Alexandra as Empress and Mother

[Alixz]

Sarushka - merging complete.

To everyone who comes here to read - please go back to page one of this thread.  There is indeed at lot of great information on Alexandra as both Empress and Mother.

[Grandduchess Valeria]

Shandroise,
yes, it was the view of Marie of Romania. Though I did not really know a lot about Alix' educational methods this comment represented my impression I had. It was barely victorian age but I've red a lot of people find her education too oldstyled and compared her with Alexandra of England who - correct me if I am wrong - kept one of her daughters doggedly by her side because she could not accept that times have changed. Maybe Alexandra would have done so with Tatiana or maybe Anastasia as her youngest. But this is just my speculation :-)

[Grandduchess Valeria]

I really wonder if Alix would have prevent a love or even a marriage between OTMA and any man which would not have met her expectations or had a low social rank even if  the daughter would be really in love with him. If she would have accept that her daughters were unhappy...

[Romanov_fan]

Shandroise,
yes, it was the view of Marie of Romania. Though I did not really know a lot about Alix' educational methods this comment represented my impression I had. It was barely victorian age but I've red a lot of people find her education too oldstyled and compared her with Alexandra of England who - correct me if I am wrong - kept one of her daughters doggedly by her side because she could not accept that times have changed. Maybe Alexandra would have done so with Tatiana or maybe Anastasia as her youngest. But this is just my speculation :-)

Yes, Alexandra of England did keep one of her daughters by her side, Toria. But it wasn't so much because she couldn't accept that times had changed, it was because as a mother she really clung to her children and kept them by her side, that's true not just of Toria- one of her other daughters, Maud didn't get married for a long time, and Alexandra and her son George V's letters when he was a young man show she regarded her children as children long after they were adults, that was just her way of being a mother. Alix of Russia I don't think would have clung to her daughters as much, although I'm sure she would done so to Alexei, as he was the hemophiliac heir.

[Sarushka]

Maybe Alexandra would have done so with Tatiana or maybe Anastasia as her youngest. But this is just my speculation :-)

Good luck pulling that off with Anastasia -- I'm betting neither mother nor daughter would have enjoyed that arrangement much. IMO, Tatiana's personality was much more suited to that type of relationship.

[Romanov_fan]

Indeed, Tatiana was her favorite daughter or the one who was a good companion for her. I think Alix and her parenting was different than Alexandra in England though. What books say Alix and Alexandra's parenting was alike?

[Sarushka]

Indeed, Tatiana was her favorite daughter or the one who was a good companion for her. I think Alix and her parenting was different than Alexandra in England though. What books say Alix and Alexandra's parenting was alike?

I think a brief comparison was made either in Rappaport or King & Wilson. I'm looking...

[Sarushka]

FOTR, pg 49:
"With Tatiana, the empress mirrored the behavior of her own aunt, Queen Alexandra, and had treated her daughter Princess Victoria like 'a glorified maid,' according to Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna."

That statement, in turn, is attributed to page 53 of Ian Vorres's The Last Grand Duchess:
'I grew very fond of Uncle Bertie and Aunt Alix, but I felt so very sorry for their daughter, Princess Victoria. Poor Toria was just a glorified maid to her mother!'

Just to be perfectly clear: the comparison of Tatiana and Toria is made by King & Wilson, not Olga A.

[Georgiy]

I rather get the picture that Alexandra felt the adult Tatiana was a kind of confidante - look at what happened in Tobolsk, it was tatiana who told her mother that she needed to make some kind of decision about whether to go with the Tsar or stay with Alexei. I don't think Tatiana would have standed being a kind of 'glorified' maid - from all accounts, it seems to me that she was somewhat business like and liked to organise people and things (e.g. her Refugee Committee), rather than be organised by others.

[Grandduchess Valeria]

According to the other statement...do YOU think Alix would have prevent a marriage with one of her daughters and a - in her eyes - nonsuitable man? Even to accept the unhappiness of the daughter?

[Sarushka]

According to the other statement...do YOU think Alix would have prevent a marriage with one of her daughters and a - in her eyes - nonsuitable man? Even to accept the unhappiness of the daughter?

That's a difficult question. As a mother, it's clear from her wartime letters to Nicholas that Alexandra hoped for love matches for her daughters. But as the empress, I'm not sure how she would have reacted to a 'nonsuitable' man if push came to shove. Alexandra's behavior after the revolution, which was described as "haughty" and "arrogant" by the guards from Tsarskoye Selo to Ekaterinburg, tells me she was very conscious of proper respect for rank.

[Romanov_fan]

Thanks Sarushka for looking that up. I agree with Georgiy, I don't think Tatiana was the type to be a glorified maid. But I also think that Alexandra wasn't the type of mother to have treated one of her daughters like a glorified maid, nor one I feel who would have forced or encouraged one of her daughters to stay with her unmarried against their will, so the issue might never have come up. Had any one his daughters stayed with her, it would likely have been Tatiana, but even had she stayed with her mother, I don't think she would have been treated like Toria. Nicholas and Alexandra and their children were a close knit family, unusually so for royals of the time, so maybe one of the daughters would have stayed. Queen Victoria tried to force Beatrice her youngest daughter to stay, but Beatrice had other plans and married against her mother's will, so Queen Victoria didn't speak to her for months during her engagement while they lived under the same roof, etc. I don't know whether Alexandra would have done that. I think of all her children, it was not daughters she clung to, but instead, the heir Alexei.

[Olga Maria]

There's also a possibility that Anastasia could voluntarily stay with her mother. She has the personality which doesn't get easily attracted to men. I assume that would make her single forever and prefer to tend her mother. The other girls also had love interests at their early adult life which gives a possibility that they will marry before or after they reach 25.

Alexandra also wasn't bad to dictate on her children who they will marry as she herself didn't like that idea on an early age. She is so religious a person and for sure, she knows the saying "Do unto others what you want others to do unto you".

[jehan]

There's also a possibility that Anastasia could voluntarily stay with her mother. She has the personality which doesn't get easily attracted to men. I assume that would make her single forever and prefer to tend her mother. The other girls also had love interests at their early adult life which gives a possibility that they will marry before or after they reach 25.

I find it odd that anyone could say that a girl who died at 17, and lived the last 18 months of her life imprisoned (making her 15 when she was last "free") as having a defined personality that "isn't attracted to men".  How does anyone who never  knew her  at all know something like that?  She may have been a late bloomer.  I wasn't interested in boys until I was in my late teens (and married at 24). She may have had facets of her personality that were still developing and changing- in fact she almost certainly did.  And she certainly was more complex than people here give her credit for- none of us can be as easily defined or stereotyped as the GDsses are by some of the board members here.

Anastasia would have been a young woman in the 1920s and 30s.  Times were changing and I doubt it would have been easy to keep her at her mother's side in those changing times.  And I'm sure she would have found such a life stultifyingly boring and would have made her own way eventually.  But then I don't know her any better than anybody else on this board.

[Alixz]

I remember reading that Alexandra and Nicholas were both kindly disposed to a match between Olga and Dmitri.  After the murder of Rasputin, even without proof of who actually killed Rasputin, Alexandra immediately became opposed to any match.  I believe that she would have never allowed her daughters to marry for love if she did not like the suitor.

She may have dreamed of love matches for her daughters, but only on her terms and with her approval.

And remember, she was very conscious of rank and I doubt that she would have approved of any "unequal" marriages either.