Princess Alix of Hesse
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Her Grand Ducal Highness Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine (Alix Victoria Helena Louise Beatrice, 6 June 1872 - 17 July 1918), was the consort of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the last Tsar of Russia. She was also a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Although born Alix – a German corruption of her mother's name, Alice – she assumed the name Alexandra Fyodorovna upon baptism into the Russian Orthodox Church.
Alexandra is remembered as the last Tsaritsa of Russia, as one of the most famous genetic carriers of hemophilia, as well as for her authoritarian control over the country. Her relationship with the Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin was also an important factor in her life.
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Early life
Alexandra was born on June 6, 1872 at Darmstadt, Hessen, Germany. Her father was His Royal Highness Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, the ruling Duke of Hesse. Her mother was HRH The Princess Alice, the second eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Her mother died when she was six, and her father died when she was twenty. Alexandra's brother, Prince Ernst Ludwig succeeded to the Grand Duchy of Hesse upon the death of his father.
As she lost her mother at an early age, she was very close to her grandmother, Queen Victoria, and was often thought to be Victoria's favourite granddaughter. Alexandra spent many of her early years in the United Kingdom, and stayed frequently with her English relatives at Balmoral Castle and Osborne House.
Marriage
Alexandra was married relatively late for her rank in her era, having refused the proposal of Prince Albert Edward of England (the eldest son of the Prince of Wales) despite strong familial pressure. She had, however, already met a distant cousin, the Tsarevich of Russia, Nicholas II of Russia. At first, Nicholas's father, Tsar Alexander III, refused the prospect of marriage, but later relented as his health began to fail. Alexandra was troubled by the requirement she renounce her Lutheran faith, as a Russian Tsarina had to be Orthodox; but she was persuaded and eventually became a fervent, even fanatic convert. She and Nicholas became engaged in April 1894. Alexander III died in November of that year, and Nicholas became Tsar of all the Russias at the age of twenty-five.
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Alexandra and Nicholas married on November 26, 1894 at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. They had five children:
- Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, (November 15, 1895 - July 17, 1918)
- Grand Duchess Tatiana of Russia, (June 10, 1897 - July 17, 1918)
- Grand Duchess Maria of Russia, June 26, 1899 - July 17, 1918)
- Grand Duchess Anastasia of Russia, June 18, 1901 - July 17, 1918)
- Tsarevich Alexei of Russia, (August 12, 1904 - July 17, 1918)
Unfortunately, Alexandra was a carrier of hemophilia, inherited from Queen Victoria through her mother, Princess Alice. Alexandra transmitted the disease to her son, Alexei.
Tsaritsa Alexandra
In 1895, Nicholas and Alexandra were crowned Tsar and Tsaritsa of Russia in an extravagant ceremony in Moscow. The coronation ceremony was marred by the deaths of several thousand peasants, who had come to receive gifts. This bad omen for the reign of Nicholas and Alexandra did not go unnoticed.
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Alexandra was unpopular at court and with the Russian people, lacking charm and social skills. She was hurt by her unenthusiastic reception, and declared herself to be tired of the loose morals and etiquette of the Russian court. She did not attempt to forge bonds with the other members of the large Romanov family and she generally attended as few court occasions as possible. She was unfavourably compared to her popular (and still youthful) predecessor, Dowager Empress Maria, a sister-in-law of Edward VII of the United Kingdom, who had a higher court precedence. This was not conducive to happy family relations. Her failure to produce an heir to the Russian throne in her first four attempts was also judged harshly.
Alexandra was fiercely protective of her husband's role as Tsar, and actively supported his rights as an autocratic ruler. She was a fervent advocate of the divine right, and believed that it was unnecessary to attempt to secure the approval of the people.
Rasputin
The birth of Alexei occurred at the height of the Russo-Japanese War on August 12, 1904. The Tsarevitch was the heir apparent to the throne of Russia, and Alexandra had fulfilled her most important role as Tsarina, in bearing a male child. The excitement was short-lived, when it was discovered Alexei suffered from hemophilia, which could only have been transmitted from Alexandra's side of the family. Hemophilia was generally fatal in the early 20th century, and had entered the royal houses of Europe via the daughters of Queen Victoria, who was a carrier. Alexandra had lost a brother to the disease, as well as an uncle, HRH Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany; it also spread to the Spanish and Prussian royal families, via other granddaughters of Queen Victoria. As an incurable and life threatening illness, suffered by the sole male heir, the heir's disease was kept secret from the Russian people.
At first Alexandra turned to Russian doctors and medics to treat Alexei; however, their treatments generally failed, and Alexandra increasingly turned to mystics and holy men. One of these, Grigori Rasputin, appeared to have a success still inexplicable today. Rasputin's unpopularity, however, and the dark rumours about him lead Nicholas to distance him from the family. In 1912, Alexei suffered a life-threatening hemorrhage in the thigh and groin while the family were at Spala, Poland. At this point Alexandra took the advice of her intimate friend Anna Vyrubova and sent a telegram to Grigori Rasputin. Rasputin's response, that Alexei was over the worst and the doctors should leave him to recover, coincided with his revival. From 1912 onwards, Alexandra came to rely increasingly on Rasputin, and to believe in his ability to ease Alexei's suffering. This reliance enhanced Rasputin's political power, which was to critically undermine Romonov rule during the First World War.
World War One
The outbreak of World War I was a pivotal moment for Russia and Alexandra. The War pitted Russia against Germany, the place of Alexandra's birth, and where her brother was Grand Duke of Hesse. This made Alexandra very unpopular with the Russian people, who accused her of collaboration with the Germans. The German Kaiser, Wilhelm II was also Alexandra's first cousin.
When the Tsar travelled to the front line in 1915 to take personal command of the Army, he left Alexandra in charge in St. Petersburg. Alexandra was not gifted at government, and constantly appointed and reappointed new ministers, which meant the government was never stable nor efficient. This was particularly dangerous in a war of attrition, as neither the troops nor the civilian population were ever adequately supplied. She paid great attention to the self-serving advice of Rasputin, and their relationship was widely (and inaccurately) believed to be sexual in nature. She was the focus of ever increasing and extremely negative rumours, and widely believed to be a German spy in the Russian court. Rasputin was eventually murdered by junior members of the Romanov family (Grand Duke Dmitri, and Prince Felix Yussoupov, who was married to the Tsar's niece Irina) in 1916.
Alexandra's relationship with the Tsar was loving but extremely manipulative and controlling, and he backed her against the strongly voiced complaints of the Romanov family.
Revolution
Russia crashed out of World War I in 1917, and the February Revolution that followed, forced the Tsar to abdicate the throne both for himself and the Tsarevich Alexei. Alexandra was now in a perilous position as the wife of the deposed Tsar, hated by the Russian people. Despite the fact he was a cousin of both Alexandra and Nicholas, King George V refused to allow them to evacuate to the UK, as he was alarmed by their unpopularity in his country and the potential repercussions on his own throne.
The Provisional Government formed after the revolution kept Nicholas, Alexandra and their children confined in their primary residence, the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo, until they were moved to Tobolsk in Siberia in August 1917, a step by the Kerensky government designed to remove them from the capital and possible harm. They remained in Tobolsk until after the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917 (the "October Revolution"), but were subsequently moved to Red-controlled Yekaterinburg. The Tsar and Tsaritsa and all of their family, including the gravely ill Alexei, along with several family servants, were executed by firing squad in the basement of the Ipatiev House, where they had been imprisoned, on the night of July 16 (or 17), 1918, by a detachment of Bolsheviks led by Yakov Yurovsky.
Identification and burial
Alexandra's body was buried with her family in a disused mine-shaft, 12 miles north of Yekaterinburg. In the early 1990s, following the fall of the Soviet Union, the bodies of the Romanovs were located, exhumed and formally identified. A secret report by Yurovsky, which came to light in the late 1970s, but did not become public knowledge until the 1990s, helped the authorities to locate the bodies. DNA analysis was a key means of identifying them. A blood sample from HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (a great grandson of Alexandra's mother) was used to identify Alexandra and her daughters through their mitochondria genes. Alexandra, Nicholas and their children (except Alexei and one daughter, whose remains were missing) were reinterred in the Romanov family crypt in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in 1998, with much ceremony, on the 80th anniversary of the execution.
In 2001 she and her family were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Her life was dramatized in Nicholas and Alexandra.
Titles
- Her Grand Ducal Highness Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine
- Her Imperial Majesty Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna of Russiade:Alexandra von Hessen-Darmstadt