Maria Cantemir
Maria Cantemir was a Romanian noblewoman, Princess of Moldavia, a lady in waiting and salonist, and a mistress of Peter the Great, the Emperor of Russia.
Maria, born in Iasi as the daughter of the Moldavian Prince Dimitrie Cantemir, received an excellent education. From 1711 she lived in exile in Russia, and in 1720, she became involved in a relationship with Tsar 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. The relationship with Peter continued until his death in January 1725, when Catherine became Empress regnant and Maria was forced to leave court. She was a lady in waiting to princess Natalia in 1727–28 and to Empress Anna Ivanovna in 1730–31. Later she hosted a literary salon in Saint Petersburg.
The Swedish slave Lovisa von Burghausen mentions Maria in her autobiography. Burghausen, as the prisoner of Dimitrie Cantemir in 1713-1714, 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.
