Queen Genepil was merely 18 years old when she was chosen by the Mongolian council to become the new wife of Bogd Khan. Her name was Tseyenpil and she was already married with children at the time, but the councilors had assured her that the marriage would just be for the sake of appearances as they merely wanted to maintain the image of the monarchy.
Had she refused the proposal, that would have been the end of it, and the councilors would have been forced to let the arrangement go. But Tseyenpil agreed and became the queen consort of the Bogd, and she was renamed Genepil. A year after their marriage, the Bogd died marking the end of the Mongolian monarchy.
Unfortunately, after the abolition of the Mongolian monarchy, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party took over and its leader, Khorloogiin Choibalsan, who had been referred to as the "Stalin of Mongolia", became the supreme ruler. Much like Stalin, he began purging Mongolia of people whom the party deemed as dissidents and enemies of the revolution.
Being a former queen consort, Genepil was accused, tried, and convicted of treason. She and her family were arrested in 1937, and a year later, executed. Despite this, her daughter Tserenkhand escaped the fate of her family and recalls how her mother had been taken at night and simply left a piece of sugar on their pillows.
(Image credit: Joy V Spicer)