Creating Herstory: Alexandra Romanov

Last week I brought to you a review of the Secret daughter of the Tsar. Through this interesting and fascinating story I began to research the history behind it. The story of Alexandra is heart breaking.

Her father was Grand Duke Louis IV of Germany while her mother was Princess Alice, one of Queen Victoria’s eight children. Though Alexandra was German she spent her summers in England with her cousins. It was at the tender age of twelve when she met the love of her life Nicholas Romanov.

Though she and Nicholas were in love his family wasn’t so sure about this being a good match. The Russians weren’t fond of Germany and it was rumored that Alexandra carried the Hemophiliac gene. Which in the early 1900’s was considered to be deadly. However, true love won out and Alexandra married Nicholas.

But contrary to the fairy tales, true love does not conquer all. Neither the people nor the royal court liked her. It was necessary for her to have a son to inherit his father’s throne…Alexandra could only give birth to daughters: 4 total. It wasn’t until 1904 that she gave birth to a son who confirmed everyone’s fears, he was a hemophiliac and quite sickly.

However, her fatal moves occurred during World War I. Nicholas led the Russian Army against the Germans while Alexandra ruled Russia as the regent with the help of her most trusted adviser, Grigori Rasputin. Under his influence she fired the established cabinet members and replaced them with men of Rasputin’s own choosing. These men were incompetent, bringing the country to famine and poverty.

Always when you take away the people’s ability to feed themselves and their families you are playing with fire. Throughout history, you can see countless examples of the people rising up because their government wasn’t able to fulfill their basic needs. This story is no different. Alexandra was painted as a German sympathizer, this situation was so dire that Nicholas abdicated the throne in 1917. But it wasn’t enough for the people.

The royal family was taken prisoner by the Bolsheviks. They were kept prisoners at the Ipatiev House in Siberia, controlled by the Bolsheviks. On July 1918 the whole family was executed.

Ever since there has been hope that one of the members of the royal family made it. Alexandra’s story is a heart breaking tale of love, loss and putting your faith in the wrong people. Perhaps its because of this that we are so fascinated by her story. Her tragedy so sad that, even now, nearly a century later we hold out the hope that something good had to have come from the tragedy that was her life.