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Alexandra Feodorovna / Re: Alexandra as Empress and Mother
« on: March 26, 2021, 03:08:14 AM »
Again, this is not a new thread but my thoughts fit best here - Alexandra as mother.
Most seem to agree she was a good mother, and in many ways, I agree. She was loving, she was more attuned to her children's needs than most aristocratic mothers of her time, there is something "bourgeois" in her insistence on close-knit family ties, and she educated through love and example, not authority and instilling fear. I like all those things and I think she was a very gentle soul.
But after reading most of Helen Azar's excellently annotated and edited translations of the letters and diaries, there is something I must bring up and discuss with other :-)
Her children were very much worried about her health, and she gave them details that are imo unnecessary. Her daughter Olga really obsesses about her mother's health and mentions it nearly daily in her diary. Dear Mama is tired - has the headache - her heart is enlarged - her cheek, leg, back aches - she has a temperature of 37.5 - she is better but very tired - she stayed in her room - and she sat with N.P. [Sablin] - she sat with him quite a lot.
I have much sympathy for Alexandra, I suffered from chronic pain for many years and can understand how mentally exhausting it is. I also don't want to be judgmental but in this case, I fear I am. I think there were enough shadows over the lives of her daughters - their worries about their little brother, their isolation, the tensions within the family - the public interest in them. I think Alexandra could have spared them the details about her physical situation and the daily updates about whether her heart was Nr.1, 2 or 3. I found myself really pitying Olga while reading it.
Where the emotional bond is so strong, parents still have to use discretion and be careful not to over-share.
Maybe I'm too critical but I'm somehow disappointed that Alexandra threw such a shadow over her daughters' minds. Especially because I estimated her mothering instincts greatly. What played against her in the "good society" so much, her introversion and sensitivity, made her a good wife and mother. But she held her health situation like a shield between herself and the world, including her daughters.
I highlighted the sentences about her health situation in my Kindle edition of the book, and wow were they many.
Most seem to agree she was a good mother, and in many ways, I agree. She was loving, she was more attuned to her children's needs than most aristocratic mothers of her time, there is something "bourgeois" in her insistence on close-knit family ties, and she educated through love and example, not authority and instilling fear. I like all those things and I think she was a very gentle soul.
But after reading most of Helen Azar's excellently annotated and edited translations of the letters and diaries, there is something I must bring up and discuss with other :-)
Her children were very much worried about her health, and she gave them details that are imo unnecessary. Her daughter Olga really obsesses about her mother's health and mentions it nearly daily in her diary. Dear Mama is tired - has the headache - her heart is enlarged - her cheek, leg, back aches - she has a temperature of 37.5 - she is better but very tired - she stayed in her room - and she sat with N.P. [Sablin] - she sat with him quite a lot.
I have much sympathy for Alexandra, I suffered from chronic pain for many years and can understand how mentally exhausting it is. I also don't want to be judgmental but in this case, I fear I am. I think there were enough shadows over the lives of her daughters - their worries about their little brother, their isolation, the tensions within the family - the public interest in them. I think Alexandra could have spared them the details about her physical situation and the daily updates about whether her heart was Nr.1, 2 or 3. I found myself really pitying Olga while reading it.
Where the emotional bond is so strong, parents still have to use discretion and be careful not to over-share.
Maybe I'm too critical but I'm somehow disappointed that Alexandra threw such a shadow over her daughters' minds. Especially because I estimated her mothering instincts greatly. What played against her in the "good society" so much, her introversion and sensitivity, made her a good wife and mother. But she held her health situation like a shield between herself and the world, including her daughters.
I highlighted the sentences about her health situation in my Kindle edition of the book, and wow were they many.
