The Story of my Life

by Marie Queen of Roumania, John van der Kiste (Introduction)

Born in 1875, the daughter of Queen Victoria's second son Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Tsar Alexander II's daughter Grand Duchess Marie, Princess Marie married Crown Prince Ferdinand of Roumania in 1893 and became Queen on his accession to the throne in 1914. Her three volumes of memoirs, covering her life from birth to the end of the First World War in 1918, paint a lively picture of her upbringing in England, Malta and Germany, her sometimes difficult life as a young wife and mother in Roumania, and her struggle during an uncertain time when the country was poised between invasion and defeat, and ultimate victory. First issued between 1934 and 1935, a few years before her death, they appear here for the first time in one volume.

Genres: Nonfiction

638 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 8, 2019

Reviews

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This version of the book compiles the 3 volumes written by Regina Maria of Romania. The first book was probably the most interesting, she talked of her family, British royalty on her father’s side being a granddaughter of Queen Victoria and a granddaughter of Alexander II, emperor of Russia in the late 1800s. So reading the English version makes sense since it was her mother tongue and wrote it in English.
Her childhood was spent free of care, riding horses everywhere, even in the streets of Malta. Went to visit her cousins in England, Germany and Russia and attended some big events like royal weddings and coronations.
Second volume was about her life as a very young bride of 17 to the Crown Prince of Romania, a native German. The writing started to be more laborious to read, going on an on about being lonely, left by herself often and making babies… 6 of them.
She didn’t talk too much about them except about her latest boy who died just before the break of World War I. She started then to feel a vocation for giving comfort to wounded soldiers when Romania sided after 2 years with the Allies and went to the front.
The third book was very hard to go through as it was a detailed account of her days (almost by the hour) going from hospital to hospital to listen to (but also food and medicine to their care givers) for the Romanian and Allied wounded soldiers or dying of various diseases and felt like it was just a transcription of her diary.
Also noteworthy is her letters to her “cousins” King George V and Nicholas II of Russia about helping and not forgetting about Romania who became an ally against Germany.

But the most important thing to remember is that Queen Mary of Romania left quite a legacy of caring and also loving of the arts that we can forget about her lack of literacy skills.

[Luanne Sberna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent autobiography.

Very relevant given today’s political climate in Europe. Gives context to a lot of what is happening now as Russia invades Ukraine. Will we never learn from history?