The last empress of Russia arrived in the world on June 6, 1872, in Hesse-Darmstadt. This made her technically German. But Germany was only very recently unified, and the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt was only a reluctant joiner. The young princess Alix felt far less affinity to fellow Germans (like the Prussians) than she did to the English.

Her mother was a daughter of Queen Victoria. The English ties were only strengthened when Alix was six and her mother died. Victoria herself took charge of Alix’s education, via correspondence and yearly visits to British palaces like Balmoral (Massie, 29).

At the age of 12, Alix visited St Petersburg because her sister Ella was marrying a Russian noble. Alix met a teenager named Nicky, otherwise known as Nikolai, the Crown Prince, but their romance didn’t blossom until she came visiting again five years later. Together she and Nicky went ice skating, tobogganing, and dancing.

As in any great love story, there were obstacles. Her family wanted her to marry the oldest son of the Prince of Wales (Massie, 31). Nikolai’s family thought a princess of a small place like Darmstadt wasn’t good enough for the future Tsar of Russia (Massie, 27). Both families decided against forcing their children, which right there was a sign the world had changed. The remaining obstacle was Alix herself. She loved Nicky, but she also loved God. To marry Nikolai she’d have to abandon her Lutheran vows and convert to Russian Orthodoxy.

In 1894, when Nikolai proposed, she said no. Cried a lot, but no. Then Ella, who had already converted, sat Alix down to explain that conversion was no biggie: Lutheranism, Orthodoxy, whatever, practically the same thing. One can imagine some theologians disagreeing, but it worked and Alix said yes. She would marry her Prince Charming.

At first, it seemed that happily ever after had already arrived. While engaged, they visited England and everyone was thrilled. But then they heard the news: Nikolai’s father, the Tsar, was dying. What should have been her triumphal entry into Russia was actually a race to a sickbed.

A Difficult Beginning

When the Tsar died on November 1, Nikolai point blank refused to be Tsar without his one true love. The wedding was scheduled for the following spring. Nikolai moved it up. The Russian people were introduced to their new Tsarina as she walked behind a coffin in a funeral procession. A week later they saw her in a wedding procession, and even she said the only noticeable difference was a white dress instead of a black one (Massie, 44). It didn’t feel like a celebration at all.

With a wedding so rushed, no home was ready for them. They moved in with her mother-in-law, and that went exactly like you might expect. After a few months, a new home helped, but there was no changing the basic facts: the new Queen Alexandra was shy, reserved, and she didn’t speak Russian.

In a patrilocal society, the woman leaves her home to join her husband. Never before have I fully grasped what a significant disadvantage that is. Nikolai had friends, relations, supporters, and a full command of the local language and culture. Alexandra had none of that. No one ever met her as an equal or without fear of ramifications if they put a syllable wrong. At official functions, Russians found her stiff and prudish. She had the morals of Victorian England. They did not.

Alexandra began to have frequent headaches and other complaints that necessitated skipping public appearances. Whether her health problems were genuine, or psychosomatic, or simply running away is impossible to know. But they only compounded the problem. You don’t get more comfortable in social situations by dodging social situations, as I know from personal experience.

Nikolai and Alexandra were absolutely delighted with Princess Olga born in November 1895. Alexandra nursed her daughter herself, and for a sitting queen to do that is more proof that the world had changed (see episode 11.2). But nursing was also one more reason why she couldn’t possibly attend all the court functions (Maylunas, 123).

She did make it to coronation day, May 26, 1896. The ceremony involved five hours of sitting on an ivory throne. Alexandra, who had by now fully transferred her deep religious feelings, found it beautiful and mystical and moving as she formally accepted her role as mother of the Russian people (Massie, 53).

The following day there was a party in the streets with thousands of people and government-provided alcohol. Only somehow a rumor got out that there wasn’t enough alcohol. A stampede followed and thousands of Russian peasants were trampled to death.

Nikolai and Alexandra were utterly horrified that their beautiful moment had turned into carnage. Their advisors said it would be a mortal insult to the French embassy if they did not attend the party there that night, so they went. By all reports, they both wept through the party, but the Russian people saw only that the Tsar and Tsarina danced while people died. The Tsar did not care about them.

Nikolai and Alexandra personally visited hospitals, paid for funerals, and compensated families. (Massie, 55-56), but the PR damage was done.

A Growing Family

Two years later, Nikolai and Alexandra welcomed Princess Tatiana, then Princess Marie, and then Princess Anastasia. Nikolai was gentle, loving, and supportive. His mother and sister less so. “My God! What a disappointment! A fourth girl!” are the exact words recorded (Rounding, 35; Maylunas, 191).

Imagine Alexandra’s relief when on August 12, 1904, she gave birth to a son.

She was overjoyed for about six weeks when it became evident that little Alexei had hemophilia.

Hemophilia is a disease in which the blood cannot clot, so even a minor injury may lead you to bleed to death. Degrees of hemophilia vary, so many patients do eventually stop bleeding, but it can be exquisitely painful when internal bleeding is pooling up in your joints.

Alexandra did not know that hemophilia is a recessive gene carried on the X chromosome, but she was not unfamiliar with the disease. None of Queen Victoria’s descendants were. You can read many a book about Victorian England without ever realizing that her son Leopold was hemophiliac. In the history of England, it’s barely a blip. Leopold wasn’t the only son or the oldest son, so in the brutally honest scheme of things, he didn’t matter.

In the history of Russia, Alexei’s hemophilia dominates everything that happened afterwards From the moment the diagnosis was confirmed, both Nikolai and Alexandra were completely focused on one thing: saving Alexei.

So when the young prince begged for a bicycle, Alexandra said no. When he wanted to play tennis, she said no (Massie, 133). When he slipped from a chair in his schoolroom and banged his knee, it was followed by days and nights of sitting helplessly by his bed while he cried.

Her own health had long been poor, and now it was worse. Her faith had always been strong, and now she spent hours on her knees, begging God for the life of her son (Massie, 146).

It flatly never occurred to Nikolai and Alexandra to tell their people the truth and ask for sympathy. Instead they hid Alexei’s condition and grew still more remote and distant from their subjects. I do not personally have the experience of having a disabled child. But there are other writers and historians who do and can speak to it. Here’s what Mark Painter of the wonderful History of the 20ᵗʰ Century podcast says:

 I am the father of disabled sons myself, and so I feel like I have some personal insight into what Nikolai and Alexandra must have been feeling. It’s a natural reaction of a parent to respond to the seeming unfairness of your child having a disability by wanting to do everything in your power to make sure that the quality of your child’s life is as good as you can make it otherwise. And I can’t help but think that Nikolai’s determination not to give up his inherited power as autocrat of all the Russia’s stemmed at least in part from a feeling that life had already cheated Alexei and that his father was not going to compound the unfairness by surrendering his son’s inheritance.

(History of the 20th Century, episode 135)

Already, Nikolai had lost some of that inheritance. His father had ruled as an all-powerful autocrat. Nikolai was now a semi-constitutional monarch. The Duma (or assembly) held very, very limited power. They clamored for more and Alexandra wrote to her husband “we must give a strong country to Baby, and dare not be weak for his sake” (Maylunas, 492). Or on another occasion “For Baby’s sake we must be firm as otherwise his inheritance will be awful” (Maylunas, 456).

Rasputin, the Miracle Worker

By the time both of those comments were written, Grigory Rasputin was already a complicating factor. Rasputin is one of those characters in history that you think have to be fictional, he is so unbelievable, and yet he is fact. He was a big, coarse, dirty, unkempt Siberian peasant, who became famous as a pilgrim, a man of God. He had enormous personal charisma and a hypnotic gaze, even in pictures. He had a brief vogue with the Russian aristocracy as a faith healer. That is how he was introduced to the imperial family, because if anyone needed a faith healer, they did.

On more than one occasion, Alexei was at the verge of death, doctors were helpless, Alexandra’s nerves were stretched to the breaking point, and Rasputin came (or even just telegrammed), and the crisis passed. Alexei was miraculously better.

To this day, people argue about how Rasputin did it. Maybe placebo effect. Maybe hypnosis. It’s possible that doctors were giving Alexei the new wonder drug of the era: aspirin. Doctors knew it helped with pain. They didn’t know it’s a blood thinner, exactly the wrong thing to give a hemophiliac. Rasputin sent the doctors away. That might have helped.

Finally, there’s the miraculous-power-of-God theory. You may or may not accept that as a possibility, but before you decide you should know that Rasputin’s reputation as a holy man collapsed quickly under the weight of hundreds of sexual encounters, not all of them consensual, plus coarse language, boasting, drunkenness, and a theology that said “to sin is the first step toward holiness.” Jesus said to repent, see? And how can you repent if you haven’t sinned first. It was convenient because Rasputin was doing a lot of sinning (Massie, 185).

Basically, he was a con artist, and Alexandra was well and permanently conned. She would not hear a word against him. He had saved the life of her son. Of course he was a holy man. If he was accused of rape, or accepting bribes, or a thousand other crimes, then it was all a pack of lies perpetrated by a jealous and petty Russian aristocracy, most of whom she didn’t like anyway (Massie, 202). Rasputin grew rich and powerful under her patronage.

Since the people didn’t know about Alexei’s hemophilia, they could not guess what the Empress saw in him. Their minds leapt to conclusions. It must be sexual. The empress was cuckolding the Tsar with a dirty Siberian peasant.

There was proof too. Letters which Alexandra had written to Rasputin were widely published and they were full of phrases like “I kiss your hands and lean my head on your blessed shoulder” and “Come quickly, I am waiting for you and I am tormenting myself for you” (Massie, 199).

It is possible that Alexandra actually wrote those words. She was a Victorian, and Victorian women regularly used sickly florid, overly emotional phrases to their friends, male and female. It was a style of talking. Not proof of a sexual history. There is no credible evidence that Rasputin’s behavior in her presence was anything but rigidly correct and proper. Nor hers to him. That is why it was so easy for her to disbelieve his accusers. They had lied about her, these wicked people. Why should they not lie about other women too?

In 1914, Rasputin survived an assassination attempt. A woman stabbed him and shouted, “I have killed the Antichrist!” (Massie, 245). She was wrong on at least one count. He lived, and his recovery was just one more miracle bolstering his image: He was so holy he couldn’t be killed.

World War I

1914 is also the year that Archduke Franz Ferdinand did not survive an assassination attempt. That triggered a whole series of complex alliance treaties. Russia mustered at least 12 million soldiers, a number higher than any other power in World War I. Germany mobilized 11 million, but remember Germany had to split its forces between the East and Western front (Library of Congress). Numerically, Russia had an enormous advantage.

Unfortunately, the Great War proved, once and for all, that numbers are not how you win wars. For every mile of railroad track Russia had, Germany had ten. For every factory in Russia, the UK had 150. Russia entered the war with 60 batteries of heavy artillery. Germany had 381 (Massie, 270-272).

These things matter in modern warfare, and millions of Russians would die proving it. The Germans mowed down a quarter of the Russian army in the first five months of the war. 1915 was even worse (Massie, 294, 296).

Nikolai moved into army headquarters. He brought Alexei with him. This was a wrench and a risk, but it was deemed necessary for his education. He was still ill. And this is what I think is the most extraordinary part of the whole story: Nikolai, the reigning emperor, the commander-in-chief of an army at war, spent his nights personally caring for his sick and crying child (Massie, 289). Nikolai could have delegated that job. Any other world leader before him would have. But he didn’t. Whatever his faults as a Tsar, he was a fully committed father.

Alexandra in Charge

With Nikolai at headquarters, someone had to fill the void at home, and Nikolai thought it should be his wife. This was not welcome news to Alexandra. In the early days of the war, she assigned herself to serve in the operating rooms of the local hospitals, washing wounds and disposing of amputated arms and legs (Massee, 308-309). She was the mother of Russia. These dying men were her children, and she cared for them as she had cared for her own son.

In the 20 years Alexandra had been on the throne she had shown no interest in politics. She had no personal ambition. But her beloved Nikolai asked her to fill his shoes at home.

So she got over her fear of official functions and the aristocracy. By September 1916, she wrote to Nikolai in amazement that “I am no longer the slightest bit shy or afraid of ministers and speak like a waterfall in Russian” (Massie, 328), (The letters are in English. That was the language she and Nicky always spoke at home.)

Her confidence stemmed from having the best possible advisor. Rasputin was her personal connection to God. She fired ministers who were “bad,” which is to say, they criticized Rasputin. She replaced them with men who were “good,” which meant they did not to question Rasputin. Ministers rose and fell like bowling pins. Rasputin even began directing the war effort. He would have a dream, a vision of what should be done. He would tell Alexandra, who would write to Nikolai, who would sometimes protest, but often would cave, much to the annoyance of his generals (Massie, 339).

Meanwhile the death toll mounted, while the food, fuel, ammunition, and hope dwindled. Anti-German sentiment was very high, and who do we know that is German? Our very own Tsarina is German.

Word on the street was that Rasputin was a paid German spy. He and the empress were working together to bring Russia down from within (Massie, 346). There is no credible evidence of this. Alexandra had no German loyalty at all. Rasputin was many unprintable things, but he wasn’t a traitor. Russians didn’t know that.

Even close family members came to complain about him. One of these eventually shouted at Alexandra, “I realize that you are willing to perish and that your husband feels the same way, but what about us? … You have no right to drag your relatives with you down a precipice” (Massie, 370).

For Alexandra it was only proof of Rasputin’s holiness. In classic con man style, Rasputin had told her not to trust anyone else. They were all liars with nothing but their own self-interest at heart. He, Rasputin, was the only one who could save her family and save Russia.

Whether Nikolai was totally convinced is still an open question. He may have been, or possibly he knew that his son and his wife depended on Rasputin. Either way, he did not get rid of Rasputin.

Eventually a small group of conspirators, including Nikolai’s nephew, decided to solve the problem. True to form, Rasputin’s death was larger than life. The conspirators fed him poison and he lived. Getting desperate, they shot him, and the enraged man actually chased them out of the house. They shot him several more times and clubbed him and shoved him into a frozen river before he finally stayed dead (Massie, 357-358).

Abdication and the End of the Romanovs

Rasputin had often told Alexandra that without him, she would lose both her son and her crown within six months. Three months after his death, March 1917, the starving masses revolted. Nikolai ordered troops to stop the disturbance, but the troops in the capitol were those unfit for service at the front. They could not (or would not) stop the revolution.

When the situation was made clear to him, Nikolai barely even protested. (Can you imagine just how very, very tired he must have been?)

On March 15 at 3 pm, he abdicated in favor of his 12-year-old son. He assumed he would be able to retire with his family until Alexei was old enough to take the throne. Then his ministers pointed out that he was much more likely to be exiled without his son, so he changed his mind. At 9 pm, a new statement which read, in part: “Not wishing to part with our dear son, we hand over our inheritance to our brother the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich and give him our blessing to mount the throne of the Russian state” (Massie, 396).

This came as a complete surprise to Michael. Rasputin had told Alexandra that Michael was scheming to take the throne, but when he had it, he abdicated immediately. The Romanov dynasty was at an end.

Like Marie Antoinette before her, Alexandra was warned that it was time to run. But the children had the measles. They couldn’t possibly run, and so she didn’t. Her worst fear was not knowing where Nikolai was. But he was eventually returned to her, and the both of them felt they could bear anything, except having their family torn apart.

The family was held in their home for months while a new and chaotic Russia tried to decide what to do with an ex-Tsar and his family. There was some talk about England, but that came to nothing.

In August they were moved to Siberia. They lived cozily enough, but they were never allowed out of the house and yard. Then the Bolsheviks took power under Lenin and Trotsky. The Bolsheviks had no interest in paying the household expenses of an ex-tsar. Quality of life took a decided turn for the worse.

Ironically, the people most interested in orchestrating a prison break were the Germans. Russia had stopped fighting by now, but Germany had not. They wanted to call the shots in Russia, and they thought a restored Tsar would be grateful to them, and a lot easier to manage than this Bolshevik rabble. Alexandra was appalled. “After what they have done,” she wrote, “I would rather die in Russia than be saved by the Germans” (Maylunas, 636).

On that point alone, Alexandra and the Bolsheviks were in total agreement. The family was moved again, and then one night at midnight the guards roused the family and told them to go to the basement. They did so, and the entire squad opened fire in a small room. The family died there together, including Anastasia.

Nikolai and Alexandra will probably always be controversial figures. People can (and do) interpret them as selfish, blind, and stupid. They are accused of having a will of iron and also as being weak and easily swayed. Countless writers have speculated about what if Alexei had not had hemophilia or had not been the only son? (To which I say, what if anyone had considered letting Olga inherit the throne? She was the oldest after all, and she was perfectly healthy. But the only-males-inherit isn’t even questioned.)

In the end, it’s interesting to compare Alexandra’s choices with those generally promoted for women of her time. Women were told to prioritize being a wife and a mother. No one can deny that Alexandra did exactly that. She and Nikolai were excellent parents. Sadly in her case, that just wasn’t enough.

Selected Sources

Kurth, Peter, et al. Tsar : The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra. St Leonards, N.S.W., Allen & Unwin, 1998.

Library of Congress. “Mobilized Strength and Casualty Losses | Events & Statistics | Articles & Essays | Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures, 1914-1919 | Digital Collections | Library of Congress.” Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, http://www.loc.gov/collections/world-war-i-rotogravures/articles-and-essays/events-and-statistics/mobilized-strength-and-casualty-losses/.

Massie, Robert K. Nicholas and Alexandra. New York, Atheneum, 1968.

Maylunas, Andrei, and S V Mironenko. Nicholas and Alexandra : Their Own Story. London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996.

Painter, Mark. “135: Stupidity or Treason?” The History of the Twentieth Century, 11 Nov. 2018, historyofthetwentiethcentury.com/135-stupidity-or-treason/. Accessed 2 June 2024.

Rounding, Virginia. Alix and Nicky. St. Martin’s Press, 17 Jan. 2012.