Maria Menshikova Explained

Maria Menshikova
Birth Name:	Princess Maria Alexandrovna Menshikova
Birth Date:	26 December 1711
Birth Place:	Saint Petersburg
Death Date:	26 December 1729
Death Place:	Berezovo
Noble Family:	Menshikov
Father:	Alexander Danilovich Menshikov
Mother:	Daria Mikhailovna Arsenieva

Princess Maria Alexandrovna Menshikova (26 December 1711  - 26 December 1729) was a daughter of Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov, the favourite of Peter I of Russia.^[1]

Life

She was the eldest daughter and first child of Prince Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov and Daria Mikhailovna Arsenieva.^[2]

Thanks to her father's influence in the Russian court, she was engaged to Grand Duke Peter of Russia, a grandson of Peter the Great.^[3] Though they never married their engagement was announced and a dowry discussed. This proposal brought about the disgrace of her father who was subsequently exiled to Siberia.

After following her father into exile, she died of smallpox in Berezovo at age eighteen.

Notes and References

1. Bisha . Robin . January 1998 . Reconstructing the Voice of a Noblewoman of the Time of Peter the Great: Daria Mikhailovna Menshikova: An exercise in (pseudo) autobiographical writing . Rethinking History . en . 2 . 1 . 51–63 . 10.1080/13642529809408761 . 1364-2529.
2. Koeppe . Wolfram . Nudel . Marina . January 2000 . An Unsuspected Bust of Alexander Menshikov . Metropolitan Museum Journal . en . 35 . 161–177 . 10.2307/1513033 . 0077-8958.
3. Book: Bain, Robert Nisbet . The Pupils of Peter the Great: A History of the Russian Court and Empire from 1697 to 1740 . 1897 . A. Constable & Company . 128–134 . en.