What are facts about Tsarina Alexandra?

Answer 1

Alexandra Fyodorovna, the daughter of Louis IV, the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, was born in Germany on 6th June, 1872.

Alexandra, the grand-daughter of Queen Victoria, married Nicholas II, the Tsar of Russia, in October, 1894. Over the next few years she gave birth to four daughters and a son, Alexis.

Alexandra and Nicholas II disliked St. Petersburg. Considering it too modern, they moved the family residence in 1895 from Anichkov Palace to Alexander Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, where they lived in seclusion.

In 1905 Alexandra met Gregory Rasputin, a monk who claimed he had healing powers. Alexis suffered from hemophilia (a disease whereby the blood does not clot if a wound occurs). When Alexis was taken seriously ill in 1908, Rasputin was called to the royal palace. He managed to stop the bleeding and from then on he became a member of the royal entourage.

Alexandra was a strong believer in the autocratic power of Tsardom and urged him to resist demands for political reform. This resulted in her becoming an unpopular person in Russia and this intensified during the First World War.

In September, 1915, Nicholas II assumed supreme command of the Russian Army fighting on the Eastern Front. As he spent most of his time at GHQ, Alexandra now took responsibility for domestic policy. Gregory Rasputin served as her adviser and over the next few months she dismissed ministers and their deputies in rapid succession.

Rumours began to circulate that Alexandra and Gregory Rasputin were leaders of a pro-German court group and were seeking a separate peace with the Central Powers in order to help the survival of the autocracy in Russia. Ariadna Tyrkova commented: "Throughout Russia, both at the front and at home, rumour grew ever louder concerning the pernicious influence exercised by the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, at whose side rose the sinister figure of Gregory Rasputin. This charlatan and hypnotist had wormed himself into the Tsar's palace and gradually acquired a limitless power over the hysterical Empress, and through her over the Sovereign. Rasputin's proximity to the Tsar's family proved fatal to the dynasty, for no political criticism can harm the prestige of Tsars so effectually as the personal weakness, vice, or debasement of the members of a royal house. Rumours were current, up to now unrepudiated, but likewise unconfirmed, that the Germans were influencing Alexandra Feodorovna through the medium of Rasputin and Stürmer. Haughty and unapproachable, she lacked popularity, and was all the more readily suspected of almost anything, even of pro-Germanism, since the crowd is always ready to believe anything that tends to augment their suspicions.