Maria Laidoner

On the second floor of the Estonian War Museum is Maria’s Salon, dedicated to the wife of General Johan Laidoner, a Polish noblewoman who became a first lady and great patriot of Estonia as the wife of the commander of the Estonian War of Independence.

The salon displays tableware and furniture that belonged to the Laiodner family, as well as a copy of a portrait of Maria painted by Maximilian Maksolly (pictured). The café room’ on the ground floor of the museum is also dedicated to Maria.

Maria Kruszewska Laidoner was born on 12 December 1888 in Vilno (Vilnius), the fifth child of Alevtina and Antoni Kruszewski. She was educated as a musician, pianist and piano teacher.

At the age of 16, Maria met Johan Laidoner, an Estonian boy who had studied at the infantry school in Vilno, at a ball. In 1911 they were married in St Petersburg. The couple had a son Michael (1913-1928). After their son’s death, the Laidoners adopted Maria Laidoner’s nephew Alexei Kruszewski (1913-1941).

After the Soviet occupation of Estonia, the NKVD arrested Johan Laidoner and deported him to Penza in Russia. Mari went with her husband voluntarily. Although she was never charged, 12 years of imprisonment in Soviet prisons followed, including seven years in solitary confinement. The last time Maria saw her husband was in 1952 in Butyrka prison in Moscow.

In 1954 she was released, but was not allowed to return to Estonia. Maria lived in the town of Melensky and supported herself by giving piano lessons. In 1961 Maria was allowed to come to live in a small Estonian town and she chose Haapsalu as her home. She died on 12 November 1978 in Jämejala Hospital near Viljandi and is buried in Tallinn Siselinna Cemetery next to her son Michael.