Women's participation in the situation of the wounded is unique. Everyone who has ever come into contact with medicine knows that it is women's hands that cause less suffering and heal faster. This is not given to male nurses.
During the Crimean War, it was no longer possible to do without them: the cruelty of the war and the suffering of the wounded became prohibitive, for every one killed in battle there were 10 soldiers who died of wounds and diseases. It was in many respects that the women-sisters of mercy, who first appeared in that war, were able to go out and save thousands of the wounded.
150 sisters of mercy of the Krestovodvizhenskaya community (mostly from noble families), created by Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, arrived in Sevastopol and for the first time took care of the wounded and sick directly in combat conditions: on the battlefield and in hospitals.
The Sisters of Mercy were directly subordinate to N. I. Pirogov, who enthusiastically wrote about them: "I am proud that I directed their blessed activities."
Russia played a leading role in the world in the creation of precisely secular communities of sisters of mercy, while in the states of Western Europe the priority was for religious communities, where the main thing was the spiritual state of the members of the communities. The secular communities of sisters in Russia had a different goal - training nursing personnel, preparing them for work in war conditions.
In 1867, under the patronage of Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Emperor Alexander II, the Society for the Care of the Wounded and Sick Warriors was created, which united the sisters. Subsequently, it became known to this day by the Russian Red Cross Society. Under the leadership and patronage of the Russian empresses, the ROKK remained until 1917.
With the onset of the Great War, the women of the country, regardless of class differences and position in society, selflessly looked after the wounded on the front line and in the rear: the daughter of the naval minister worked at the Nikolaevsky naval hospital in Petrograd, and the daughter of the chairman of the Council of Ministers recovered to the front as a sister of mercy, like Alexandra Lvovna Tolstaya. The writer Kuprin with his wife, a sister of mercy, was from the first months of the war at the front.
Rimma Ivanova, a teacher from Stavropol, voluntarily went to defend the Fatherland and became a sister of mercy. On September 9, 1915, near the village of Mokraya Dubrova (now the Pinsk district of the Brest region of the Republic of Belarus), during the battle, Rimma Ivanova under fire assisted the wounded. When both officers of the company were killed during the battle, she raised the company to attack and rushed into the enemy trenches. The position was taken, but Ivanova herself was fatally wounded by an explosive bullet in the thigh. By decree of Nicholas II, as an exception, Rimma Ivanova was posthumously awarded the officer's order of St. George, IV degree. She became the second (after the founder of Catherine the Great) and the last Russian citizen to be awarded for 150 years of its existence.
In the third month of the war, sister of mercy, Elizaveta Alexandrovna Girenkova, was awarded the Order of St. George, I degree "for outstanding bravery shown under enemy fire while helping the wounded." By the end of the second year of the war, Baroness Yevgenia Petrovna Toll was wounded three times, awarded the Cross of St. George of the IV degree and presented to the third and second.
The Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna Romanova worked for more than a year as a sister of mercy in the front-line hospital as a simple sister of mercy, and was awarded two St. George medals.
Women of all classes, including the highest, took the most active part in the activities of the sisters. Here are the sisters of mercy of the highest rank in the country, undeservedly forgotten, insulted and slandered, and I would like to remind you.
Empress Alexandra Feodorovna was one of the leaders of the Russian Red Cross Society and Sisters of Mercy communities from the very beginning of the war in 1914.
Sisters of mercy ROKK Alexandra Fedorovna, Tatiana and Olga Romanov, Tsarkoselsky hospital, 1914
She, with like-minded people and assistants, turned the city of Tsarskoe Selo and a huge part of the Winter Palace into the world's largest military medical hospital and rehabilitation centers, which were equipped with the most advanced medical equipment. Therefore, the most severe wounded were brought there, for whom the empress herself went to the front in hospital trains.
Infirmary in the Winter Palace, 1915
In 1914, under the tutelage of the Empress and her daughters, 85 hospitals were opened in Tsarskoye Selo alone in palaces, hospitals, private houses and dachas, starting with the Great Catherine Palace and ending with dachas and mansions. Alexandra Feodorovna distributed donations for the needs of the war, adapted her palaces in Moscow and Petrograd for hospitals, organized the publication of medical journals, where advanced methods of treatment were considered.
In the palace hospitals, she and her daughters organized courses for nurses and nurses. In the Winter Palace, the best ceremonial halls overlooking the Neva were taken away for the wounded, namely: the Nikolaev Hall with the Military Gallery, the Avan-Hall, Field Marshal and Heraldic Halls - for only a thousand wounded. On her initiative, well-equipped annexes to the palaces were added to accommodate the wives and mothers of hospitalized soldiers, which had an extremely favorable effect on the recovery process of the wounded, sanitary points were organized, where women of all classes together prepared dressings for the wounded.
Still, she considered the main responsibility for herself and all her four daughters to be direct assistance to the wounded as sisters of mercy. In November 1914, Alexandra Feodorovna with her daughters Olga and Tatiana and forty-two other sisters of the first wartime graduation passed the exams and received a certificate of military sister of mercy. Then they all entered the infirmary at the Palace Hospital as ordinary surgical nurses and daily bandaged the wounded, including the seriously wounded.
Like any operating nurse, the Empress handed in instruments, cotton wool and bandages, carried away amputated legs and arms, bandaged gangrenous wounds, learned to quickly change the bedding without disturbing the sick, taking pride in the Red Cross patch.
From a letter from the Empress to Nicholas II. Tsarskoe Selo. November 20, 1914: “This morning we were present (as usual, I help with the delivery of the instruments, Olga was threading the needles) at our first large amputation (the arm was taken away from the very shoulder). Then we all did the dressings (in our little infirmary), and later very complicated dressings in the big infirmary. I had to bandage the unfortunates with terrible wounds … they are unlikely to remain men in the future, so everything is riddled with bullets. I washed everything, cleaned it, anointed it with iodine, covered it with petroleum jelly, tied it up - it all turned out quite well. I made 3 similar dressings. My heart bleeds for them, it's so sad, being a wife and mother, I especially sympathize with them."
Sister of the ROKK Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova treating the wound, the Tsarskoye Selo hospital.
From the diary of her daughter, Tatyana Nikolaevna: “… There was an operation under local anesthesia for Gramovich, a bullet was removed from his chest. She served tools … Bandaged Prokosheev of the 14th Finnish Regiment, chest wound, cheek and eye wound. Then I tied up Ivanov, Melik-Adamov, Taube, Malygin …”.
RRCS sister Tatyana Romanova bandaging the wounded under the guidance of the best Russian surgeon Vera Gedroyts.
From the diary of her daughter, Olga Nikolaevna: "… Tied up Potsches, Garmovich of the 64th Kazan regiment, a wound of the left knee, Ilyin of the 57th Novodzinsky regiment, a wound of the left shoulder, after Mgebriev, Poboevsky …".
Sister ROKK Olga Romanova
The youngest daughters Maria and Anastasia underwent home nursing courses and helped mothers and sisters in their hospitals in caring for the wounded, for which they were infinitely grateful.
Poems of the wounded warrant officer, the great Russian poet Nikolai Gumilyov, a patient of the Tsarskoye Selo infirmary of the Grand Palace, dedicated to Anastasia on behalf of a group of wounded officers.
Today is Anastasia's day, And we want that through us
Love and affection of all Russia
To you it was gratefully heard.
What a joy to congratulate us
You, the best image of our dreams, And put a modest signature
At the bottom of the welcome verses.
Forgetting that the day before
We were in fierce battles
We are the feast of the fifth of June
Let's celebrate in our hearts.
And we carry away to a new cut
Hearts full of delight
Remembering our meetings
In the middle of the Tsarskoye Selo palace.
This work was not a show: this is how their immediate boss, the best surgeon in Russia Vera Ignatievna Gedroyts, who did not like autocracy in general, and was wary of them at first, spoke of these sisters of mercy: "They did not play sisters, as I later had to repeatedly see with many secular ladies, namely, they were them in the best sense of the word."
Tatyana Melnik, the daughter of the doctor Botkin: "Dr. Derevenko, a very demanding person in relation to the sisters, told me after the revolution that he rarely had to meet such a calm, dexterous and efficient surgical nurse as Tatyana Nikolaevna."
These sisters of mercy helped hundreds of wounded defenders of the Fatherland, thereby saving many of their lives. Is it possible to imagine that the wives and daughters of the highest Bolshevik bosses (before and after 91 years) served as surgical nurses?
Alexandra Feodorovna and her daughters also took care of those who died from their wounds: by her order, the first official fraternal cemetery of those who died for the Fatherland in the First World War was opened for the first time in Tsarskoye Selo. At her own expense, the empress built a church. The royal family personally saw off many of those buried here on their last journey, and took care of the graves.
The communists subsequently demolished the cemetery with bulldozers and built … vegetable gardens on it. Today, on the site of the cemetery, a granite monument-cross is erected in honor of those who died for their Motherland in the Great War, one of the few existing in Russia in memory of the Great War.
Monument to the fallen soldiers in WWI of 1914-1918 at the site of the Bratsk cemetery in Tsarskoe Selo (2008), around the gardens on the graves.
After the arrest of the royal family, hospitals and hospitals fell into complete decay and the wounded were left without proper care. The unique infirmary of Winter was plundered and closed already on October 27, the infirmaries of the Fedorovsky town of Tsarskoe Selo were closed.
Even while in Tobolsk, Alexandra Fedorovna and her daughters were interested in the state of the hospitals, where they served and worried about their decline … Their lives ended tragically and terribly: sisters of mercy of the Russian Red Cross Society Alexandra Fedorovna, Tatyana Nikolaevna, Olga Nikolaevna, Maria Nikolaevna, Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanov, who saved many, many lives of wounded Russian soldiers, were brutally killed by the Bolshevik monsters, together with their relatives and friends.
The massacre was savage: first, Alexandra Feodorovna was killed in front of the children, then the girls and the boy were killed, Anastasia, who later woke up, was finished off with bayonets. They were killed by their cowards, who themselves had never fought at the front and therefore did not even imagine what a terrible crime it was to kill a sister of mercy.
The names of these selfless beautiful women of Russia, true Mercy of the Sisters, who sincerely gave their hearts and hands to the treatment and restoration of the wounded defenders of the Fatherland, will forever remain in the hearts of grateful citizens of Russia, their eternal honor and glory. They have lived and will live forever in the descendants of the wounded soldiers and officers of Russia who were groomed by their hands.
Monument to Russian Sisters of Mercy
