Alexandra and her Health Part 1

[bluetoria]

Yes Helen, you have quite convinced me that I was mistaken in interpreting her behaviour as indecisive.
I find that there is probably no one word to define her at all - she is, to my mind, one of the most complex characters in the whole Romanov/19th century monarchy 'saga.' (Of course, no one could be narrowed down to one word...but I'm sure you know what I mean.)
Long, long before the stresses of Alexei & the war, she was so 'on edge' about so many things. Her deliberations about marrying Nicky - whether or not, as you say, she already knew in her heart of hearts what she would do - are quite extreme in their 'angst' and again and again I think this occurs throughout her life. According to Baroness Buxhoevden she virtually had a nervous breakdown after the death of her father and time after time she seems to come near to breaking point. Perhaps the fact that she was placed in so difficult a position made her already highly-strung personality become even more so.
I whole heartedly agree with what you wrote here:

My impression of her in those later years is that of a woman who was more or less overworked, who was mentally too tired to think things through properly and to see things clearly, but had to do something anyway. The situation was clearly becoming too much for her. She gradually lost her grip on the things happening around her. To me, her 'decisions' and 'nagging' letters are more like acts and expressions of the overworked mind of a drowning cat clutching at a straw, and another straw… and another… But this is just my personal opinion.

Even to look back through this thread & similar ones the opinions about her are so diverse that it shows quite how complex she was.
I find her fascinating because there is so much to her, & in many ways she is virtually impossible to thoroughly understand because she is at once strong & determined (in her intransigence about Rasputin, her care for Alexei, her refusal to allow Nicky to give away any of his rights) & weak and afraid (needing constant reassurance.) She is kind & warm (caring for her children & tending the wounded soldiers, writing to their mothers etc.) & cold & unapproachable (even to Ella & many other members of the family.)
There is so much to think about....

But yes   I agree...indecisive may not be a good word to describe her  

[bluetoria]

Yes, Helen, I agree with all you wrote. She reminds me of a quotation from Longfellow:

"Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not of, and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad."

I think her strict morality & all that had been instilled in her by Queen Victoria, made it very difficult to adapt to life in Russia. Perhaps, too, even before she arrived - thanks to QV's warnings & the rumours about Ella's marriage which she had undoubtedly heard - she had preconceived ideas about the immorality of the Court & went in rather defensively which would not have won her many friends.

I do not think either that she was the kind of person who could adpat easily to different situations. Rather, she would, as you wote, withdraw into herself & become MORE defensive. Had she been able to bend a little - without jeopardizing her own beliefs/morals - her life might have been much easier. Perhaps her inability to bend was a sign of her own insecurity..... :-/

(BTW if you don't mind my asking, you mentioned your country - what is your country?  

[bluetoria]

I have no idea about what she had heard about Russian court life before she got married. If she had heard a lot about it, that might explain part of her attitude.

I think that, considering that QV wrote this to Victoria about Ella, she had probably also warned Alix of the same:

"There is one subject you have not touched on which I consider as great a danger as any - and that is the VERY BAD STATE of society & total WANT OF PRINCIPLE
from the Grand Dukes downwards....I fear our sweet but undecided & inexperienced Ella, with her lovely face, may be misled & get into difficulties & troubles - wh. may have painful consequences.
Louis will underestand what I mean. Russians are so unscrupulous."  

And that country? I am from the Netherlands.

So that is why you have such excellent English - all the Dutch & Scandanavians seems to  . In that case, will you please come and express your view about Queen Wilhelmina & Prince Henry on the 'Mecklenburg Schwerin' topic of the Hohenzollerns?  

[bluetoria]

Oh well, never mindabout Queen Wilhelmina!   Hope you enjoyed the rusks!!

I think QV's view of Russia was extremely biased & based on her view of the Crimean War & the experiences of her aunt who had been very unhappily married into the Russian RF & Tsarina Marie Feodorovna (wife of Alexander II.)
She never visited Russia herself (as far as I know!).
I love your suggestion of her being a little old lady who had to be humoured & I think it's probably very accurate!    

[bluetoria]

That's an interesting thought Alekseevich.  
I wonder though whether Alexandra was very exposed to such chemicals, more so than other members of the family?  
It is my view that she was a deeply sensitive person and the stressors were not chemical in origin but rather the circumstances in which she found herself. (But of course, that is only my view   )

[Elisabeth]

Come to think of it, perhaps her greatest problem was in making decisions. Her endless tortuous deliberations before accepting Nicky's proposal...her NEED for someone to make her mind up for her...be it Philippe or Rasputin...and perhaps for this reason she was always nagging Nicholas to 'be strong.'
Perhaps, too, being the youngest surviving child and the youngest of such dominant, confident & decisive elder sisters as Victoria & Ella, she had never been brought up to make decisions of her own until the time of her marriage...Maybe...

Bluetoria, although you now seem to have been persuaded otherwise, I am convinced that you have come up with some genuine insights here. We are so accustomed to thinking of Nicholas II as the "weak" partner and Alexandra as the "dominant" one, that it doesn't even occur to us that Alexandra herself was terribly dependent (even more so than Nicholas, as it turned out) on the advice and counsel of others - Dr. Philippe and Rasputin being the prime examples. I think you are absolutely right, she urged Nicholas to be strong out of an unconscious feeling of her own weakness and ineffectiveness... Who could feel more helpless, than a mother powerless to help her hemophiliac son?

Perhaps more than anything else her emotional dependency was a product of an abiding fear of abandonment. As you say, she was the youngest surviving daughter, the youngest surviving child of a family that had suffered repeated tragedies - and one could even say that Queen Victoria made an entire cult out of mourning. Alix lost her mother at the age of six, her brother Frittie even before this and her little sister May also. We know that she was sensitive and highly strung. She must have felt these losses acutely, and her grandmother's suffering would not have encouraged her to "move on" with life, but rather to dwell on the loss, the mourning.

And you are right, Victoria and Ella were both very strong characters, elder sisters whom Alix must have both looked up to and felt she must emulate. Even if they were married and no longer part of the grand ducal household, their influence would still have made a considerable impact. The family was very closely knit - we see this in the countless number of letters they exchanged between themselves and with Queen Victoria. I agree that the family played an enormous role in Alix's decision to abandon her religious scruples and marry Nicky. After all, we know from Ella's letters that she worked tirelessly to unite "Pelly I" and "Pelly II," despite all of her grandmother's (quite reasonable) objections.  

[bluetoria]

Phew! I may have had something right, for once!   Thank you, Elizabeth.  

[bluetoria]

To quote from a musical, "I think I'd better think it out again!"  :-/

Somewhere in between these 2 seemingly contradictory viewpoints, there probably lies the truth. When I have thought about all these things again - at an earlier hour of the day - I'll reply, Helen. If that's okay  

[bluetoria]

Many hours later...still thinking..... :-/

[bluetoria]

... and me getting already tired and sleepy again after a long day's work.

It's not a long day's work that makes you sleepy - it's staying up half the night on here!!

I am thinking. I have to go out soon to a birthday meal (not my birthday!) but when I return I shall have thought of my reply.  

[bluetoria]

Well, Helen...here goes   I hope we can reach an agreement without causing you anymore indignation!  

Sure, Victoria and Alix were strong characters and Alix probably looked up to them to a certain extent. However, that is no proof of emotional dependency in general on her part, neither is it proof that their scheming with regard to Nicky made her change her mind. With regard to Nicky, I wrote earlier that the situation was such that she was not given the opportunity to move on. She had decided that she was not able to change her religion, but relatives kept gossiping and scheming.

I think the only person - or at least the MAIN person pressing for this match was Ella. Since it WAS Ella, I don't consider it scheming or gossiping. I think that Ella genuinely believed (& believed rightly) that Alix & Nicholas were 'made for one another' & she could see that Alix's religious scruples were a torture to her but unnecessarily so.

And than you want to use that as proof that she was emotionally dependent on her sisters and later on other people? Sorry, but I find that too ridiculous for words.

No, I don't mean she was emotionally dependent on her sisters - but that she had been brought up under their influence & it is perfectly natural (in my experience as a youngest child) to be greatly affected by the opinions of one's siblings - particularly elder siblings. It is OFTEN the case that youngest (or youngest surviving) children are more reckless & less 'stable/settled' than older ones on whom greater responsibility has been placed. I think Alix was GREATLY influenced by the opinions of Victoria & Ella to the extent that she was used to relying on other people rather than making decisions for herself.
In later life, I think, (&it is JUST what I think  ) she tried to shake herself free of this & she found it difficult to balance the fact that she was still a younger sister but also Ella's Empress (& therefore in a superior position to her) & as a result she sometimes appeared high-handed in her dealingswith Ella. (In fact very handed  :-/ - which was very sad & for which I am not blaming her.)

I have seen no evidence whatsoever that Alix mourned these diseased relatives in an unhealthy way like Queen Victoria mourned her husband. We do know, however, that Queen Victoria was not satisfied at all with the amount of grief shown by the Hessian children when one of their uncles had died.  

Alix was always of a melancholy disposition. Marie Louise's memoirs give evidence of this. The effect on a six-year-old of such extreme mourning (& let's not forget that Alix spent a good deal of time with QV who was the doyenne of mourners!) must have been very great. QV's letters to Victoria of Hesse seem to rake up and rake up grief after grief, hardly permitting her to get over the death of her mother without making her feel guilty for not being sad all the time. She must have had the same effect on Alix.

I am sorry, but suggestions that such normal behaviour is proof of a tendency towards emotional dependence and/or indecisiveness are farfetched, to put it politely.

The more I think of this the more I see that throughout her life Alix DID rely on other people in much the same way as QV had done. First there was Ernie, then Nicky (& natural as this is, since he was her husband - her desire to keep away from society, to build her own little coccoon in Tsarkoe Selo seems to me to suggest a need to cling to one person) then Philippe, Rasputin & Anna Vyrubova.
Alix herself wrote that she wanted a person 'totally for myself' - she needed people to be totally THERE for her & really (to my mind) allowed them little freedom beyond that. It was the same with her daughters - they were kept much younger than their years. The fact that she NEEDED this constant reassurance from these people suggests (TO ME) that she was emotionally insecure...and so perhaps, yes, emotionally dependent.

Please don't get cross if you don't agree, Helen   I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise but these are the conclusions I have come to after much thought.
(Like I wrote previously, though, she is FAR too complex a character to be summed up in just a few paragraphs.)

BTW - How lovely it must have been for you to have been in Darmstadt!!
Now, don't stay up TOO late tonight, or you'll be sleepy all day Sunday, too.      

[bluetoria]

Hi Helen  

I'm really sorry you were upset on Thursday; I empathise to some extent in that I do not like to read posts about people whom I admire which seem to criticise them or give a false impression of them. (If that is what you meant - kind of  :-/ )

Gosh! What a lot to take in from your post. It will take some time to 'digest' it all & need several readings before I can even begin to respond (carefully ).  
Thank you for posting all this information, explanation & your opinion.  

[bluetoria]

Very well, Helen,   after reading your very informative points I concede the greater part of my original viewpoint. You have explained very clearly more of the background of her decision to marry Nicky & I agree she had been pushed this way & that way by QV & Queen Alexandra, while at the same time having to deal with Ella's constant pressure from Russia.

With regard to her need for one-to-one relationships & her inability to socialise on a more superficial level, I should say that it may not have been emotional dependence but I still think it showed a certain amount of insecurity. (It isn't a bad thing - merely something that seems to be part of her character.) All people do depend on other people to a greater or lesser extent; perhaps Alix's circle was so small that her dependence seems magnified somehow.

Considering Rasputin, though, I feel her dependence was very great indeed. By then, of course, the pressures of her life (& her concern for Alexei) were so great that it is unsurprising that she needed someone to lean on - a more especially someone whom she viewed as having God-given powers.

The whole point is, though, that this is not a criticism of her.   It is an attempt to understand some of her decisions which in the long term were detrimental to herself & her family. (As has been said many times, it is very easy to state this with the benefit of hindsight.)
I believe she was a 'good' & well-intentioned person & yet - perhaps being out of place in a culture which was very different to that in which she had been raised - she closed her eyes to others' views while clinging (unreasonably IMO) to the opinions of others on whom she had come to rely.
Her attitude towards Rasputin to my mind, mirrors exactly QV's attitude to John Brown. Both QV & Alix, having made up their minds that this person was indispensible to them, absolutely refused to countenance any suggestion (even from members of their own family) that the relationship was not beneficial to them. When it came to choosing between their 'chosen one' & their extended family - (in QV's case, Princess Alice & several others - in Alix's case, Ella & many others) - both opted for the person on whom they had come to rely.
Would you, perhaps, agree with that   ( 'cause of course I may well be wrong )

[bluetoria]

Yes, Helen!  
I think we are entirely in agreement now!  

[helenazar]

Come to think of it, I don't think Alix's unhealthy dependence on Rasputin was all that different from her grandmother's unhealthy psychological dependence on her first PM Melborne, then on her own husband, then on John Brown, and later on the Munshie, etc. In fact, Alexandra's dependence is sort of more understandable than QV's because the health or even the life of her son was involved, while for QV it was purely because of her own psychological needs.

But it does seem that Alix did inherit some aspects of her grandmother's dysfunctional personality when it came to things like that, because we do see this pattern with both women (remember that before Rasputin there was the French "holy man" - his name escapes me at this moment,  something that starts with a "V"... ), and I think some others...