium

text: Fountain pen nibs made from gold are sometimes plated with palladium when a silver (rather than gold) appearance is desired. Sheaffer has used palladium plating for decades, either as an accent on otherwise gold nibs or covering the gold completely.


title: Palladium

text: Palladium is also used by the luxury brand Hermes as one of the metals plating the hardware on their handbags, most famous of which being the highly sought after Birkin.


title: Palladium

text: In the platinotype printing process, photographers make fine-art black-and-white prints using platinum or palladium salts. Often used with platinum, palladium provides an alternative to silver.


title: Palladium

text: Palladium is a metal with low toxicity as conventionally measured (e.g. LD). Recent research on the mechanism of palladium toxicity suggests high toxicity if measured on a longer timeframe and at the cellular level in the liver and kidney. Mitochondria appear to have a key role in palladium toxicity via mitochondrial membrane potential collapse and depletion of the cellular glutathione (GSH) level. Until that recent work, it had been thought that palladium was poorly absorbed by the human body when ingested. Plants such as the water hyacinth are killed by low levels of palladium salts, but most other plants tolerate it, although tests show that, at levels above 0.0003%, growth is affected. High doses of palladium could be poisonous; tests on rodents suggest it may be carcinogenic, though until the recent research cited above, no clear evidence indicated that the element harms humans.


title: Palladium

text: Like other platinum-group metals, bulk Pd is quite inert. Although contact dermatitis has been reported, data on the effects are limited. It has been shown that people with an allergic reaction to palladium also react to nickel, making it advisable to avoid the use of dental alloys containing palladium on those so allergic.


title: Palladium

text: Some palladium is emitted with the exhaust gases of cars with catalytic converters. Between 4 and 108 ng/km of palladium particulate is released by such cars, while the total uptake from food is estimated to be less than 2 µg per person a day. The second possible source of palladium is dental restoration, from which the uptake of palladium is estimated to be less than 15 µg per person per day. People working with palladium or its compounds might have a considerably greater uptake. For soluble compounds such as palladium chloride, 99% is eliminated from the body within 3 days.


title: Palladium

text: The median lethal dose (LD) of soluble palladium compounds in mice is 200 mg/kg for oral and 5 mg/kg for intravenous administration.


title: Palladium

text: William Hyde Wollaston noted the discovery of a new noble metal in July 1802 in his lab book and named it palladium in August of the same year. Wollaston purified a quantity of the material and offered it, without naming the discoverer, in a small shop in Soho in April 1803. After harsh criticism from Richard Chenevix, who claimed that palladium was an alloy of platinum and mercury, Wollaston anonymously offered a reward of £20 for 20 grains of synthetic palladium "alloy". Chenevix received the Copley Medal in 1803 after he published his experiments on palladium. Wollaston published the discovery of rhodium in 1804 and mentions some of his work on palladium. He disclosed that he was the discoverer of palladium in a publication in 1805.


title: Palladium

text: It was named by Wollaston in 1802 after the asteroid 2 Pallas, which had been discovered two months earlier. Wollaston found palladium in crude platinum ore from South America by dissolving the ore in aqua regia, neutralizing the solution with sodium hydroxide, and precipitating platinum as ammonium chloroplatinate with ammonium chloride. He added mercuric cyanide to form the compound palladium(II) cyanide, which was heated to extract palladium metal.


title: Palladium

text: Palladium chloride was at one time prescribed as a tuberculosis treatment at the rate of 0.065 g per day (approximately one milligram per kilogram of body weight). This treatment had many negative side-effects, and was later replaced by more effective drugs.


title: Palladium

text: Most palladium is used for catalytic converters in the automobile industry. Catalytic converters are targets for thieves because they contain palladium and other rare metals. In the run up to year 2000, the Russian supply of palladium to the global market was repeatedly delayed and disrupted; for political reasons, the export quota was not granted on time. The ensuing market panic drove the price to an all-time high of in January 2001. Around that time, the Ford Motor Company, fearing that automobile production would be disrupted by a palladium shortage, stockpiled the metal. When prices fell in early 2001, Ford lost nearly US$1 billion.


title: Palladium

text: World demand for palladium increased from 100 tons in 1990 to nearly 300 tons in 2000. The global production of palladium from mines was 222 tonnes in 2006 according to the United States Geological Survey. Many were concerned about a steady supply of palladium in the wake of Russia's annexation of Crimea, partly as sanctions could hamper Russian palladium exports; any restrictions on Russian palladium exports could have exacerbated what was already expected to be a large palladium deficit in 2014. Those concerns pushed palladium prices to their highest level since 2001. In September 2014 they soared above the $900 per ounce mark. In 2016 however palladium cost around $614 per ounce as Russia managed to maintain stable supplies. In January 2019 palladium futures climbed past $1,344 per ounce for the first time on record, mainly due to the strong demand from the automotive industry. Palladium reached on 6 January 2020, passing $2,000 per troy ounce the first time. The price rose above $3,000 per troy ounce in May 2021 and March 2022.


title: Palladium

text: Global palladium sales were 8.84 million ounces (250.6 tonnes) in 2017, of which 86% was used in the manufacturing of automotive catalytic converters, followed by industrial, jewelry, and investment usages. More than 75% of global platinum and 40% of palladium are mined in South Africa. Russia's mining company, Norilsk Nickel, produces another 44% of palladium, with US and Canada-based mines producing most of the rest.


title: Palladium

text: The price for palladium reached an all-time high of $2,981.40 per ounce on May 3, 2021 driven mainly on speculation of the catalytic converter demand from the automobile industry. Palladium is traded in the spot market with the code "XPD". When settled in USD, the code is "XPDUSD". A later surplus of the metal was caused by the Russian government selling stockpiles from the Soviet Era, at a rate of about 1.6 to 2 million ounces (45.4 to 56.7 t) a year. The amount and status of this stockpile are a state secret.


title: Palladium

text: During the Russo-Ukrainian War in March 2022, prices for palladium increased 13%, since the first of March. Russia is the primary supplier to Europe and the country supplies 37% of the global production.


title: Palladium

text: WisdomTree Physical Palladium () is backed by allocated palladium bullion and was the world's first palladium ETF. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange as PHPD, Xetra Trading System, Euronext and Milan. ETFS Physical Palladium Shares () is an ETF traded on the New York Stock Exchange.


title: Palladium

text: A traditional way of investing in palladium is buying bullion coins and bars made of palladium. Available palladium coins include the Canadian Palladium Maple Leaf, the Chinese Panda, and the American Palladium Eagle. The liquidity of direct palladium bullion investment is poorer than that of gold and silver because there is low circulation of palladium coins.


title: Intellectual property

text: Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. The modern concept of intellectual property developed in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. The term "intellectual property" began to be used in the 19th century, though it was not until the late 20th century that intellectual property became commonplace in the majority of the world's legal systems.


title: Intellectual property

text: The main purpose of intellectual property law is to encourage the creation of a wide variety of intellectual goods. To achieve this, the law gives people and businesses property rights to the information and intellectual goods they create, usually for a limited period of time. This gives economic incentive for their creation, because it allows people to benefit from the information and intellectual goods they create, and allows them to protect their ideas and prevent copying. These economic incentives are expected to stimulate innovation and contribute to the technological progress of countries, which depends on the extent of protection granted to innovators.


title: Intellectual property

text: The intangible nature of intellectual property presents difficulties when compared with traditional property like land or goods. Unlike traditional property, intellectual property is "indivisible", since an unlimited number of people can "consume" an intellectual good without its being depleted. Additionally, investments in intellectual goods suffer from problems of appropriation: Landowners can surround their land with a robust fence and hire armed guards to protect it, but producers of information or literature can usually do little to stop their first buyer from replicating it and selling it at a lower price. Balancing rights so that they are strong enough to encourage the creation of intellectual goods but not so strong that they prevent the goods' wide use is the primary focus of modern intellectual property law.


title: Intellectual property

text: The Statute of Monopolies (1624) and the British Statute of Anne (1710) are seen as the origins of patent law and copyright respectively, firmly establishing the concept of intellectual property.


title: Intellectual property

text: "Literary property" was the term predominantly used in the British legal debates of the 1760s and 1770s over the extent to which authors and publishers of works also had rights deriving from the common law of property ("Millar v Taylor" (1769), "Hinton v Donaldson" (1773), "Donaldson v Becket" (1774)). The first known use of the term "intellectual property" dates to this time, when a piece published in the "Monthly Review" in 1769 used the phrase. The first clear example of modern usage goes back as early as 1808, when it was used as a heading title in a collection of essays.


title: Intellectual property

text: The German equivalent was used with the founding of the North German Confederation whose constitution granted legislative power over the protection of intellectual property ("Schutz des geistigen Eigentums") to the confederation. When the administrative secretariats established by the Paris Convention (1883) and the Berne Convention (1886) merged in 1893, they located in Berne, and also adopted the term intellectual property in their new combined title, the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property.


title: Intellectual property

text: The organization subsequently relocated to Geneva in 1960 and was succeeded in 1967 with the establishment of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) by treaty as an agency of the United Nations. According to legal scholar Mark Lemley, it was only at this point that the term really began to be used in the United States (which had not been a party to the Berne Convention), and it did not enter popular usage there until passage of the Bayh–Dole Act in 1980.


title: Intellectual property

text: The history of patents does not begin with inventions, but rather with royal grants by Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) for monopoly privileges. Approximately 200 years after the end of Elizabeth's reign, however, a patent represents a legal right obtained by an inventor providing for exclusive control over the production and sale of his mechanical or scientific invention. demonstrating the evolution of patents from royal prerogative to common-law doctrine.


title: Intellectual property

text: The term can be found used in an October 1845 Massachusetts Circuit Court ruling in the patent case "Davoll et al. v. Brown", in which Justice Charles L. Woodbury wrote that "only in this way can we protect intellectual property, the labors of the mind, productions and interests are as much a man's own ... as the wheat he cultivates, or the flocks he rears." The statement that "discoveries are ... property" goes back earlier. Section 1 of the French law of 1791 stated, "All new discoveries are the property of the author; to assure the inventor the property and temporary enjoyment of his discovery, there shall be delivered to him a patent for five, ten or fifteen years." In Europe, French author A. Nion mentioned "propriété intellectuelle" in his "Droits civils des auteurs, artistes et inventeurs", published in 1846.


title: Intellectual property

text: Until recently, the purpose of intellectual property law was to give as little protection as possible in order to encourage innovation. Historically, therefore, legal protection was granted only when necessary to encourage invention, and it was limited in time and scope. This is mainly as a result of knowledge being traditionally viewed as a public good, in order to allow its extensive dissemination and improvement.


title: Intellectual property

text: The concept's origin can potentially be traced back further. Jewish law includes several considerations whose effects are similar to those of modern intellectual property laws, though the notion of intellectual creations as property does not seem to exist — notably the principle of Hasagat Ge'vul (unfair encroachment) was used to justify limited-term publisher (but not author) copyright in the 16th century. In 500 BCE, the government of the Greek state of Sybaris offered one year's patent "to all who should discover any new refinement in luxury".


title: Intellectual property

text: According to Jean-Frédéric Morin, "the global intellectual property regime is currently in the midst of a paradigm shift". Indeed, up until the early 2000s the global IP regime used to be dominated by high standards of protection characteristic of IP laws from Europe or the United States, with a vision that uniform application of these standards over every country and to several fields with little consideration over social, cultural or environmental values or of the national level of economic development. Morin argues that "the emerging discourse of the global IP regime advocates for greater policy flexibility and greater access to knowledge, especially for developing countries." Indeed, with the Development Agenda adopted by WIPO in 2007, a set of 45 recommendations to adjust WIPO's activities to the specific needs of developing countries and aim to reduce distortions especially on issues such as patients’ access to medicines, Internet users’ access to information, farmers’ access to seeds, programmers’ access to source codes or students’ access to scientific articles. However, this paradigm shift has not yet manifested itself in concrete legal reforms at the international level.


title: Intellectual property

text: Similarly, it is based on these background that the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement requires members of the WTO to set minimum standards of legal protection, but its objective to have a “one-fits-all” protection law on Intellectual Property has been viewed with controversies regarding differences in the development level of countries. Despite the controversy, the agreement has extensively incorporated intellectual property rights into the global trading system for the first time in 1995, and has prevailed as the most comprehensive agreement reached by the world.


title: Intellectual property

text: Intellectual property rights include patents, copyright, industrial design rights, trademarks, plant variety rights, trade dress, geographical indications, and in some jurisdictions trade secrets. There are also more specialized or derived varieties of "sui generis" exclusive rights, such as circuit design rights (called mask work rights in the US), supplementary protection certificates for pharmaceutical products (after expiry of a patent protecting them), and database rights (in European law). The term "industrial property" is sometimes used to refer to a large subset of intellectual property rights including patents, trademarks, industrial designs, utility models, service marks, trade names, and geographical indications.


title: Intellectual property

text: A patent is a form of right granted by the government to an inventor or their successor-in-title, giving the owner the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering to sell, and importing an invention for a limited period of time, in exchange for the public disclosure of the invention. An invention is a solution to a specific technological problem, which may be a product or a process and generally has to fulfill three main requirements: it has to be new, not obvious and there needs to be an industrial applicability. To enrich the body of knowledge and stimulate innovation, it is an obligation for patent owners to disclose valuable information about their inventions to the public.


title: Intellectual property

text: A copyright gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Copyright may apply to a wide range of creative, intellectual, or artistic forms, or "works". Copyright does not cover ideas and information themselves, only the form or manner in which they are expressed.


title: Intellectual property

text: An industrial design right (sometimes called "design right" or "design patent") protects the visual design of objects that are not purely utilitarian. An industrial design consists of the creation of a shape, configuration or composition of pattern or color, or combination of pattern and color in three-dimensional form containing aesthetic value. An industrial design can be a two- or three-dimensional pattern used to produce a product, industrial commodity or handicraft. Generally speaking, it is what makes a product look appealing, and as such, it increases the commercial value of goods.


title: Intellectual property

text: Plant breeders' rights or plant variety rights are the rights to commercially use a new variety of a plant. The variety must amongst others be novel and distinct and for registration the evaluation of propagating material of the variety is considered.


title: Intellectual property

text: A trademark is a recognizable sign, design or expression which distinguishes products or services of a particular trader from similar products or services of other traders.


title: Intellectual property

text: Trade dress is a legal term of art that generally refers to characteristics of the visual and aesthetic appearance of a product or its packaging (or even the design of a building) that signify the source of the product to consumers.


title: Intellectual property

text: A trade secret is a formula, practice, process, design, instrument, pattern, or compilation of information which is not generally known or reasonably ascertainable, by which a business can obtain an economic advantage over competitors and customers. There is no formal government protection granted; each business must take measures to guard its own trade secrets (e.g., Formula of its soft drinks is a trade secret for Coca-Cola.)


title: Intellectual property

text: The main purpose of intellectual property law is to encourage the creation of a wide variety of intellectual goods for consumers. To achieve this, the law gives people and businesses property rights to the information and intellectual goods they create, usually for a limited period of time. Because they can then profit from them, this gives economic incentive for their creation. The intangible nature of intellectual property presents difficulties when compared with traditional property like land or goods. Unlike traditional property, intellectual property is indivisible – an unlimited number of people can "consume" an intellectual good without it being depleted. Additionally, investments in intellectual goods suffer from problems of appropriation – while a landowner can surround their land with a robust fence and hire armed guards to protect it, a producer of information or an intellectual good can usually do very little to stop their first buyer from replicating it and selling it at a lower price. Balancing rights so that they are strong enough to encourage the creation of information and intellectual goods but not so strong that they prevent their wide use is the primary focus of modern intellectual property law.


title: Intellectual property

text: By exchanging limited exclusive rights for disclosure of inventions and creative works, society and the patentee/copyright owner mutually benefit, and an incentive is created for inventors and authors to create and disclose their work. Some commentators have noted that the objective of intellectual property legislators and those who support its implementation appears to be "absolute protection". "If some intellectual property is desirable because it encourages innovation, they reason, more is better. The thinking is that creators will not have sufficient incentive to invent unless they are legally entitled to capture the full social value of their inventions". This absolute protection or full value view treats intellectual property as another type of "real" property, typically adopting its law and rhetoric. Other recent developments in intellectual property law, such as the America Invents Act, stress international harmonization. Recently there has also been much debate over the desirability of using intellectual property rights to protect cultural heritage, including intangible ones, as well as over risks of commodification derived from this possibility. The issue still remains open in legal scholarship.


title: Intellectual property

text: These exclusive rights allow owners of intellectual property to benefit from the property they have created, providing a financial incentive for the creation of an investment in intellectual property, and, in case of patents, pay associated research and development costs. In the United States Article I Section 8 Clause 8 of the Constitution, commonly called the Patent and Copyright Clause, reads; "The Congress shall have power 'To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.'" ”Some commentators, such as David Levine and Michele Boldrin, dispute this justification.


title: Intellectual property

text: In 2013 the United States Patent & Trademark Office approximated that the worth of intellectual property to the U.S. economy is more than US $5 trillion and creates employment for an estimated 18 million American people. The value of intellectual property is considered similarly high in other developed nations, such as those in the European Union. In the UK, IP has become a recognised asset class for use in pension-led funding and other types of business finance. However, in 2013, the UK Intellectual Property Office stated: "There are millions of intangible business assets whose value is either not being leveraged at all, or only being leveraged inadvertently".


title: Intellectual property

text: The WIPO treaty and several related international agreements underline that the protection of intellectual property rights is essential to maintaining economic growth. The "WIPO Intellectual Property Handbook" gives two reasons for intellectual property laws:


title: Intellectual property

text: One is to give statutory expression to the moral and economic rights of creators in their creations and the rights of the public in access to those creations. The second is to promote, as a deliberate act of Government policy, creativity and the dissemination and application of its results and to encourage fair trading which would contribute to economic and social development.


title: Intellectual property

text: The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) states that "effective enforcement of intellectual property rights is critical to sustaining economic growth across all industries and globally".


title: Intellectual property

text: Economists estimate that two-thirds of the value of large businesses in the United States can be traced to intangible assets. "IP-intensive industries" are estimated to generate 72% more value added (price minus material cost) per employee than "non-IP-intensive industries".


title: Intellectual property

text: A joint research project of the WIPO and the United Nations University measuring the impact of IP systems on six Asian countries found "a positive correlation between the strengthening of the IP system and subsequent economic growth."


title: Intellectual property

text: According to Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author". Although the relationship between intellectual property and human rights is a complex one, there are moral arguments for intellectual property.


title: Intellectual property

text: The arguments that justify intellectual property fall into three major categories. Personality theorists believe intellectual property is an extension of an individual. Utilitarians believe that intellectual property stimulates social progress and pushes people to further innovation. Lockeans argue that intellectual property is justified based on deservedness and hard work.


title: Intellectual property

text: Various moral justifications for private property can be used to argue in favor of the morality of intellectual property, such as:


title: Intellectual property

text: Lysander Spooner (1855) argues "that a man has a natural and absolute right—and if a natural and absolute, then necessarily a perpetual, right—of property, in the ideas, of which he is the discoverer or creator; that his right of property, in ideas, is intrinsically the same as, and stands on identically the same grounds with, his right of property in material things; that no distinction, of principle, exists between the two cases".


title: Intellectual property

text: Writer Ayn Rand argued in her book "" that the protection of intellectual property is essentially a moral issue. The belief is that the human mind itself is the source of wealth and survival and that all property at its base is intellectual property. To violate intellectual property is therefore no different morally than violating other property rights which compromises the very processes of survival and therefore constitutes an immoral act.


title: Intellectual property

text: Violation of intellectual property rights, called "infringement" with respect to patents, copyright, and trademarks, and "misappropriation" with respect to trade secrets, may be a breach of civil law or criminal law, depending on the type of intellectual property involved, jurisdiction, and the nature of the action.


title: Intellectual property

text: As of 2011 trade in counterfeit copyrighted and trademarked works was a $600 billion industry worldwide and accounted for 5–7% of global trade.


title: Intellectual property

text: Patent infringement typically is caused by using or selling a patented invention without permission from the patent holder, i.e. from the patent owner. The scope of the patented invention or the extent of protection is defined in the claims of the granted patent. There is safe harbor in many jurisdictions to use a patented invention for research. This safe harbor does not exist in the US unless the research is done for purely philosophical purposes, or in order to gather data in order to prepare an application for regulatory approval of a drug. In general, patent infringement cases are handled under civil law (e.g., in the United States) but several jurisdictions incorporate infringement in criminal law also (for example, Argentina, China, France, Japan, Russia, South Korea).


title: Intellectual property

text: Copyright infringement is reproducing, distributing, displaying or performing a work, or to make derivative works, without permission from the copyright holder, which is typically a publisher or other business representing or assigned by the work's creator. It is often called "piracy". While copyright is created the instant a work is fixed, generally the copyright holder can only get money damages if the owner registers the copyright. Enforcement of copyright is generally the responsibility of the copyright holder. The ACTA trade agreement, signed in May 2011 by the United States, Japan, Switzerland, and the EU, and which has not entered into force, requires that its parties add criminal penalties, including incarceration and fines, for copyright and trademark infringement, and obligated the parties to actively police for infringement. There are limitations and exceptions to copyright, allowing limited use of copyrighted works, which does not constitute infringement. Examples of such doctrines are the fair use and fair dealing doctrine.


title: Intellectual property

text: Trademark infringement occurs when one party uses a trademark that is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark owned by another party, in relation to products or services which are identical or similar to the products or services of the other party. In many countries, a trademark receives protection without registration, but registering a trademark provides legal advantages for enforcement. Infringement can be addressed by civil litigation and, in several jurisdictions, under criminal law.


title: Intellectual property

text: Trade secret misappropriation is different from violations of other intellectual property laws, since by definition trade secrets are secret, while patents and registered copyrights and trademarks are publicly available. In the United States, trade secrets are protected under state law, and states have nearly universally adopted the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. The United States also has federal law in the form of the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (), which makes the theft or misappropriation of a trade secret a federal crime. This law contains two provisions criminalizing two sorts of activity. The first, , criminalizes the theft of trade secrets to benefit foreign powers. The second, , criminalizes their theft for commercial or economic purposes. (The statutory penalties are different for the two offenses.) In Commonwealth common law jurisdictions, confidentiality and trade secrets are regarded as an equitable right rather than a property right but penalties for theft are roughly the same as in the United States.


title: Intellectual property

text: Criticism of the term "intellectual property" ranges from discussing its vagueness and abstract overreach to direct contention to the semantic validity of using words like "property" and "rights" in fashions that contradict practice and law. Many detractors think this term specially serves the doctrinal agenda of parties opposing reform in the public interest or otherwise abusing related legislations, and that it disallows intelligent discussion about specific and often unrelated aspects of copyright, patents, trademarks, etc.


title: Intellectual property

text: Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman argues that, although the term "intellectual property" is in wide use, it should be rejected altogether, because it "systematically distorts and confuses these issues, and its use was and is promoted by those who gain from this confusion". He claims that the term "operates as a catch-all to lump together disparate laws [which] originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues" and that it creates a "bias" by confusing these monopolies with ownership of limited physical things, likening them to "property rights". Stallman advocates referring to copyrights, patents and trademarks in the singular and warns against abstracting disparate laws into a collective term. He argues that "to avoid spreading unnecessary bias and confusion, it is best to adopt a firm policy not to speak or even think in terms of 'intellectual property'."


title: Intellectual property

text: Similarly, economists Boldrin and Levine prefer to use the term "intellectual monopoly" as a more appropriate and clear definition of the concept, which, they argue, is very dissimilar from property rights. They further argued that "stronger patents do little or nothing to encourage innovation", mainly explained by its tendency to create market monopolies, thereby restricting further innovations and technology transfer.


title: Intellectual property

text: On the assumption that intellectual property rights are actual rights, Stallman says that this claim does not live to the historical intentions behind these laws, which in the case of copyright served as a censorship system, and later on, a regulatory model for the printing press that may have benefited authors incidentally, but never interfered with the freedom of average readers. Still referring to copyright, he cites legal literature such as the United States Constitution and case law to demonstrate that the law is meant to be an optional and experimental bargain to temporarily trade property rights and free speech for public, not private, benefits in the form of increased artistic production and knowledge. He mentions that "if copyright were a natural right nothing could justify terminating this right after a certain period of time".


title: Intellectual property

text: Law professor, writer and political activist Lawrence Lessig, along with many other copyleft and free software activists, has criticized the implied analogy with physical property (like land or an automobile). They argue such an analogy fails because physical property is generally rivalrous while intellectual works are non-rivalrous (that is, if one makes a copy of a work, the enjoyment of the copy does not prevent enjoyment of the original). Other arguments along these lines claim that unlike the situation with tangible property, there is no natural scarcity of a particular idea or information: once it exists at all, it can be re-used and duplicated indefinitely without such re-use diminishing the original. Stephan Kinsella has objected to "intellectual property" on the grounds that the word "property" implies scarcity, which may not be applicable to ideas.


title: Intellectual property

text: Entrepreneur and politician Rickard Falkvinge and hacker Alexandre Oliva have independently compared George Orwell's fictional dialect Newspeak to the terminology used by intellectual property supporters as a linguistic weapon to shape public opinion regarding copyright debate and DRM.


title: Intellectual property

text: In civil law jurisdictions, intellectual property has often been referred to as intellectual rights, traditionally a somewhat broader concept that has included moral rights and other personal protections that cannot be bought or sold. Use of the term "intellectual rights" has declined since the early 1980s, as use of the term "intellectual property" has increased.


title: Intellectual property

text: Alternative terms "monopolies on information" and "intellectual monopoly" have emerged among those who argue against the "property" or "intellect" or "rights" assumptions, notably Richard Stallman. The backronyms "intellectual protectionism" and "intellectual poverty", whose initials are also "IP", have found supporters as well, especially among those who have used the backronym "digital restrictions management".


title: Intellectual property

text: The argument that an intellectual property right should (in the interests of better balancing of relevant private and public interests) be termed an "intellectual monopoly privilege" (IMP) has been advanced by several academics including Birgitte Andersen and Thomas Alured Faunce.


title: Intellectual property

text: Some critics of intellectual property, such as those in the free culture movement, point at intellectual monopolies as harming health (in the case of pharmaceutical patents), preventing progress, and benefiting concentrated interests to the detriment of the masses, and argue that the public interest is harmed by ever-expansive monopolies in the form of copyright extensions, software patents, and business method patents. More recently scientists and engineers are expressing concern that patent thickets are undermining technological development even in high-tech fields like nanotechnology.


title: Intellectual property

text: Petra Moser has asserted that historical analysis suggests that intellectual property laws may harm innovation:


title: Intellectual property

text: Overall, the weight of the existing historical evidence suggests that patent policies, which grant strong intellectual property rights to early generations of inventors, may discourage innovation. On the contrary, policies that encourage the diffusion of ideas and modify patent laws to facilitate entry and encourage competition may be an effective mechanism to encourage innovation.


title: Intellectual property

text: In support of that argument, Jörg Baten, Nicola Bianchi and Petra Moser find historical evidence that especially compulsory licensing – which allows governments to license patents without the consent of patent-owners – encouraged invention in Germany in the early 20th century by increasing the threat of competition in fields with low pre-existing levels of competition.


title: Intellectual property

text: Peter Drahos notes, "Property rights confer authority over resources. When authority is granted to the few over resources on which the many depend, the few gain power over the goals of the many. This has consequences for both political and economic freedom within a society."


title: Intellectual property

text: The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recognizes that conflicts may exist between the respect for and implementation of current intellectual property systems and other human rights. In 2001 the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued a document called "Human rights and intellectual property" that argued that intellectual property tends to be governed by economic goals when it should be viewed primarily as a social product; in order to serve human well-being, intellectual property systems must respect and conform to human rights laws. According to the Committee, when systems fail to do so, they risk infringing upon the human right to food and health, and to cultural participation and scientific benefits. In 2004 the General Assembly of WIPO adopted "The Geneva Declaration on the Future of the World Intellectual Property Organization" which argues that WIPO should "focus more on the needs of developing countries, and to view IP as one of many tools for development—not as an end in itself".


title: Intellectual property

text: Ethical problems are most pertinent when socially valuable goods like life-saving medicines are given IP protection. While the application of IP rights can allow companies to charge higher than the marginal cost of production in order to recoup the costs of research and development, the price may exclude from the market anyone who cannot afford the cost of the product, in this case a life-saving drug. "An IPR driven regime is therefore not a regime that is conductive to the investment of R&D of products that are socially valuable to predominately poor populations".


title: Intellectual property

text: Libertarians have differing views on intellectual property. Stephan Kinsella, an anarcho-capitalist on the right-wing of libertarianism, argues against intellectual property because allowing property rights in ideas and information creates artificial scarcity and infringes on the right to own tangible property. Kinsella uses the following scenario to argue this point:


title: Intellectual property

text: [I]magine the time when men lived in caves. One bright guy—let's call him Galt-Magnon—decides to build a log cabin on an open field, near his crops. To be sure, this is a good idea, and others notice it. They naturally imitate Galt-Magnon, and they start building their own cabins. But the first man to invent a house, according to IP advocates, would have a right to prevent others from building houses on their own land, with their own logs, or to charge them a fee if they do build houses. It is plain that the innovator in these examples becomes a partial owner of the tangible property (e.g., land and logs) of others, due not to first occupation and use of that property (for it is already owned), but due to his coming up with an idea. Clearly, this rule flies in the face of the first-user homesteading rule, arbitrarily and groundlessly overriding the very homesteading rule that is at the foundation of all property rights.


title: Intellectual property

text: If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.


title: Intellectual property

text: In 2005 the Royal Society of Arts launched the Adelphi Charter, aimed at creating an international policy statement to frame how governments should make balanced intellectual property law.


title: Intellectual property

text: Another aspect of current U.S. Intellectual Property legislation is its focus on individual and joint works; thus, copyright protection can only be obtained in 'original' works of authorship. Critics like Philip Bennet argue that this does not provide adequate protection against cultural appropriation of indigenous knowledge, for which a collective IP regime is needed.


title: Intellectual property

text: Intellectual property law has been criticized as not recognizing new forms of art such as the remix culture, whose participants often commit what technically constitutes violations of such laws, creation works such as anime music videos and others, or are otherwise subject to unnecessary burdens and limitations which prevent them from fully expressing themselves.


title: Intellectual property

text: Other criticism of intellectual property law concerns the expansion of intellectual property, both in duration and in scope.


title: Intellectual property

text: As scientific knowledge has expanded and allowed new industries to arise in fields such as biotechnology and nanotechnology, originators of technology have sought IP protection for the new technologies. Patents have been granted for living organisms, and in the United States, certain living organisms have been patentable for over a century.


title: Intellectual property

text: The increase in terms of protection is particularly seen in relation to copyright, which has recently been the subject of serial extensions in the United States and in Europe. With no need for registration or copyright notices, this is thought to have led to an increase in orphan works (copyrighted works for which the copyright owner cannot be contacted), a problem that has been noticed and addressed by governmental bodies around the world.


title: Intellectual property

text: Also with respect to copyright, the American film industry helped to change the social construct of intellectual property via its trade organization, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). In amicus briefs in important cases, in lobbying before Congress, and in its statements to the public, the MPAA has advocated strong protection of intellectual property rights. In framing its presentations, the association has claimed that people are entitled to the property that is produced by their labor. Additionally Congress's awareness of the position of the United States as the world's largest producer of films has made it convenient to expand the conception of intellectual property. These doctrinal reforms have further strengthened the industry, lending the MPAA even more power and authority.


title: Intellectual property

text: The growth of the Internet, and particularly distributed search engines like Kazaa and Gnutella, have represented a challenge for copyright policy. The Recording Industry Association of America, in particular, has been on the front lines of the fight against copyright infringement, which the industry calls "piracy". The industry has had victories against some services, including a highly publicized case against the file-sharing company Napster, and some people have been prosecuted for sharing files in violation of copyright. The electronic age has seen an increase in the attempt to use software-based digital rights management tools to restrict the copying and use of digitally based works. Laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act have been enacted that use criminal law to prevent any circumvention of software used to enforce digital rights management systems. Equivalent provisions, to prevent circumvention of copyright protection have existed in EU for some time, and are being expanded in, for example, Article 6 and 7 the Copyright Directive. Other examples are Article 7 of the Software Directive of 1991 (91/250/EEC), and the Conditional Access Directive of 1998 (98/84/EEC). This can hinder legal uses, affecting public domain works, limitations and exceptions to copyright, or uses allowed by the copyright holder. Some copyleft licenses, like the GNU GPL 3, are designed to counter this. Laws may permit circumvention under specific conditions, such as when it is necessary to achieve interoperability with the circumventor's program, or for accessibility reasons; however, distribution of circumvention tools or instructions may be illegal.


title: Intellectual property

text: In the context of trademarks, this expansion has been driven by international efforts to harmonise the definition of "trademark", as exemplified by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ratified in 1994, which formalized regulations for IP rights that had been handled by common law, or not at all, in member states. Pursuant to TRIPs, any sign which is "capable of distinguishing" the products or services of one business from the products or services of another business is capable of constituting a trademark.


title: Intellectual property

text: Intellectual property has become a core tool in corporate tax planning and tax avoidance. IP is a key component of the leading multinational tax avoidance base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) tools, which the OECD estimates costs $100–240 billion in lost annual tax revenues.


title: Intellectual property

text: In 2017–2018, both the U.S. and the EU Commission simultaneously decided to depart from the OECD BEPS Project timetable, which was set up in 2013 to combat IP BEPS tax tools like the above, and launch their own anti-IP BEPS tax regimes:


title: Intellectual property

text: The departure of the U.S. and EU Commission from the OECD BEPS Project process, is attributed to frustrations with the rise in IP as a key BEPS tax tool, creating intangible assets, which are then turned into royalty payment BEPS schemes (double Irish), and/or capital allowance BEPS schemes (capital allowances for intangibles). In contrast, the OECD has spent years developing and advocating intellectual property as a legal and a GAAP accounting concept.


title: Intellectual property

text: Women have historically been underrepresented in the creation and ownership of intellectual property covered by intellectual property rights. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, women composed only 16.5% of patent holders even as recently as 2020. This disparity is the result of several factors including systemic bias, sexism and discrimination within the intellectual property space, underrepresentation within STEM, and barriers to access of necessary finance and knowledge in order to obtain intellectual property rights, among other reasons.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Maria Feodorovna (; 26 November 1847 – 13 October 1928), known before her marriage as Princess Dagmar of Denmark, was Empress of Russia from 1881 to 1894 as spouse of Emperor Alexander III. She was the second daughter of Christian IX of Denmark and Louise of Hesse-Kassel. Maria's eldest son became the last Russian monarch, Emperor Nicholas II. Maria lived for 10 years after Bolshevik functionaries executed Nicholas and his immediate family in 1918.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Dagmar was known for her beauty. Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge said that Dagmar was "sweetly pretty" and commented favorably on her "splendid dark eyes." Her fiancee Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich was enthusiastic about her beauty. He wrote to his mother that "she is even prettier in real life than in the portraits that we had seen so far. Her eyes speak for her: they are so kind, intelligent, animated." When she was tsarevna, Thomas W. Knox met her at Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia's wedding and wrote favorably about her beauty compared to that of the bride, Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. He wrote that Dagmar was "less inclined to stoutness than the bride, she does not display such a plumpness of shoulder, and her neck rises more swan-like and gives fuller play to her finely formed head, with its curly hair and Grecian outline of face." He also commented favorably on "her keen, clear, and flashing eyes."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Dagmar was intelligent. When considering Dagmar for her second son Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Queen Victoria judged that "Dagmar is cleverer [than her older sister, Alexandra]... she is a very nice girl." When she married, she didn't know how to speak any Russian. However, within a few years, she mastered the language and was so proficient that her husband wrote to her in Russian. She told an American minister to Russia that "the Russian language is full of power and beauty, it equals the Italian in music, the English in vigorous power and copiousness." She claimed that "for compactness of expression," Russian rivaled "Latin, and for the making of new words is equal to the Greek."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Dagmar was very fashionable. John Logan, a visitor to Russia, described her as "the best dressed woman in Europe." He claimed that Empress Elisabeth of Austria "excelled her in beauty" but that "no one touched" her "in frocks." Charles Frederick Worth, a Parisian couturier, greatly admired her style. He said, "Bring to me any woman in Europe-- queen, artiste, or bourgeoise-- who can inspire me as does Madame Her Majesty, and I will make her confections while I live and charge her nothing."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Dagmar was very charming and likable. After meeting her, Thomas W. Knox wrote, "No wonder the emperor likes her, and no wonder the Russians like her. I like her, and I am neither emperor nor any other Russian, and never exchanged a thousand words with her in my life." Maria von Bock, the daughter of Pyotr Stolypin, wrote, "kind, amiable, simple in her discourse, Maria Fedorovna was an Empress from head to toe, combining an inborn majesty with such goodness that she was idolized by all who knew her." Meriel Buchanan wrote that she possessed a "gracious and delightful charm of manner." Andrew Dickson White, the U.S. minister to Russia, said that she was "graceful, with a most kindly face and manner" and that she was "in every way cordial and kindly." Nadine Wonar-Larsky, her lady-in-waiting, noted that "her smile cheered everyone and her gracious manner always suggested a touch of personal feeling which went straight to the hearts of her subjects. She also possessed that priceless royal gift of never forgetting a face or name."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Princess Marie Sophie Frederikke Dagmar was born on 26 November 1847 at her parents' residence in the Yellow Mansion, an 18th-century town house at 18 Amaliegade, which is located immediately adjacent to the Amalienborg Palace complex, the principal residence of the Danish royal family in the district of Frederiksstaden in central Copenhagen. She was the fourth child and second daughter of the then Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a member of a princely cadet line, and his wife Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel. She was baptised as a Lutheran in the Yellow Palace with Queen Caroline Amalie of Denmark as her Godmother, and named after her kinswoman Marie Sophie Frederikke of Hesse-Kassel, Queen Dowager of Denmark, as well as the popular medieval Danish queen, Dagmar of Bohemia, in accordance with the national romantic fashion of the time. Growing up, she was known by the name Dagmar. Most of her adult life, however, she was known as Maria Feodorovna, the name which she took when she converted to Orthodoxy immediately before her 1866 marriage to the future Emperor Alexander III. Within her family, she was known as "Minnie" throughout her life.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: In 1852 Dagmar's father became heir-presumptive to the throne of Denmark, largely due to the succession rights of his wife Louise as niece of King Christian VIII. In 1853, he was given the title Prince of Denmark and he and his family were given an official summer residence, Bernstorff Palace, north of Copenhagen. It quickly became Princess Louise's favorite residence, and the family often stayed there. The children grew up within a close-knit family, in what is described as a humble but happy environment. During the children's childhood, the father only had his officer salary to live on, and the family lived a relatively simple life according to royal norms. Their household only had six employees, and Dagmar and her siblings were allowed to walk around the streets of Copenhagen during their childhood and do such things as go to the market and visit cafes. Only very rarely did they take part in ceremonial functions and then immediately had to take off their fine clothes again so as not to risk getting them dirty. Dagmar's parents emphasized giving the children a simple civic upbringing that placed great emphasis on royal duties. Later, all the children became known for their effortless ability to interact with people, their sense of duty and ability to represent.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Dagmar was closest to her eldest sister, Alexandra, and they maintained a strong connection to each other all their lives. The two princesses shared a room in the Yellow Mansion and were raised together. The sisters received the same education deemed appropriate for upper-class girls: they were taught housekeeping by their mother, and learned to dance, play music, paint and draw, and speak French, English, and German by tutors. However, the father also insisted that they learn gymnastics and sports, which was more unusual for girls. During their upbringing, Dagmar and Alexandra were given swimming lessons by the Swedish pioneer of swimming for women, Nancy Edberg; she would later welcome Edberg to Russia, where she came on royal scholarship to hold swimming lessons for women. Dagmar is described as lively and intelligent, sweet but less beautiful than Alexandra, and better at painting and drawing than her sisters, who, on the other hand, were more talented in music.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Upon the death of King Frederick VII in 1863, Dagmar's father became King of Denmark, as she turned 16 years old. Due to the brilliant marital alliances of his children, he became known as the "Father-in-law of Europe." Dagmar's eldest brother would succeed his father as King Frederick VIII of Denmark (one of whose sons would be elected as King of Norway). Her elder, and favourite, sister, Alexandra married Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VII) in March 1863. Alexandra, along with being queen consort of King Edward VII, was also mother of George V of the United Kingdom, which helps to explain the striking resemblance between their sons Nicholas II and George V. Within months of Alexandra's marriage, Dagmar's second older brother, Wilhelm, was elected as King George I of the Hellenes. Her younger sister was Thyra, Duchess of Cumberland. She also had another younger brother, Valdemar.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: At the end of 1863, as the daughter and sister of the kings of Denmark and Greece and sister-in-law of the Prince of Wales, Dagmar was now considered one of Europe's most coveted princesses. She received a proposal from Crown Prince Umberto of Italy, but was reluctant to marry him because she found him unattractive. Her mother was also reluctant to support such a marriage as she saw a greater status in the prospect of Dagmar marrying into the Russian imperial family. Due to the rise of Slavophile ideology in the Russian Empire, Alexander II of Russia searched for a bride for the heir apparent, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich, in countries other than the German states that had traditionally provided consorts for the tsars. Princess Dagmar was one of the candidates, and as early as 1860 the emperor had made his first inquiries about a possible engagement. There were also already family ties between the two families, as Dagmar's uncle had been married to the emperor's sister.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: In 1864, the Russian empress Maria Alexandrovna announced that her son would visit Denmark, and during the summer Nicholas, or "Nixa" as he was known in his family, arrived at Fredensborg Castle, where the Danish royal family was staying. Nicholas had never met Dagmar, but had for a number of years collected photographs of her, and both families wanted the marriage. When they met, Dagmar and Nicholas were mutually attracted, and Nicholas wrote to his mother:


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: After returning to Russia to obtain his father's permission, Nicholas proposed to Dagmar on 28 September 1864 in the Bernstorff Palace Gardens and received a yes. The engagement was announced at Bernstorff Palace later the same day. Her future mother-in-law Maria Alexandrovna (Marie of Hesse) gave her a six-strand pearl necklace and Nicholas gave her a diamond bracelet. In total, the betrothal gifts Dagmar received from her future in-laws cost 1.5 million rubles.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: The engagement was popular in both countries and at the same time ensured the Danish royal family even better connections. The engagement took place right during the Second Schleswig War between Denmark on one side and Prussia and Austria on the other, and during the peace negotiations after the war in October 1864, Dagmar unsuccessfully asked her future father-in-law to help Denmark against Prussia over the disputed territory of Schleswig-Holstein. In a letter, she asked Alexander II of Russia: "Use your power to mitigate the terrible conditions which the Germans have brutally forced Papa to accept... the sad plight of my fatherland, which makes my heart heavy, has inspired me to turn to you." It is believed that she did it with the consent of her parents, but it is not known if it was at their request. Her appeal was in vain, but from that moment on she became known for her anti-Prussian views.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: As Nicholas continued on his journey to Florence, Dagmar and Nicholas exchanged daily love letters for months. When he grew ill, Nicholas sent fewer letters and Dagmar teasingly asked him if he had fallen in love with "a dark-eyed Italian." In April, Nicholas grew gravely ill with cerebrospinal meningitis. Alexander II of Russia sent a telegram to Dagmar: "Nicholas has received the Last Rites. Pray for us and come if you can." On 22 April 1865, Nicholas died in the presence of his parents, brothers, and Dagmar. His last wish was that Dagmar would marry his younger brother, the future Alexander III.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Dagmar was devastated by Nicholas' death. Nicholas' parents struggled to "pull Princess Dagmar away from the corpse and carry her out." She was so heartbroken when she returned to her homeland that her relatives were seriously worried about her health. She had already become emotionally attached to Russia and often thought of the huge, remote country that was to have been her home. Many were sympathetic towards Dagmar. Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge wrote of "poor dear Minny's sorrow and the blight which has fallen upon her young life." Queen Victoria wrote "how terrible for poor Dagmar... the poor parents and bride are most deeply to be pitied."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Alexander II of Russia and Maria Alexandrovna had grown fond of Dagmar, and they wanted her to marry their new heir, Tsarevich Alexander. In an affectionate letter, Alexander II told Dagmar that he hoped she would still consider herself a member of their family. Maria Alexandrovna tried to convince Louise of Hesse-Kassel to send Dagmar to Russia immediately, but Louise insisted that Dagmar must "strengthen her nerves... [and] avoid emotional upsets." Dagmar, who sincerely mourned Nicholas, and Alexander, who was in love with his mother's lady-in-waiting Mariya Meshcherskaya and attempted to renounce his place as heir to the throne in order to marry her, were both initially reluctant. However, under pressure from his parents, Alexander decided to go to Denmark.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: In June 1866, Tsarevich Alexander arrived in Copenhagen with his brothers Grand Duke Vladimir and Grand Duke Alexei. While looking over photographs of Nicholas, Alexander asked Dagmar if "she could love him after having loved Nixa, to whom they were both devoted." She answered that she could love no one but him, because he had been so close to his brother. Alexander recalled that "we both burst into tears... [and] I told her that my dear Nixa helped us much in this situation and that now of course he prays about our happiness." On 17 June, he proposed to her during a picnic to the beach at Hellebæk by the coast of the Øresund strait near Elsinore and received a yes. The engagement was announced on 23 June at Fredensborg Palace. Both Dagmar and Alexander quickly embraced the prospect of marrying each other, and were soon described as genuinely enthusiastic.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: In the time leading up to Dagmar's departure to Russia, many festive events took place in Copenhagen, On 22 September 1866, Dagmar left Copenhagen on board the Danish royal yacht "Slesvig" escorted by the armoured frigate HDMS "Peder Skram", and accompanied by her brother, Crown Prince Frederick. Hans Christian Andersen, who had occasionally been invited to tell stories to Dagmar and her siblings when they were children, was among the crowd which flocked to the quay in order to see her off. The writer remarked in his diary, "Yesterday, at the quay, while passing me by, she stopped and took me by the hand. My eyes were full of tears. What a poor child! Oh Lord, be kind and merciful to her! They say that there is a brilliant court in Saint Petersburg and the tsar's family is nice; still, she heads for an unfamiliar country, where people are different and religion is different and where she will have none of her former acquaintances by her side."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Dagmar was warmly welcomed in Kronstadt by the emperor's brother Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaevich of Russia and escorted to St. Petersburg, where she was greeted by her future mother-in-law and sister-in-law on 24 September.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: The weather on this September day was almost summery with temperatures of more than 20 degrees, which was noted by the poet Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev in the welcome poem dedicated to the arrival of the princess: "The sky is light blue..." On the 29th, she made her formal entry in to the Russian capital dressed in a Russian national costume in blue and gold and traveled with the Empress to the Winter Palace where she was introduced to the Russian public on a balcony. Catherine Radziwill described the occasion: ”rarely has a foreign princess been greeted with such enthusiasm… from the moment she set foot on Russian soil, succeeded in winning to herself all hearts. Her smile, the delightful way she had of bowing to the crowds…, laid immediately the foundation of …popularity"


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: In the following weeks, Dagmar was educated in Russian court etiquette. She converted to Orthodoxy on and became "Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna of Russia" the following day. However, at the Russian court, where French was practically the first language, she was often called "Marie". The lavish wedding took place on in the Imperial Chapel of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. Financial constraints had prevented her parents from attending the wedding, and in their stead, they sent her brother, Crown Prince Frederick. Her brother-in-law, the Prince of Wales, had also travelled to Saint Petersburg for the ceremony; pregnancy had prevented the Princess of Wales from attending. After the wedding night, Alexander wrote in his diary, "I took off my slippers and my silver embroidered robe and felt the body of my beloved next to mine... How I felt then, I do not wish to describe here. Afterwards we talked for a long time."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: After the many wedding parties were over the newlyweds moved into the Anichkov Palace in Saint Petersburg where they were to live for the next 15 years, when they were not taking extended holidays at their summer villa Livadia in the Crimean Peninsula. Despite the fact that their relationship began under such strange circumstances, Maria and Alexander had an exceptionally happy marriage, and during almost thirty years of marriage, the spouses maintained a sincere devotion to each other. She was widely recognized as "the only person on the face of the earth in whom the Autocrat of all the Russias puts any real trust. In his gentle consort, he has unlimited confidence." Despite her anti-Russian sentiments, Queen Victoria wrote favorably about Maria and Alexander's marriage. She wrote that "[Maria] seems quite happy and contented with her fat, good-natured husband who seems far more attentive and kind to her than one would have thought...I think they are very domestic and happy and attached to each other; he makes a very good husband."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Maria Feodorovna was beloved by the Russian public. Early on, she made it a priority to learn the Russian language and to try to understand the Russian people. Baroness Rahden wrote that "the Czarevna is forming a real, warm sympathy for that country which is receiving her with so much enthusiasm." In 1876, she and her husband visited Helsinki and were greeted by cheers, most of which were "directed to the wife of the heir apparent."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Maria rarely interfered with politics, preferring to devote her time and energies to her family, charities, and the more social side of her position. She had also seen the student protests of Kiev and St. Petersburg in the 1860s, and when police were beating students, the students cheered on Maria Feodorovna to which she replied, "They were quite loyal, they cheered me. Why do you allow the police to treat them so brutally?" Her one exception to official politics was her militant anti-German sentiment because of the annexation of Danish territories by Prussia in 1864, a sentiment also expressed by her sister, Alexandra. Prince Gorchakov remarked about that policy that 'it is our belief, that Germany will not forget that both in Russia and in England [sic] a Danish Princess has her foot on the steps of the throne".


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Maria arranged the marriage between her brother George I of Greece and her cousin-in-law Olga Constantinovna of Russia. When George visited St. Petersburg in 1867, she contrived to have George spend time with Olga. She convinced Olga's parents of her brother's suitability. In a letter, her father Christian IX of Denmark praised her for her shrewd arranging of the marriage: "Where in the world have you, little rogue, ever learned to intrigue so well, since you have worked hard on your uncle and aunt, who were previously decidedly against a match of this kind."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: On 18 May 1868, Maria gave birth to her eldest son, Nicholas. Her next son, Alexander Alexandrovich, born in 1869, died from meningitis in infancy. She would bear Alexander four more children who reached adulthood: George (b. 1871), Xenia (b. 1875), Michael (b. 1878), and Olga (b. 1882). As a mother, she doted on and was quite possessive of her sons. She had a more distant relationship with her daughters. Her favorite child was George, and Olga and Michael were closer to their father. She was lenient towards George, and she could never bear to punish him for his pranks. Her daughter Olga remembered that "mother had a great weakness for him."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Maria's relationship with her father-in-law, Alexander II of Russia, deteriorated because she did not accept his second marriage to Catherine Dolgorukov. She refused to allow her children to visit their grandfather's second wife and his legitimized bastards, which caused Alexander's anger. She confided in Sophia Tolstaya that "there were grave scenes between me and the Sovereign, caused by my refusal to let my children to him." At a Winter Palace reception in February 1881, she refused to kiss Catherine and only gave Catherine her hand to kiss. Alexander II was furious and chastised his daughter-in-law: “Sasha is a good son, but you – you have no heart".


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: In 1873, Maria, Alexander, and their two eldest sons made a journey to the United Kingdom. The imperial couple and their children were entertained at Marlborough House by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The royal sisters Maria and Alexandra delighted London society by dressing alike at social gatherings. The following year, Maria and Alexander welcomed the Prince and Princess of Wales to St. Petersburg; they had come for the wedding of the Prince's younger brother, Alfred, to Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, daughter of Tsar Alexander II and the sister of the tsarevich.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: On the morning of 13 March 1881, Maria's father-in-law Alexander II of Russia was killed by a bomb on the way back to the Winter Palace from a military parade. In her diary, she described how the wounded, still living Emperor was taken to the palace: "His legs were crushed terribly and ripped open to the knee; a bleeding mass, with half a boot on the right foot, and only the sole of the foot remaining on the left." Alexander II died a few hours later. After her father-in-law's gruesome death, she was worried about her husband's safety. In her diary, she wrote, "Our happiest and serenest times are now over. My peace and calm are gone, for now I will only ever be able to worry about Sasha." Her favorite sister, the Princess of Wales, and brother-in-law Prince of Wales, stayed in Russia for several weeks after the funeral.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Alexander and Maria were crowned at the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin in Moscow on 27 May 1883. Just before the coronation, a major conspiracy had been uncovered, which cast a pall over the celebration. Nevertheless, over 8000 guests attended the splendid ceremony. Because of the many threats against Maria and Alexander III, the head of the security police, General Cherevin, shortly after the coronation urged the Tsar and his family to relocate to Gatchina Palace, a more secure location 50 kilometres outside St. Petersburg. The huge palace had 900 rooms and was built by Catherine the Great. The Romanovs heeded the advice. Maria and Alexander III lived at Gatchina for 13 years, and it was here that their five surviving children grew up. Under heavy guard, Alexander III and Maria made periodic trips from Gatchina to the capital to take part in official events.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Maria was a universally beloved Empress. Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin wrote that Maria's "bearing, her distinguished and forceful personality, and the intelligence which shone in her face, made her the perfect figure of a queen... She was extraordinarily well-loved in Russia, and everyone had confidence in her... and [was] a real mother to her people."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Maria was active in philanthropic work. Her husband called her "the Guardian Angel of Russia." As Empress, she assumed patronage of the Marie Institutions that her mother-in-law had run: It encompassed 450 charitable establishments. In 1882, she founded many establishments called Marie schools to give young girls an elementary education. She was the patroness of the Russian Red Cross. During a cholera epidemic in the late 1870s, she visited the sick in hospitals.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Maria was the head of the social scene. She loved to dance at the balls of high society, and she became a popular socialite and hostess of the Imperial balls at Gatchina. Her daughter Olga commented, "Court life had to run in splendor, and there my mother played her part without a single false step". A contemporary remarked on her success: "of the long gallery of Tsarinas who have sat in state in the Kremlin or paced in the Winter Palace, Marie Feodorovna was perhaps the most brilliant". Alexander used to enjoy joining in with the musicians, although he would end up sending them off one by one. When that happened, Maria knew the party was over.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: As tsarevna, and then as tsarina, Maria Feodorovna had something of a social rivalry with the popular Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, wife of her Russian brother-in-law, Grand Duke Vladimir. This rivalry had echoed the one shared by their husbands, and served to exacerbate the rift within the family. While she knew better than to publicly criticise both the Grand Duke and Duchess in public, Maria Feodorovna referred to Marie Pavlovna with the caustic epithet of "Empress Vladimir."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Nearly each summer, Maria, Alexander and their children would make an annual trip to Denmark, where her parents, King Christian IX and Queen Louise, hosted family reunions. Maria's brother, King George I, and his wife, Queen Olga, would come up from Athens with their children, and the Princess of Wales, often without her husband, would come with some of her children from the United Kingdom. In contrast to the tight security observed in Russia, the tsar, tsarina and their children relished the relative freedom that they could enjoy at Bernstorff and Fredensborg. The annual family meetings of monarchs in Denmark was regarded as suspicious in Europe, where many assumed they secretly discussed state affairs. Bismarck nicknamed Fredensborg "Europe’s Whispering Gallery" and accused Queen Louise of plotting against him with her children. Maria also had a good relationship with the majority of her in-laws, and was often asked to act as a mediator between them and the tsar. In the words of her daughter Olga: "She proved herself extremely tactful with her in-laws, which was no easy task".


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: During Alexander III's reign, the monarchy's opponents quickly disappeared underground. A group of students had been planning to assassinate Alexander III on the sixth anniversary of his father's death at the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. The plotters had stuffed hollowed-out books with dynamite, which they intended to throw at the Tsar when he arrived at the cathedral. However, the Russian secret police uncovered the plot before it could be carried out. Five students were hanged in 1887; amongst them was Aleksandr Ulyanov, older brother of Vladimir Lenin.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: The biggest threat to the lives of the tsar and his family, however, came not from terrorists, but from a derailment of the imperial train in the fall of 1888. Maria and her family had been at lunch in the dining car when the train jumped the tracks and slid down an embankment, causing the roof of the dining car to nearly cave in on them.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: When Maria's eldest sister Alexandra visited Gatchina in July 1894, she was surprised to see how weak her brother-in-law Alexander III had become. At the time Maria had long known that he was ill and did not have long left. She now turned her attention to her eldest son, the future Nicholas II, for it was on him that both her personal future and the future of the dynasty now depended.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Nicholas had long had his heart set on marrying Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, a favourite grandchild of Queen Victoria. Despite the fact that she was their godchild, neither Alexander III nor Maria approved of the match. Nicholas summed up the situation as follows: "I wish to move in one direction, and it is clear that Mama wishes me to move in another – my dream is to one day marry Alix." Maria and Alexander found Alix shy and somewhat peculiar. They were also concerned that the young Princess was not possessed of the right character to be Empress of Russia. Nicholas's parents had known Alix as a child and formed the impression that she was hysterical and unbalanced, which may have been due to the loss of her mother and youngest sister, Marie, to diphtheria when she was just six. It was only when Alexander III's health was beginning to fail that they reluctantly gave permission for Nicholas to propose.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: On 1 November 1894, Alexander III died aged just 49 at Livadia. In her diary Maria wrote, "I am utterly heartbroken and despondent, but when I saw the blissful smile and the peace in his face that came after, it gave me strength." Two days later, the Prince and Princess of Wales arrived at Livadia from London. While the Prince of Wales took it upon himself to involve himself in the preparations for the funeral, the Princess of Wales spent her time comforting grieving Maria, including praying with her and sleeping at her bedside.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Maria Feodorovna's birthday was a week after the funeral, and as it was a day in which court mourning could be somewhat relaxed, Nicholas used the day to marry Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt, who took the name Alexandra Feodorovna.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: As Empress Dowager, Maria was much more popular than either Nicholas or Alexandra. During her son's coronation, she, Nicholas, and Alexandra arrived in separate carriages. She was greeted with "almost deafening" applause. A visiting writer Kate Kool noted that she "provoked more cheering from the people than did her son. The people have had thirteen years in which to know this woman and they have learned to love her very much." Richard Harding Davis, an American journalist, was surprised that she "was more loudly greeted than either the Emperor or the Czarina."


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Once the death of Alexander III had receded, Maria again took a brighter view of the future. "Everything will be all right", as she said. Maria continued to live in the Anichkov Palace in St. Petersburg and at Gatchina Palace. In May 1896, she travelled to Moscow for the coronation of Nicholas and Alexandra.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: As a new Imperial Train was constructed for Nicholas II in time for his coronation, Alexander III's "Temporary Imperial Train" (composed of the cars that had survived the Borki disaster and a few converted standard passenger cars) was transferred to the Empress Dowager's personal use.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: During the first years of her son's reign, Maria often acted as the political adviser to the Tsar. Uncertain of his own ability and aware of her connections and knowledge, Tsar Nicholas II often told the ministers that he would ask her advice before making decisions, and the ministers sometimes suggested this themselves. It was reportedly on her advice that Nicholas initially kept his father's ministers. Maria herself estimated that her son was of a weak character and that it was better that he was influenced by her than someone worse. Her daughter Olga remarked upon her influence: "she had never before taken the least interest … now she felt it was her duty. Her personality was magnetic and her zest of activity was incredible. She had her finger on every educational pulse in the empire. She would work her secretaries to shreds, but she did not spare herself. Even when bored in committee she never looked bored. Her manner and, above all, her tact conquered everybody". After the death of her spouse, Maria came to be convinced that Russia needed reforms to avoid a revolution. According to courtier Paul Benckendorff there was a scene when Maria asked her son not to appoint the conservative Wahl as minister for internal affairs: "during which one [the empress dowager] almost threw herself at his [the tsar's] knees' begging him not to make this appointment and to choose someone who could make concessions. She said that if Nicholas did not agree, she would 'leave for Denmark, and then without me here let them twist your head around'". Nicholas did appoint her favored candidate, and she reportedly told her favoured candidate the liberal reformist Peter Sviatopolk-Mirsky to accept by saying: "You must fulfil my son’s wish; If you do, I will give you a kiss". After the birth of a son to the tsar the same year, however, Nicholas II replaced his mother as his political confidant and adviser with his wife, Empress Alexandra.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Maria Feodorovna's grandson-in-law, Prince Felix Yusupov, noted that she had great influence in the Romanov family. Sergei Witte praised her tact and diplomatic skill. Nevertheless, despite her social tact, she did not get along well with her daughter-in-law, Tsarina Alexandra, holding her responsible for many of the woes that beset her son Nicholas and the Russian Empire in general. She was appalled with Alexandra's inability to win favour with public, and also that she did not give birth to an heir until almost ten years after her marriage, after bearing four daughters. The fact that Russian court custom dictated that an empress dowager took precedence over an empress consort, combined with the possessiveness that Maria had of her sons, and her jealousy of Empress Alexandra only served to exacerbate tensions between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. Sophie Buxhoeveden remarked of this conflict: "Without actually clashing they seemed fundamentally unable … to understand one another", and her daughter Olga commented: "they had tried to understand each other and failed. They were utterly different in character, habits and outlook". Maria was sociable and a good dancer, with an ability to ingratiate herself with people, while Alexandra, though intelligent and beautiful, was very shy and closed herself off from the Russian people.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: By the turn of the twentieth century, Maria was spending increasing time abroad. In 1906, following the death of their father, King Christian IX, she and her sister, Alexandra, who had become queen-consort of the United Kingdom in 1901, purchased the villa of Hvidøre. The following year, a change in political circumstances allowed Maria Feodorovna to be welcomed to England by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, Maria's first visit to England since 1873. Following a visit in early 1908, Maria Feodorovna was present at her brother-in-law and sister's visit to Russia that summer. A little under two years later, Maria Feodorovna travelled to England yet again, this time for the funeral of her brother-in-law, King Edward VII, in May 1910. During her nearly three-month visit to England in 1910, Maria Feodorovna attempted, unsuccessfully, to get her sister, now Queen Dowager Alexandra, to claim a position of precedence over her daughter-in-law, Queen Mary.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Empress Maria Feodorovna, the mistress of Langinkoski retreat, was also otherwise a known friend of Finland. During the first russification period, she tried to have her son halt the constraining of the grand principality's autonomy and to recall the unpopular Governor-General Bobrikov from Finland to some other position in Russia itself. During the second russification period, at the start of the First World War, the Empress Dowager, travelling by her special train through Finland to Saint Petersburg, expressed her continued disapprobation for the russification of Finland by having an orchestra of a welcoming committee play the March of the Pori Regiment and the Finnish national anthem "Maamme", which at the time were under the explicit ban from Franz Albert Seyn, the Governor-General of Finland.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: In 1899, Maria's second son, George, died of tuberculosis in the Caucasus. During the funeral, she kept her composure, but at the end of the service, she ran from the church clutching her son's top hat that been atop the coffin and collapsed in her carriage sobbing.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: In 1892, Maria arranged Olga's disastrous marriage to Peter, Duke of Oldenburg. For years Nicholas refused to grant his unhappy sister a divorce, only relenting in 1916 in the midst of the War. When Olga attempted to contract a morganatic marriage with Nikolai Kulikovsky, Maria Feodorovna and the tsar tried to dissuade her, yet, they did not protest too vehemently. Indeed, Maria Feodorovna was one of the few people who attended the wedding in November 1916.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: In 1912, Maria faced trouble with her youngest son, when he secretly married his mistress, much to the outrage and scandal of both Maria Feodorovna and Nicholas.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: Maria Feodorovna disliked Rasputin and unsuccessfully tried to convince Nicholas and Alexandra to send him away. She considered Rasputin a dangerous charlatan and despaired of Alexandra's obsession with "crazy, dirty, religious fanatics. She was concerned that Rasputin's activities damaged the prestige of the Imperial family and asked Nicholas and Alexandra to send him away. Nicholas remained silent and Alexandra refused. Maria recognized the empress was the true regent and that she also lacked the capability for such a position: "My poor daughter-in-law does not perceive that she is ruining the dynasty and herself. She sincerely believes in the holiness of an adventurer, and we are powerless to ward off the misfortune, which is sure to come." When the Tsar dismissed minister Vladimir Kokovtsov in February 1914 on the advice of Alexandra, Maria again reproached her son, who answered in such a way that she became even more convinced that Alexandra was the real ruler of Russia, and she called upon Kokovtsov and said to him: "My daughter-in-law does not like me; she thinks that I am jealous of her power. She does not perceive that my one aspiration is to see my son happy. Yet I see we are nearing some kind of catastrophe and the Tsar listens to no one but flatterers… Why do you not tell the Tsar everything that you think and know… if it is not already too late".


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: In May 1914 Maria Feodorovna travelled to England to visit her sister. While she was in London, World War I broke out (July 1914), forcing her to hurry home to Russia. In Berlin the German authorities prevented her train from continuing toward the Russian border. Instead she had to return to Russia by way of (neutral) Denmark and Finland. Upon her return in August, she took up residence at Yelagin Palace, which was closer to St. Petersburg (renamed Petrograd in August 1914) than Gatchina. During the war she served as president of Russia's Red Cross. As she had done a decade earlier in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, she also financed a sanitary train.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: During the war, there was great concern within the imperial house about the influence Empress Alexandra had upon state affairs through the Tsar, and the influence Grigori Rasputin was believed to have upon her, as it was considered to provoke the public and endanger the safety of the imperial throne and the survival of the monarchy.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: On behalf of the imperial relatives of the Tsar, both the Empress's sister Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna and her cousin Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna had been selected to mediate and ask Empress Alexandra to banish Rasputin from court to protect her and the throne's reputation, but without success. In parallel, several of the Grand Dukes had tried to intervene with the Tsar, but with no more success.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: During this conflict of 1916–1917, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna reportedly planned a coup d'état to depose the Tsar with the help of four regiments of the imperial guard which were to invade the Alexander Palace, force the Tsar to abdicate and replace him with his underage son under the regency of her son Grand Duke Kirill.


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: There are documents that support the fact that in this critical situation, Maria Feodorovna was involved in a planned coup d'état to depose her son from the throne in order to save the monarchy. The plan was reportedly for Maria to make a final ultimatum to the Tsar to banish Rasputin unless he wished for her to leave the capital, which would be the signal to unleash the coup. Exactly how she planned to replace her son is unconfirmed, but two versions are available: first, that Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia would take power in Maria's name, and that she herself would thereafter become sole empress of Russia (like Catherine the Great did over 100 years prior); the other version further claims that Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia would replace the Tsar with his son, the heir to the throne, Maria's grandson Alexei, upon which Maria and Paul Alexandrovich would share power as regents during his minority. Maria was asked to make her appeal to the Tsar after Empress Alexandra had asked the Tsar to dismiss minister Polianov. Initially, she refused to make the appeal, and her sister-in-law Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna stated to the French Ambassador: "It’s not want of courage or inclination that keeps her back. It's better that she don’t. She’s too outspoken and imperious. The moment she starts to lecture her son, her feelings run away with her; she sometimes says the exact opposite of what she should; she annoys and humiliates him. Then he stands on his dignity and reminds his mother he is the emperor. They leave each other in a rage". Eventually, she was however convinced to make the appeal. Reportedly, Empress Alexandra was informed about the planned coup, and when Maria Feodorovna made the ultimatum to the Tsar, the empress convinced him to order his mother to leave the capital. Consequently, the Empress Dowager left Petrograd to live in the Mariinskyi Palace in Kiev the same year. She never again returned to Russia's capital. Empress Alexandra commented about her departure: "it’s much better Motherdear stays … at Kiev, where the climate is better and she can live as she wishes and hears less gossip".


title: Maria Feodorovna (Dagmar of Denmark)

text: In Kiev, Maria engaged in the Red Cross and hospital work, and in September, the 50th anniversary of her arrival in Russia was celebrated with great festivities, during which she was visited by her son, Nicholas II, who came without his wife. Empress Alexandra wrote to the Tsar: "When you see Motherdear, you must rather sharply tell her how pained you are, that she listens to slander and does not stop it, as it makes mischief and others would be delighted, I am sure, to put her against me…” Maria did ask Nicholas II to remove both Rasputin and Alexandra from all political influence, but shortly after, Nicholas and Alexandra broke all contact with the Tsar's family.