Early Life
Born at St. Petersburg, Russia, Marianne von Pistohlkors was the daughter of Olga Valerianovna Karnovich and Maj.-Gen. Erik Augustinovich von Pistohlkors. Her father was an adjutant to Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia, the Tsar's uncle.
As a child, Marianne had an older brother, Alexander Erikovich Pistohlkors, and an older sister, Olga Erikovna Pistohlkors. When she was still a young girl, her mother divorced her father and began an affair with the widowed Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, causing a scandal in society.
The affair resulted in the birth of a son out of wedlock, Vladimir Pavlovich von Pistohlkors, who later became a famous poet.
Olga Valerianovna von Pistohlkors finally married the Grand Duke Paul on 10 October 1902 at Livorno, Italy. Because the couple had deliberately disrespected the authority of Tsar Nicholas II by wedding without his permission, they were banished. They moved to France.
In 1904, Grand Duke Paul arranged through Prince Regent Leopold of Bavaria for his wife and her children to be granted royal titles. They were styled Counts and Countesses of Hohenfelsen and granted a coat of arms.
Only after much pleading by relatives did the Tsar finally relent in 1905 and allow them to return to St. Petersburg. Olga was then granted the Russian title Princess Paley, and her son, Vladimir, became Prince Paley.
Marianne von Pistohlkors thus became, at age 15, a countess, the daughter of a princess, and a member of the Russian Imperial family. Upon the Grand Duke's return from France to St. Petersburg in 1905, Marianne also gained two siblings, the children of Grand Duke Paul's first marriage: a stepsister, the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, and a stepbrother, the Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich of Russia.
Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna became a Princess of Sweden and wrote a series of well-received memoirs. Grand Duke Dmitri was an excellent horseman who participated in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics and later, along with Marianne, became a suspect in Rasputin's murder.
While Marianne attended school, her mother gave birth to two more daughters: Irina Pavlovna Romanovskaya-Paleya (1903 - 1990) and Natalia Hohenfelsen, Countess Hohenfelsen (1905 - 1981). Both girls went on to become fashion models in the 1920s, and Natalia Paley later became a Hollywood movie star.
Between 1905 and the time of Rasputin's murder in 1916, Princess Olga Paley worked hard to make the court of the Grand Duke Paul a popular rival to that of the Tsar. The family entertained many important figures in St. Petersburg society, and the house thus became a center of court intrigue.
According to Gen. Alexander Spiridovich, chief of the Tsar's Secret Personal Police, it was this rivalry between the competing salons of St. Petersburg that eventually resulted in the monk Gregory Rasputin being introduced to the Imperial Family. Rasputin arrived at St. Petersburg in 1907, won admirers, and was adopted in 1908 by Anna Vyrubova, a close friend of the Tsarina.
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