Maria Cantemir was born 29 April 1700 in Constantinople, Turkey to Dimitrie Cantemir (1673-1723) and Cassandra Cantacuzino (1682-1713) and died 9 September 1754 Moscow, Russia of unspecified causes.
Maria Cantemir (1700–1754) was a Romanian noblewoman, a lady in waiting and salonist, and a mistress of Peter the Great.
Maria was born in Istanbul as the daughter of the Moldavian Prince Dimitrie Cantemir. She was very well educated. From 1711, she lived in Russia, and in 1720, she became involved in a relationship with Emperor Peter. Maria followed Peter to Astrakhan in 1722, where she gave birth to a son by him. The child died in 1723, possibly poisoned by the physician of Empress Catherine I of Russia. Catherine regarded Maria as a threat and was afraid of being replaced as empress by her. The relationship with Peter continued until his death in 1725, when she was forced to leave court. She was a lady in waiting to Grand Duchess Natalya Alexeyevna in 1727–28 and to Empress Anna of Russia in 1730–31. After this, she hosted a literary salon in Saint Petersburg.
She is also mentioned in the autobiography of the Swedish slave Lovisa von Burghausen. Burghausen was the prisoner of [Dimitrie Cantemir (1673-1723)|[Dimitrie Cantemir]] in 1713-1714, and credited Maria and her sister Smaragda with saving her from freezing to death during a punishment, by allowing her to sleep in their bedroom instead of in an unheated stone room in the middle of winter.[1][2]
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| Persondata | |
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| NAME | Cantemir, Maria |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Romanian noble |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1700 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1754 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
Siblings
| Name | Birth | Death | Joined with |
| Yekaterina Smaragda Kantemir (1720-1761) | 4 November 1720 Saint Petersburg, Russia | 3 November 1761 Versailles, Yvelines, Île-de-France, France | Dmitri Mikhailovich Golitsyn (1721-1793) |
Residences
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