Alexandra - Slandered and Hated

[Tsarfan]

I think it's difficult for many of us whose notion of "family" includes concepts such as unconditional love, support, and encouragement to understand the dynamics of the Russian imperial family.

I think you've cut right to the quick of it, LyliaM.  We tend today to try to calibrate the conduct of the Romanovs to that of a conventional family.  But the Romanovs were a dynasty, which is something quite different . . . and they were generally mindful of it (even when they were flouting the implications).

Senior marriages in the dynasty were matters of state and could have far-reaching domestic and international consequences.  In order to protect the interests of the dynasty as he perceived it, the tsar had power over the rest of the dynasty to confiscate, to arrest, to exile, to remove children from parents, to dole out or withhold largesse.

Given this power, the personal idiosyncracies of the monarchs loomed very large inside the family circle and could not help but become the focus of intrigue and maneuver.

Alexandra, from the outset of her reign, showed very little tolerance for the society in which the rest of the imperial family was reared and lived.  She felt dress was immodest, morals were lax, time was frittered away unconstructively.  And she affirmed her disapproval in very real and public ways, such as by keeping her daughters insulated from court and dynastic life.

Beyond this being viewed as an affront to the rest of them, the imperial family had to watch Alexandra pass harsh judgment on them while she herself failed in what they viewed as her own duties to the dynasty:  loathe to make public appearances, and often noticeably withdrawn when she did; prone to follow mystics, even to the point of exposing the monarchy to public derision; an agent in removing the gregarious Nicholas from his circle of friends and extended family and caging him in a claustrophobic inner family circle where her real and imagined illnesses called the cadence of family life; a meddler in Russian political affairs which she understood little but on which she opined much; and, finally, the knowing bearer of a disease into the dynasty that made male heirs questionable propositions for the throne.

Given all this, I find it not the least bit surprising that almost all but Olga ended up arrayed against her.  Olga must have been a kind and delightful person but, as she proved with Michael and Natasha, she was not a diligent guardian of the dynasty's political interests.

Conventional families might have viewed Alexandra as a bit of a prissy eccentric, to be indulged and even respected for her very real positive qualities.  But very few dynasties -- Romanovs or otherwise -- would have thought her anything but bad news.

[nene]

I'm thinking that maybe it would have been better, for Alexandra's sake, that she never should have been empress of Russia. She only did it because the love she and Nicholas had was true love. But I think she should have realized and UNDERSTOOD what she was also marrying into.

Just my opinion.

[ChristineM]

Welcome 'Nene'.   This was my nickname as a child!

Unfortunately in so far as Alexandra, the Empress, was concerned, things were not quite so simple... so cut and dried.  

It really is virtually impossible for us to think 'dynastically' - especially in terms of 19th century Europe.

tsaria

[bluetoria]

I'm thinking that maybe it would have been better, for Alexandra's sake, that she never should have been empress of Russia. She only did it because the love she and Nicholas had was true love. But I think she should have realized and UNDERSTOOD what she was also marrying into.

Just my opinion.

Hi Nene!    I agree with tsaria; it is easy for us to say with hindsight that she should have understood. Perhaps she thought she did understand. Her opinion of Russia was surely based on her visits to Ella. In Ilinskoe especially, she had seen the devotion of the peasants to the IF and surely formed the idea that the people simply adored their Tsar and tsardom and wanted to be 'led' from above.

It must be remembered too, that since Ella was to eager to promote this marriage, she must have painted a very sunny picture of life in Russia. On top of that, Alix's love for Nicholas would have made her determined to support him and she probably believed that he would 'teach' her as she went along.
I think she tried very hard to be a good Empress (particularly at first) and it wasn't her fault that her background & character was so different from that of the IF that she never quite managed to 'fit in.'

[isabel]

I am agree with Tsaria and bluetoria.

I think that she realizad what she was marrying into, and that she wanted to be a good Empress.

In my opinion it would be very difficult to her to separate the Empress and the mother....if she had to choose between her two functions in punctual occasions, her election for me was clear understandable.

Be mother of an haemophyliac boy(the heir of the throne), in 1904, was not an easy task.

[Tsarfan]

Alexandra was not the only woman ever called upon to be a wife, mother, and empress.  Many pulled it off in much more trying circumstances, with husbands who carried on outside the marriage, and with in-laws who engaged in far more vicious assaults than the caustic gossip and insipid little cabals among the Romanovs.

Nor was Alexandra the only empress who had to deal with a sick child.  Her mother-in-law, for instance, actually lost two of her six children (including a tsarevitch) before the revolution but nevertheless managed to avoid paralysis in carrying out her duties.

Alexandra chose to take up the duties of the greatest throne on earth, and I have trouble believing it was an uninformed choice.  The lobbying of Ella and the bucolic visits to Russia notwithstanding, she was certainly counselled long and hard by her British relatives about the pitfalls of royal life in Russia.

Her path was not always easy or clear.  But neither was it strewn with insurmountable obstacles.  The plain fact is that she was not up to the task that many before her had managed to handle.

[bluetoria]

...I agree, Tsarfan, she wasn't up to the task but then, who could have been at that time?  

There may have been others who had sick children and rose above it (Marie Feodorovna for example, as you wrote). There may have been others who dealt better with the weight of responsibility when married to men who found responsibility difficult (Marie of Roumania for example). There may have been others who adjusted to a different culture better than Alix did (Ella for example) But how many of them had ALL those difficulties combined - such power, love of a very sick child, responsibility (and as someone who as the youngest surviving child had never had responsibility) - to deal with at once? And then, on top of everything else, a war in which she found herself named as 'the enemy'!

I don't think I would have done a better job.  Who would?

[isabel]

Not me.

I want to add that the illness of Alexei was a "secret", perhaps if his haemophilia would have be public, she would be more relaxed.

If a children died everybody console and support the mother, evereybody is sad about the mother.

Here the illness was a risk of death every minute of the life of the child...., but nobody knowed.

[Tsarfan]

I have never been able to understand Nicholas and Alexandra's insistence that Alexis' illness be kept secret.  I cannot imagine that most Russians would have cared if their next tsar was a son of Nicholas, or a brother, or a nephew.  Russians had a long history of rulers coming from other than lineal descent.  The perceived character of the person would perhaps have mattered, to the paltry extent the views of the people mattered in who ruled Russia.  So the purported fears that the monarchy would be destabilized by the news of Alexis' illness just do not ring true.

I have no way to prove this, but the fact that Nicholas and Alexandra tooks pains to prevent all but the most senior of the Romanovs from knowing the full extent of Alexis' illness suggests to me that the issue was less the reaction of the Russian people than the reaction of government insiders who, already inclined to dislike Alexandra for other reasons, would make use of the fact that Nicholas and Alexandra had knowingly brought hemoephilia into the royal bloodline.

For a couple so absolutely determined that the next tsar must be a son of Nicholas  -- and who felt that the mere knowledge of hemoephilia would strike at the very foundations of the monarchy -- their willingness to risk hemoephilia in their male progeny indicates to me a couple who made major decisions in a very short-sighted manner.

While many writers have focused on how Alexis' hemoephilia played a formative role in Alexandra's outlook, I have always felt it played an equally-formative role in the Romanovs antipathy to Alexandra . . . and to Nicholas, too, for that matter.

It was a hugely reckless roll of the dice in a very high stakes game, at least from the Romanovs' viewpoint.  And the roll went against them.

[Louis_Charles]

For a couple so absolutely determined that the next tsar must be a son of Nicholas  -- and who felt that the mere knowledge of hemoephilia would strike at the very foundations of the monarchy -- their willingness to risk hemoephilia in their male progeny indicates to me a couple who made major decisions in a very short-sighted manner.

This passage struck me forcefully, and made me think about something that should have been obvious. Nicholas and Alexandra were willing to risk having the disease passed to another generation.

Golly.

[bluetoria]

I have never been able to understand Nicholas and Alexandra's insistence that Alexis' illness be kept secret.  

I have no way to prove this, but the fact that Nicholas and Alexandra tooks pains to prevent all but the most senior of the Romanovs from knowing the full extent of Alexis' illness suggests to me that the issue was less the reaction of the Russian people than the reaction of government insiders who, already inclined to dislike Alexandra for other reasons, would make use of the fact that Nicholas and Alexandra had knowingly brought hemoephilia into the royal bloodline.
.

Sadly, for many people illness is still equated with weakness. People then as now often took great pains to hide their conditions & to suggest Alexei was ill was to suggest the family was weak.
I agree that if it were known that the illness had been inherited through Alexandra, she would receive the 'blame' for it. Already a 'foreigner' who had not gained the support of the family, her position would have been even more difficult. But why shouldthat make the decision to keep it private, wrong?

Again, it was such a stressful situation for both devoted parents, that perhaps it would have been far too difficult for them to discuss it with anyone outside their immediate circle. Many people do not wish their private family tragedies to be discussed for fear of trivializing them or because they do not wish to be 'pitied.'
Who would want their illnesses/conditions to be discussed by everyone? It would be unfair on Alexei to have everyone knowing all the ins and outs of his medical state - would any of us be willing to have all our medical records open to public scrutiny?  
I do not think it is difficult to empathise with Nicholas and Alexandra in their decision not to have this discussed.

For a couple so absolutely determined that the next tsar must be a son of Nicholas  -- and who felt that the mere knowledge of hemoephilia would strike at the very foundations of the monarchy -- their willingness to risk hemoephilia in their male progeny indicates to me a couple who made major decisions in a very short-sighted manner.
.

Are you suggesting they shouldn't have had children at all? That seems extremely harsh!
Also, they could not have known whether or not a son would be a haemophiliac. Alix needed only look at her uncles - 3 of them were not sufferers, only one was. Of her two brothers, only one suffered from the condition. Of her sisters, one had haemophiliac sons, another didn't...Alix had every reason to be hopeful that her son would not be afflicted.

[Tsarfan]

Alix needed only look at her uncles - 3 of them were not sufferers, only one was. Of her two brothers, only one suffered from the condition. Of her sisters, one had haemophiliac sons, another didn't...Alix had every reason to be hopeful that her son would not be afflicted.

By this reckoning, a third of the males were afflicted.  That strikes me as a very poor basis for feeling one had "every reason" to be hopeful in avoiding an illness that in that era was usually fatal.

[Tsarfan]

Are you suggesting they shouldn't have had children at all? That seems extremely harsh!

Actually, I'm not suggesting they should not have had children once they were married.  Instead, I have long felt that Nicholas should have followed his parents' advice not to marry Alexandra -- advice which was based, at least in part, on the fact that hemoephilia that was known to run in her family.  

I do understand that Nicholas and Alexandra loved each other.  But being a tsar imposed higher duties than just following one's personal inclinations.  Other tsars, including Nicholas' father, forwent their own romantic inclinations in order to put their duties to the dynasty first.  

I also find it interesting that Alexandra supposedly held off Nicholas' suit for a considerable period while she grappled with her scruples about converting faith.  I wonder why she did not have similar scruples about bringing hemoephilia into a royal house that depended on male heirs for its continuation.  Or did she?

[Louis_Charles]

 

Are you suggesting they shouldn't have had children at all? That seems extremely harsh!
Also, they could not have known whether or not a son would be a haemophiliac. Alix needed only look at her uncles - 3 of them were not sufferers, only one was. Of her two brothers, only one suffered from the condition. Of her sisters, one had haemophiliac sons, another didn't...Alix had every reason to be hopeful that her son would not be afflicted.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that they not have children, just that they not have allowed their sick son to be made Tsar.

The Tsar of Russia was not a constituional monarch. He actually ruled, and so a matter of his health had serious consequences, so yes, Alexei's haemophilia --- especially given the medical treatments available in the early 20th century --- was absolutely germane to his ability to serve as Tsar.

In her reply to Tsarfan, Tsaria introduced the idea that Nicholas and Alexandra were playing Russian Roulette, which is offensive to their feelings and the agony they must have felt as his parents. But on the other hand, that is what you are describing in the above quote, isn't it? Sadly, there was information available to them that the disease was rampant within the descendants of Victoria. It isn't enough to consider Alexei, but each of the girls was a potential carrier.

I can't speak to their emotional states or motivations without my books and research, but in fact their actions do give you the story --- they obviously felt that there was a chance that he wouldn't be a haemophiliac, and kept trying until there was a son. That is obvious from the events.

Regards,

Simon

[Lizameridox]

To put it simply:  Nicholas and Alexandra prayed for a son, tried for a son, and asked the intercessions of Seraphim of Sarov that they might have a son.  Their eldest daughter, as intelligent as she was, could not rule.  Their bright, compassionate young son, the answer to their prayers, had a serious illness, but was being brought up and taught to rule after his father in the sincere hope that the miracle of his birth would be followed by the miracle of his reign, however long or short it would be.  It would have been absolutely barbaric by our standards to have hidden Alexei Nikolaevich away in the fashion Prince John of Great Britain was, and though the protective cocoon his family made around him kept him somewhat isolated, he was nurtured, greatly loved, and granted the assumption that he had a very important part to play.