Rima Gizhlaryan from village of Platovo, ROSTOV REGION Russia- 1/15/2012 at 11:32:34 AM.
My hero is: Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia. It’s a common knowledge that a hero is a person who does a special act of bravery and doesn’t think of himself first. I for one consider every man or a woman to be a hero who does his or her duties in life properly. The woman I’d like to tell about didn’t create something that changed the world or many lives. But she is an example to follow to. This is Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia (Elizabeth Feodorovna Romanova), canonized as St. Elizabeth Romanova (1 November 1864 – 18 July 1918). She was a German princess of the House of Hesse, and the wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, fifth son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and the Rhine. She was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria as well. An older sister of Alexandra, the last Russian Empress, Elizabeth became famous in Russian society for her beauty and charitable works among the poor. After the Socialist Revolutionary Party's Combat Organization murdered her husband with a dynamite bomb in 1905 Elizabeth publicly forgave Sergei's murderer and campaigned without success for him to be pardoned. It was her first deed that impressed me the most – not everyone can forgive his enemies, I think. She then departed the Imperial Court and became a nun, founding the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent dedicated to helping the downtrodden of Moscow. She worked much there and helped a lot to Russian people. Before the death her relatives from Germany and Britain offered their help in leaving Russia. But she refused. She compared Russia and revolutionists with an ill kid who couldn’t be left in his hard minute. In 1918 she was arrested and ultimately buried alive by the Bolsheviks. In 1981 Elizabeth was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and in 1992 by the Moscow Patriarchate. In conclusion I want to say that St. Elizabeth became a person to admire for us, Russian people. She had such traits as mercy, forgiveness, generosity, kindness and love to surrounding people thanks to her education in German house and in the British house of her grandmother Queen Victoria. Though she came from one of the oldest and noblest houses in Germany, Elisabeth and her family lived a rather modest life by Royal standards. Her mother Princess Alice often took Elisabeth with her while visiting wounded soldiers in a nearby hospital. In this relatively happy and secure environment, Elisabeth grew up surrounded by English domestic habits, and English became her first language. Later in life, she would tell a friend that, within her family, she and her siblings spoke English to their mother and German to their father. My hero is a woman who united three European countries: Britain, Germany and Russia. Didn’t she show us that we’re one big family?