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To turn off the MUSICAL accompaniment to this page, click on the GLOBE above TSARINA MARIA FEODOROVNA
The Holy Theotokos Icon Belonged to Tsarina Maria Feodorovna
Some Notes On Russia
by
Prof. James Brent Nörlem,
Minnesota, U.S.A.
I was particularly interested in pre-1917 Russia, and I continued to study about Tsarist Russia through the rest of my public school years. Of course, I had read Count Lev Nicolaevich Tolstoy's War and Peace several times (I read it again several months ago, followed by Alan Palmer's Napoleon in Russia), and I was fascinated by certain of the Tsars: Peter the Great, Ivan III Vasilievich and Ivan IV Vasilievich, and Catherine II. I vowed that some day I would visit Petrograd/St. Petersburg/Leningrad and if possible, Moscow. I have not kept that vow yet, but I still live.
After six years in the Marine Corps and four in the Regular Army, I returned to the University of Omaha to finish my studies toward a baccalaureate degree. My greatest reward, though, was meeting the young woman, Shirley Hansen, who would become my wife. Shirley came to share my great interest in Russia, and we planned numerous "dream tours" through that great nation, including exploration by river voyage which now is quite common. Two children, graduate studies, and summer employment -- for several years I directed special summer Newspaper Skills Courses and Advertising Skills Courses for the Minnesota Newspaper Association, and Shirley conducted summer aerospace education workshops for in-service teachers in the Upper Midwest for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration -- kept retarding our intended travel.
Our daughter, Lori, got to Europe ahead of us. As an enrollee in St. Cloud State University's International Studies Program, she spent the 1981-82 academic year abroad, based at Alnwyck Castle in Northumberland, England, where she was employed part-time as a journalist by the Alnwyck Advertiser, newspaper of Alnwyck which abuts one wall of the castle. During one of her early short journeys, she visited Kobenhavn, Danmark, where she discovered the beautiful Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox Church which had been donated by the Tsar of Russia and built under the direction of an obviously gifted Russian architect. Knowing of our great interest in things Russian, she photographed the church and sought out detailed information regarding it. Later in the academic year, she was part of a student tour group in Russia for an extensive tour that began in Moscow and ended in Leningrad. She had a bit of difficulty getting into the country when it was discovered that she had been working as a journalist, but ultimately she was admitted, though the government may have wished later she had not. In Leningrad, her tour group visited the Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral, then being used as a state museum. When the group was inside, to the astonishment of the tour guide, Lori dropped to her knees and began to pray. Despite vigorous protests by the tour guide, several of her fellow students joined her.
Shirley and I are Second Generation Americans, our grandfathers having emigrated from North Jutland, Danmark, hers in 1879 and mine in 1880. During our last decade of active teaching, we began to find the time to more thoroughly research our Danish ancestry, and we found numerous relatives abroad who seemed happy to have made contact with us. I retired from active teaching in 1994, Shirley in 1997. In 1998, we made our first pilgrimage to Danmark, the land of our heritage. We flew into Kobenhavn, and after we established headquarters at Hotel Absolon, we went in search of the Alexander Nevsky Church, which we found to be even more beautiful than our daughter's photographs indicated. We wanted to go inside, but some function was under way. We returned a number of times, but the Alexander Nevsky must be the busiest church in Danmark. The same problem existed in 2001 when we were back for a second visit to family related sites and we regretfully left for Jutland without seeing what we are told is an absolutely gorgeous interior. If God wills that we make another visit to Danmark, we will try to arrange to attend services at the Alexander Nevsky Church. We also will try to visit the Tsarina's Danish home in Hvidore, north of Kobenhavn.
Our pilgrimages to Danmark required that we visit the gigantic Roskilde Cathedral where the royalty of Danmark are interred, and both times we viewed the sarcophagus of Princess Dagmar. We knew well the story of Danish Princess Dagmar, daughter of King Christian IX, who wed Tsar Alexander III, becoming Tsarina Maria Feodorovna and ultimately mother of Tsar Nicholas II. Tsarina Maria fled Russia in 1919 during the chaos following the revolution and spent her last years in Danmark. She was interred in Roskilde Cathedral upon her death in 1928. Surviving members of the Romanov family say that she spoke fondly of Russia until her death.
In mid-September, we received a flurry of communications from relatives and friends in Danmark, alerting us to the removal of Tsarina Maria Feodorovna from Roskilde Cathedral and her imminent re-interment in St. Petersburg's Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral next to her husband, Tsar Alexander III, in accordance with her wishes. We were delighted to learn that, as a small token of the Danish people's great affection for, and respect of, the Russian people, a commemorative icon was created by Danish artist Birte Nielsen at the behest of Irina Demidov, a Russian engineer residing in Kobenhavn and head of the cultural association, Dagmarina. The original of the beautiful icon will reside in the Alexander Nevsky Church, while a copy accompanied Tsarina Maria Feodorovna to Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral. We have never been prouder of being Danes.
Tsarina Maria's remains were transferred from Roskilde Cathedral to Kobenhavn where they were ceremoniously brought aboard the Danish naval vessel, Esben Snare, which then sailed to St. Petersburg. We are told her coffin arrived there 26 September and lay in state until the re-interment ceremony 28 September. Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II presided over the ceremony, which was attended by Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary of Danmark as well as the Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs. How we would have loved to have been present for that ceremony!
There is one more venture abroad we would really like to make, ideally with daughter Lori and her professor husband accompanying us. We would stop again in Danmark to visit family and friends, of course, and we would go on from there to Stockholm and Uppsala in Sweden to visit some of Shirley's relatives (her paternal grandmother was Swedish). From there, we would sail to St. Petersburg to see and visit as much as we could of the "Venice of the North," with expressing our gratitude to God at the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul for permitting us such a glorious trip our primary goal.
The Coat of Arms of Prof. James Brent Nörlem can be seen
HERE
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