1. Mathilde Kschessinska was a mistress of the future Emperor Nicholas II of Russia before his marriage, and later the wife of his cousin Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich of Russia.
12 Facts About Mathilde Kschessinska
1. 2.
Mathilde Kschessinska was known in the West as Mathilde Kschessinska or Matilda Kshesinskaya.
3.
In 1880, at the age of eight, Mathilde Kschessinska entered into the Imperial Theatre School, where she studied under Yekaterina Vazem, and was inspired by Virginia Zucchi.
4.
Mathilde Kschessinska mastered the 32 fouettes en tournant of Legnani.
5.
Mathilde Kschessinska considered it his duty to remain in Russia, even and especially after the Revolution, and would never leave his native land; he thus paid with his own life and the lives of his family for his faith in the Russian people.
6.
Mathilde Kschessinska was known to sew valuable jewels into her costumes and came on stage as the Princess Aspicia in The Pharaoh's Daughter wearing her diamond encrusted tiaras and chokers.
7.
Mathilde Kschessinska considered Pavlova to be technically weak and believed that the young ballerina could not upstage her.
8.
Mathilde Kschessinska was forced to flee her home, with her son Vova, on 27 February 1917, during the February Revolution.
9.
Mathilde Kschessinska's home occupied by the Bolsheviks, Kschessinska wrote "And Petrograd was a nightmare world of arrests, the assassination of officers in the streets, arson, pillage".
10.
On 30 January 1921, Andrei and Mathilde Kschessinska were married at the Russian Church in Cannes.
11.
Mathilde Kschessinska died in Paris at the age of 99.
12.
Mathilde Kschessinska is buried at the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois Russian Cemetery with her husband and son.