Alexandra Alexandrovna Tegleva (; 2 May 1884–21 March 1955), also known as Shura Tegleva and Sasha Tegleva, was a Russian noblewoman who served as a nursemaid in the Russian Imperial Household. As nursemaid to the children of Emperor

Nicholas II Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov; 186817 July 1918) or Nikolai II was the last reigning Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. He married ...

and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, she went with the family into exile in

Tobolsk Tobolsk (, ) is a town in Tyumen Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Tobol and Irtysh rivers. Founded in 1587, Tobolsk is the second-oldest Russian settlement east of the Ural Mountains in Asian Russia, and was the historic capita ...

following the

abdication of Nicholas II Emperor of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II abdicated the throne of the Russian Empire on 2 March (Old Style, O.S.) / 15 March (New Style, N.S.) 1917, in the midst of World War I and the February Revolution. The Emperor renounced the throne on be ...

during the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

, but was ultimately prevented from staying with them during their house arrest at

Ipatiev House Ipatiev House () was a merchant's house in Yekaterinburg (city in 1924 renamed Sverdlovsk, in 1991 renamed back to Yekaterinburg) where the abdicated Emperor Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918, reigned 1894–1917), all his immediate family, and ...

. She survived the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

and married Pierre Gilliard, a Swiss academic who served with her in the Imperial Household as the children's French tutor. She moved to

Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...

as a

white émigré White Russian émigrés were Russians who emigrated from the territory of the former Russian Empire in the wake of the Russian Revolution (1917) and Russian Civil War (1917–1923), and who were in opposition to the revolutionary Bolshevik com ...

and remained there the rest of her life. Tegleva worked with her husband to investigate and debunk the claims made by

Anna Anderson Anna Anderson (born Franziska Schanzkowska; 16 December 1896 – 12 February 1984) was an impostor who claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia. Anastasia, the youngest daughter of the last Tsar and Tsarina of Russia, Nicholas II ...

, a Romanov impostor who pretended to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna.

Member of the Imperial Household

Tegleva was a part of the

Russian nobility The Russian nobility or ''dvoryanstvo'' () arose in the Middle Ages. In 1914, it consisted of approximately 1,900,000 members, out of a total population of 138,200,000. Up until the February Revolution of 1917, the Russian noble estates staffed ...

as a member of the

Teglev family The Teglev family is an old Russian noble family which can trace its line back to 15th century. History The family descends from Yuri Tegl, the great-grandson of an attendant of Vasily II of Moscow. The family were added to the nobility of t ...

. She was educated at the

Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens The Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens of Saint Petersburg (Russian: Смольный институт благородных девиц Санкт-Петербурга) was the first women's educational institution in Russia that laid the foundatio ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. Tegleva served in the Russian Imperial Household as a

nursemaid A nursemaid (or nursery maid) is a mostly historical term for a female domestic worker who cares for children within a large household. The term implies that she is an assistant to an older and more experienced employee, a role usually known as ...

and

governess A governess is a woman employed as a private tutor, who teaches and trains a child or children in their home. A governess often lives in the same residence as the children she is teaching; depending on terms of their employment, they may or ma ...

to Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna,

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (Maria Nikolaevna Romanova; Russian: Великая Княжна Мария Николаевна, 17 July 1918) was the third daughter of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna (Ali ...

, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, and Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich. She lived with the family in the

Alexander Palace The Alexander Palace (, ''Alexandrovskiy dvorets'', ) is a former imperial residence near the town of Tsarskoye Selo in Russia, on a plateau about south of Saint Petersburg. The Palace was commissioned by Catherine the Great in 1792. Due t ...

Tsarskoye Selo Tsarskoye Selo (, , ) was the town containing a former residence of the Russian House of Romanov, imperial family and visiting nobility, located south from the center of Saint Petersburg. The residence now forms part of the Pushkin, Saint Peter ...

, occupying the thirty-first room on the second floor. In her room she had paintings by Vasily Volkov. While many of the attendants in the service of the Empress spoke English, Tegleva was instructed to speak Russian with the children. She was assisted by a maid named Anna Yakovlevna Utkina. In 1904, Empress Alexandra gave Tegleva a gold pocket watch made by Swiss manufacturer Paul Buhre as a Christmas present. The watch was engraved with the inscription ''Given by the Sovereign Empress on 24 December 1904''. Tegleva was awarded a Fabergé brooch, bearing the

Romanov The House of Romanov (also transliterated as Romanoff; , ) was the reigning dynasty, imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after Anastasia Romanovna married Ivan the Terrible, the first crowned tsar of all Russi ...

family crest embellished with a diamond and four rubies, in 1913 on the occasion of the

Romanov Tercentenary The Romanov Tercentenary () was a country-wide celebration, marked in the Russian Empire from February 1913, in celebration of the ruling House of Romanov The House of Romanov (also transliterated as Romanoff; , ) was the reigning dynasty ...

Exile with the Imperial family

Following the

during the

, Tegleva went with the imperial family into exile in

Western Siberia Western Siberia or West Siberia ( rus, Западная Сибирь, p=ˈzapədnəjə sʲɪˈbʲirʲ; , ) is a region in North Asia. It is part of the wider region of Siberia that is mostly located in the Russia, Russian Federation, with a Sout ...

and lived with them under house arrest at the Governor's Mansion in

. Unlike many other members of the imperial household, Tegleva left many of her personal belongings at the Alexander Palace upon going into exile, including fine clothes, photographs with fellow staff, photographs with the imperial family, shoes, socks, and mementos given to her by the children. After the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

in 1917, she stayed with the Grand Duchesses Tatiana, Olga, and Anastasia and the Tsarevich while the family were separated and the emperor and empress, as well as Grand Duchess Maria, were taken to the

Yekaterinburg Yekaterinburg (, ; ), alternatively Romanization of Russian, romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( ; 1924–1991), is a city and the administrative centre of Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Ural Federal District, Russia. The ci ...

in April 1918. During this time one of the Empress's ladies in waiting,

Anna Demidova Anna Stepanovna Demidova (26 January 1878 – 17 July 1918) was a lady's maid in the service of Empress Alexandra of Russia. She stayed with the Romanov family when they were arrested, and was murdered together with Alexandra and the Romano ...

, wrote to Tegleva to give her instructions on how to conceal family jewels in the Grand Duchesses' undergarments so that they would not be found when the family went through searches. She was assisted in hiding the jewels by the parlor maid

Elizaveta Ersberg Elizaveta Nikolaevna "Liza" Ersberg (18 September 1882 – 12 March 1942) was a German-Russian parlormaid who served in the Russian Imperial Household. The daughter of a stoker employed by Emperor Alexander III, she was hired by Empress Maria ...

and lady's maid Maria Gustavna Tutelberg. In May 1918 the rest of the imperial family was taken to Ipatiev House, but Tegleva was not allowed to enter with them. Tegleva was detained with Pierre Gilliard,

Charles Sydney Gibbes Charles Sydney Gibbes (19 January 1876 – 24 March 1963) was a British academic who from 1908 to 1917 served as the English tutor to the children of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. When Nicholas abdicated the throne in March 1917 Gibbes vol ...

, and Baroness Sophie Karlovna von Buxhoeveden in a separate residence from the imperial family in Yekaterinburg. She was almost killed by the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

Tyumen Tyumen ( ; rus, Тюмень, p=tʲʉˈmʲenʲ, a=Ru-Tyumen.ogg) is the administrative center and largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Tyumen Oblast, Russia. It is situated just east of the Ural Mountains, along the Tura ( ...

but was freed by the

White Army The White Army, also known as the White Guard, the White Guardsmen, or simply the Whites, was a common collective name for the armed formations of the White movement and Anti-Sovietism, anti-Bolshevik governments during the Russian Civil War. T ...

Later life

When Nikolai Sokolov, a legal investigator for the

Omsk Omsk (; , ) is the administrative center and largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Omsk Oblast, Russia. It is situated in southwestern Siberia and has a population of over one million. Omsk is the third List of cities and tow ...

Regional Court, was assigned by Admiral

Alexander Kolchak Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak (; – 7 February 1920) was a Russian navy officer and polar explorer who led the White movement in the Russian Civil War. As he assumed the title of Supreme Ruler of Russia in 1918, Kolchak headed a mili ...

to investigate the

execution of the Romanov family The abdicated Russian Imperial Romanov family (Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse), Alexandra Feodorovna, and their five children: Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia, Olga, Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikola ...

in 1919, Tegleva and other members of the Romanov entourage were interviewed. In 1919 she married Swiss academic Pierre Gilliard, who had worked with her in the imperial household as the children's tutor. She survived the

, arriving in

, Switzerland, in 1920 as a

. Tegleva worked with her husband to investigate and debunk the claims made by

, a Romanov impostor who pretended to be Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna. On her second visit to Anderson in St. Mary's Hospital in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

in 1925, Anderson mistook Tegleva for Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna. On another visit, Anderson asked Tegleva to moisten her forehead with

eau de Cologne Eau de Cologne (; German: ''Kölnisch Wasser'' ; meaning "Water from Cologne") or simply cologne is a perfume originating in Cologne, Germany. Originally mixed by Johann Maria Farina (Giovanni Maria Farina) in 1709, it has since come to be a gene ...

, a comforting gesture Tegleva used to do for Grand Duchess Anastasia as her nursemaid.Kurth, p. 110; Phenix, p. 153 The interaction left Tegleva feeling shaken. Ultimately, she and her husband believed Anderson to be a fraud, although Tegleva felt an immense love for Anderson as she had for Grand Duchess Anastasia.Kurth, p. 112; Massie, ''The Romanovs'', p. 173 Tegleva was the godmother of her niece, Marie-Claude Gilliard Knecht. She died in Switzerland in 1955.

In popular culture

Tegleva is portrayed by

Katharine Schofield Katherine (), also spelled Catherine and other variations, is a feminine given name. The name and its variants are popular in countries where large Christian populations exist, because of its associations with one of the earliest Christian sa ...

in the 1971 British film ''

Nicholas and Alexandra ''Nicholas and Alexandra'' is a 1971 British epic historical drama film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, from a screenplay by James Goldman and Edward Bond based on Robert K. Massie's 1967 book of the same name. It tells the story of the l ...

''. She was portrayed by Michele Valence in the play ''Daughter of A Soldier'' performed at the Theatre of the Open Eye in New York in 1988. She is also a character in the play ''The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women: An Interactive Comedy in Two Acts'', written by

Carolyn Gage Carolyn Gage (born 1952) is an American playwright, actor, theatrical director and author. She has written nine books on lesbian theater and sixty-five plays, musicals, and one-woman shows. A lesbian feminist, her work emphasizes non-traditiona ...

and Don Nigro. She was portrayed by Milda Noreikaite in the 2019

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

documentary drama ''

The Last Czars ''The Last Czars'' is a six-part English-language docudrama that premiered on Netflix on July 3, 2019. The series follows the reign of Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia's Romanov Dynasty, from his accession to the throne in 1894 to his ex ...

''.

References

Citations

* Rappaport, Helen. ''Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses''. Pan Macmillan, 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tegleva, Alexandra 1884 births 1955 deaths 19th-century women from the Russian Empire 20th-century Russian women 20th-century women educators Court of Nicholas II of Russia Domestic workers from the Russian Empire Governesses to the Imperial Russian court Nannies Nurses from the Russian Empire Nobility from the Russian Empire White Russian emigrants to Switzerland