page_title: Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia
section_title: Young adulthood and World War I
hierarchical_section_title: Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia / Young adulthood and World War I
caption_attribution_description: English: Olga and Tatjana Nikolaevna in court gown
context_page_description: Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia was the second daughter of Emperor Nicholas II, the last monarch of Russia, and of Empress Alexandra. She was born at Peterhof, Saint Petersburg.
  Tatiana was the younger sister of Grand Duchess Olga and the elder sister of Grand Duchess Maria, Grand Duchess Anastasia and Tsesarevich Alexei. She was known amongst her siblings as "the governess" for her domineering but also maternal ways. Tatiana was the closest out of all the children to her mother, often spending many hours reading to her. She was often thought to be the most beautiful of all her sisters, and was the most aristocratic in appearance. During World War I, she chaired many charity committees and trained to become a nurse. She tended to wounded soldiers on the grounds of Tsarskoye Selo from 1914 to 1917. Her time as a nurse came to an end with her family's arrest in 1917 after the first Russian Revolution.
  Her murder by communist revolutionaries on 17 July 1918 resulted in her being named as a passion bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.
context_section_description: As a young teenager, Tatiana was given the rank of honorary colonel and assigned a regiment of soldiers, the Vosnesensky (Ascension) Lancers. She and Olga inspected the soldiers regularly. When she was 13, an ill Tatiana begged her mother to permit her to leave her bed so that she could watch a soldier, with whom she was infatuated. On 20 April 1911, she wrote to the Empress, "I would like so much to go the review of the second division as I am also the second daughter and Olga was at the first so now it is my turn...Yes, Mama, and at the second division I will see whom I must see ... you know whom ..."
  Tatiana enjoyed the company of soldiers, but she was often shocked by their behavior. On 11 July 1911, a group of officers aboard the imperial yacht gave Olga a portrait of Michelangelo's nude David, cut out from a newspaper. Indignant, the 14-year-old Tatiana wrote to her aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, "Olga laughed at it long and hard. And not one of the officers wishes to confess that he has done it. Such swine, aren't they?"
  On 14 July 1911, Tatiana laughed at her distant cousin Prince Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia's engagement to Helen of Serbia. On 14 July 1911, she wrote to Olga, "How funny if they might have children, can (she) be kissing him? What foul, fie!"
  In 1911, Tatiana and Olga witnessed the assassination of the government minister Pyotr Stolypin during a performance at the Kiev Opera House. On 10 September 1911, Nicholas later wrote to his mother, Dowager Empress Maria, that the event had upset both girls. Tatiana sobbed and both of them had trouble sleeping that night.
   
  When World War I broke out, Tatiana became a Red Cross nurse with her mother and Olga. They cared for wounded soldiers in a private hospital on the grounds of Tsarskoye Selo. According to Vyrubova, "Tatiana was almost as skillful and devoted as her mother, and complained only that on account of her youth she was spared some of the more trying cases." Valentina Ivanovna Chebotareva, who worked with her at the hospital, described in her journal how she planned to boil silk while Tatiana was otherwise occupied, fearing that Tatiana would be too tired to help her. But Tatiana guessed what Chebotareva was doing. "Why can you breathe carbolic acid and I can't?" she asked Chebotareva and insisted on helping her with the work. In September 1914, she was named patron of a war aid committee called the Tatiana Committee. Tatiana was fiercely patriotic. On 29 October 1914, she apologized to her mother for disparaging the German in her presence; she explained that she thought of her mother as only Russian and that she had forgotten that the Empress was born in Germany. The Empress responded that she was offended by the Russian people's gossip about her German connections because she considered herself as completely Russian. 
   On 15 August 1915, Tatiana wrote to her mother that she wished she could do more to support Russia during the war: "I simply can't tell you how awfully sorry I am for you, my beloved ones. I am so sorry I can in no way help you or be useful. In such moments I am sorry I'm not a man." As Tatiana grew into adulthood, she undertook more public appearances than her sisters and headed committees.
caption: Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana in court dress in a formal portrait taken in 1913
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