On this day — 18th June (O.S. 5th June) 1889 — Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich married Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark. Sadly, their marriage ended in tragedy a little more than 2 years later.
Born on 30th August (O.S. 18th August) 1870 Alexandra was the third child and firstborn daughter of King George I and Queen Olga of Greece (born Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna).
Alexandra met Grand Duke Paul when he spent winters in Greece due to his frequent respiratory illnesses. The Greek royal family also frequently spent holidays with the Romanov family on visits to Russia or Denmark. Their engagement was announced on 10th November 1888.
The wedding took place on 18th June [O.S. 5th June] 1889 in St. Petersburg, at the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, the Romanov family chapel in the Winter Palace.
Upon her marriage Princess Alexandra was named Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna with the title Her Imperial and Royal Highness.
The couple had two children: Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (1890–1958) and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich (1891–1942).
Seven months into her second pregnancy, Alexandra took a walk with her friends on the bank of the Moscow River and jumped directly into a boat that was permanently moored there, but fell as she got in. The next day, she collapsed in the middle of a ball from violent labour pains. She gave birth to her son, Dmitri, lapsed into a coma. She died six days later on 25th September (O.S. 12th September) 1891 at Ilyinskoe near Moscow. The Grand Duchess was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, St. Petersburg. Her grieving husband had to be restrained from throwing himself into the grave with her.
In 1939, at the request of the Greek government (at that time reigned Alexandra’s nephew, King George II ), the Soviet government allowed the remains of the Grand Duchess to be transferred to Greece. The coffin of Alexandra Georgievna was removed from the crypt in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, transferred to a Greek ship, and delivered from Leningrad to Athens, where she was reburied at the royal cemetery in the Tatoi Palace. The marble tombstone in the Peter and Paul Cathedral was then put in its original place and is the only monument in the cathedral above the empty tomb.
