Alexandra was the last Tsarina of Russia. She reigned with Tsar Nicholas, her great love. Both had to see how their love opposed their respective families, but it triumphed with an unfortunate end for both.
It was a love story worthy of a literary tragedy. They had met, for the first time, when they were still teenagers. She, Alexandra of Hesse, was 12 years old, and he, Nicholas Romanov, was 16. They met during her trip to Saint Petersburg to attend the wedding of her older sister. But, from the first moment, they did not want to think about any other option than that of their marriage.
The love and complicity that they had throughout her life contrasts with her enormous unpopularity in Russia and with the tragedies they had to face. They were the last monarchs of the Romanov dynasty and were executed on July 17, 1918, at the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, along with their five children and some members of their entourage.
The sad story of Alexandra Feodorovna
Alexandra Feodorovna was born Princess Victoria Alix Helena Louise Beatrice of Hesse, in Darmstadt, Germany, on June 6, 1872. She was the sixth child of Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse and his first wife, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, second daughter of Queen Victoria. Alix became one of the queen's favorite granddaughters. In her family they called her "sunny" (sunny), because of her good disposition, or Alicky, to distinguish her from Alexandra, Princess of Wales, and wife of the future Edward VII.
The first years of her life were privileged but sad. Her older brother, Federico, died after a fall due to hemophilia when she was just one year old. She later lost her mother to a bout of diphtheria when she was six. Marie, the sister she was closest to, also died. At 12 years old, she already showed a serious and melancholic character.
She was extremely religious and liked to help others. She loved music and was a great reader. After her mother's death, she spent most of her childhood with her cousins in England. Queen Victoria became like a mother to her. Her father died in 1892 when she was 19 years old. She couldn't talk about him without tears in her eyes for the rest of her life.
But despite her sadness, Alix was one of the most beautiful princesses of her time, with abundant red hair, gray eyes, and porcelain skin. However, she was so shy that she couldn't stand it when her grandmother, Queen Victoria, asked her to play the piano in front of strangers. As an adult, that shyness continued. She recognized that she was not made to shine in society and that she lacked the necessary eloquence and intelligence. This sensitivity earned her the antipathy of many courtiers, who saw in her haughtiness and contempt when she was only a mask to defend themselves from her.
Her troubled future with Russia and not with England
Queen Victoria tried to get her son and heir, Edward, to propose to her. However, Alix rejected her proposal. She only saw him as her cousin, not her future husband. Victoria was disappointed, but she saw Alix's attitude as a sign of her strength of character.
The reality was that Alix had met Grand Duke Nicholas Romanov, heir to the Russian throne when she attended the wedding of her sister Elizabeth to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. The future tsar already wrote then in his diary that "they were in love." They began to write. Six years later, in 1890, Alix traveled to Russia to visit her sister Elizabeth. She and Nicolás were at court meetings, they walked together and played badminton. Nicolas wrote down: "It is my dream to one day marry Alix."
Her family was in favor of the marriage from the beginning, although Queen Victoria was opposed. She was afraid that Alix would not be safe in a country like Russia, so unstable. Nicholas's parents also opposed it: they did not want their son to marry a German. But Nicholas was determined.
The opposition of both families could not with the love between Alix and Nicolás
In April 1894, the two met at the wedding of Alix's brother, Ernest, to Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, in Coburg. The next day, Nicolás proposed to Alix and spent two hours convincing her to convert to the Orthodox faith, something that kept Alix from accepting the marriage.
Finally, he accepted Nicolás's proposal. "It has been a wonderful day," the tsar wrote in his diary. For her part, Alix wrote to her governess that she was happier than her words could express. But events precipitated. Emperor Alexander III, Nicholas's father, died six months later, on November 1, and Nicholas became tsar. The next day, Alejandra was received into the Orthodox faith. The Russians first met their mourning-clad tsarina in Alexander III's funeral procession. Many saw in it a bad omen.
On November 26, 1894, Nicholas and Alexandra were married in the Church of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. Alix wore the Imperial Romanov crown that had belonged to Catherine the Great, a lace veil, and the Imperial mantle. Years later she would remember her wedding day as "another funeral mass, except that she was dressed in white."
The coronation took place on May 14, 1896, in the Kremlin Cathedral. A tragic event occurred that day fueling rumors of a curse: hundreds of people died in an avalanche that occurred at a popular festival. Nicolás and Alejandra wanted to cancel a ball called in their honor, at the French embassy, but they insisted that if they did not attend, the French would feel offended. The Russians took it as a sign of the regime's heartlessness.
Alexandra becomes unpopular at the Russian Imperial court
Nicolás and Alejandra were in love, but they were very young. Tsar Nicholas II was only 26 years old. Neither he nor Alejandra was prepared to take responsibility for the largest, most complex, and most violent country in Europe. Alejandra was only 22 years old and she did not know how to handle state affairs. She was unaware of the customs of a court that did not receive her with good eyes. The mistakes of the new tsarina multiplied.
Alejandra soon became extremely unpopular. From the beginning, Alix wanted to make clear the main rank of her. She was dressed in heavy brocades and wore every possible jewel. She thought that the Russian people revered their czars for the mere fact of being so, as divine beings, and she refused to greet or receive support from the people when she traveled.
Evil rumors spread at court, such as that she had aborted her second pregnancy because it was the result of her relationship with a lover of hers. This was in contrast to the happy marriage of Alix and Nicolas, who preferred to spend as much time together as possible, away from celebrations and balls. The imperial family felt that she separated them from him.
Between 1895 and 1901, Nicolás and Alix had four daughters: Olga, Tatiana, María, and Anastasia. Alix's unpopularity grew from her inability to bear an heir to the kingdom. The peasants thought that she was not loved by God. Finally, in 1904, Alexandra gave birth to a boy, Alexei. But Alix's suffering did not end, quite the opposite.
Alexei was born with hemophilia and Alix, desperate, only began to trust a kind of visionary, Grigori Rasputin, who ended up having a huge influence on domestic politics, when the tsar went to the front after the outbreak of World War I. Rasputin was finally assassinated in 1916. But it was too late. The tsar had to abdicate in 1917 and the imperial family was arrested.
Alix's real love in the war months
During the separation from her, in the first months of the war, Alix wrote Nicholas more than 400 letters. In them she told him how much she wanted him, but also how she should talk to her ministers. Her love remained unscathed despite the difficulties and the rejection of the Russian people by "the Germans". Important court figures asked Nicholas to keep his wife at bay, totally influenced by Rasputin, to the point that she appointed her ministers after consulting him. But Nicolás could never oppose the woman he loved.
His real tragedy was probably their inability to read the events around them. They died together as they had wished on numerous occasions in their love letters. Their passion survived the brutality of his murder and, more than a century later, their love still amazes, cut off from a world they didn't seem to understand.
