Alexandra

(born June 6, 1872, Darmstadt, German Empiredied July 16/17, 1918, Yekaterinburg, Russia) Consort of Russia's Tsar Nicholas II. A granddaughter of Queen Victoria, she married Nicholas in 1894 and sought to restore absolute power in the monarchy. Desperate to help her hemophiliac son, Alexis, she turned to the hypnotic powers of Grigory Rasputin, who became her spiritual adviser. In 1915 Nicholas left Moscow to command Russian forces in World War I, and Alexandra dismissed capable ministers and replaced them with nonentities favored by Rasputin. Her misrule contributed to the collapse of the imperial government. After the Bolshevik takeover in the Russian Revolution of 1917, the royal family was imprisoned and later executed.