#alexandra feodorovna

spoopyduchess:

THE LAST IMPERIAL FAMILY:The Romanovs ( insp.)

otmacamera:

Maria Nikolaevna,Alexandra Feodorovna and Tatiana Nikolaevna onboard the Standart, 31st August - 20th September 1906

Photo from:
Tatiana Nikolaevna’s 1903-1908 Album

Nicholas II with family, staff and officers, c. 1905.  [original source]

teatimeatwinterpalace:

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna (x)

Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna, Anna Alexandrovna Vyrubova and Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna in Tsarskoe Selo, winter 1907 - 1908.

Photos from:
Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna’s 1903-1908 Album / page 29b, photo 348, 350

Alexandra (‘Sunny’) Feodorovna, 1896

“My darling Ernie,

It is a shame my not having written to you for such an age, but I have really very much to do. We dine every evening now at 7 & at 8 go to the Theatre. Twice we have been to the Пцковая дама, wh. I enjoyed immensely, & then to to Tschaikowsky’s first ballet, the Swan Lake (tiresome), & not pretty music, & then to two small French innocent plays. To-night we are going to the Russian Theatre. - How charming Medea & her husband sing, his voice is the best when he sings piano - quite lovely & so sympathetic, reminding me much of little Georgie’s.

In the morning I receive daily ladies of gentlemen & twice a week play an hour with Nicky’s former music master. - I enjoy it much & feel how necessary it is - you can tell it Herr de Haan, that I read with a master. I think he will be contented with me then. - Then after luncheon we go & walk for an hour or two in Anitchkoff garden & sometimes lunch or have tea there, then I go to Baby’s bath, wash her sometimes & then nurse her, as also every morning. In between I have to try on dresses wh. won’t ever fit. -

We went to the Xmas tree at one Institute - yesterday to an exhibition of watercolours & we brought some quite nice ones. - The weather is changeable, but the view out of my corner window is ideal. I still have not yet got all my furniture, wh. is an utter nuisance, as how can people judge with empty rooms. - Baby is flourishing, thank God - grows in length & breadth - her length is 62 ½ cm., 55 ½ when she was born 2 months ago. I am not at all enchanted with the nurse - she is good & kind with Baby, but as a woman most antipathetic, & that disturbs me sorely. Her manners are neither very nice, & she will mimic people in speaking about them, an odious habit, wh. would be awful for a Child to learn - most headstrong (but I am too, thank goodness). I foresee no end of troubles, & only wish I had an other [sic]. - 

Now I must be off. Kissing you 3 dear Creatures very, very tenderly, I remain, yr utterly, deeply loving old Sunny.

P.S. I hope & trust you are quite well again, poor darling Boy. I used your lovely fan the other evening. Three Thursdays & then a Wednesday are the balls. I am dying of fright. Fancy, for the big ball this first Thursday, I shall have to make a cercle in a room with 55 Mamas & more daughters - it is cruel, & I don’t know how I shall ever manage it - what can one say to them, with men it’s so much easier, one has so much more to ask. - Many messages to the Ladies & Gentlemen.”

- Alexandra to Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, 9th/21st January 1896

Alexandra Feodorovna, 1911

“My dear Onor,

Please forgive me for not writing to you for so long. A thousand thanks for your latest letter and the thoughtful presents; I can find use for all of them and will put up the little photo on the Standart. - Anastasia had chickenpox but has completely recovered now. Practically all of them have been coughing and sneezing. Alexei is in bed with a fever, cough and stomach upset - this is what influenza is like this year. Tatiana is in bed, too. - Marie is managing to keep going, albeit coughing and sneezing. Olga is the only one who is able to go for a walk with Schneiderlein.

Sophie Ivanovna has been in Moscow for 11 days now taking her Christmas holidays; - lessons start again on Thursday. - Miechen’s bazaar brought in a 100,00 R., more than ever before, even though there was one back in the spring. My tables brought in 3000 and 5000 - many beautiful old sacks did not sell, whereas my 50 embroideries and painted items (I think 30 pieces) were sold immediately. - 

Nicky has been to the theatre with his mother several times. On the 1st there was a large sortie at the Winter Palace, the first since the war, 7 years - likewise on the 6th. I went sledging three times. It still tires me very much and the rough surfaces make my heart and back ache. I have not been out of doors for several days now as I have been suffering from bad headaches (anaemia, kidney trouble and embroidering and painting too much whilst lying down). - I do not seem able to regain my strength and the pain in my heart and left arm up to my neck is often quite strong.

Sister Olga has gone off to the country for 3 days, Minny and children have left for Athens. Aunt Marie has arrived and will take tea with us today. - How is Emmy Ehrhardt? - So it turned out to be quite a serious operation after all. - Your ball was lovely, plenty of dancing. Here, they talk of nothing but the skating rink. - How are your siblings?

I have to end now. Kiss Ernie and the children. God bless you, I embrace you tenderly, dear Onor. Your devoted sister Alix.

[P.S.] I often think back to our meals together. - Nothing will ever really come between us.”

- Alexandra to Eleonore, Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine, 3rd/16th January 1911

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna photographed with her second daughter Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna in 1897. (x)

teatimeatwinterpalace:

_{This sketch shows the moment at their joint coronation in which Nicholas II, already crowned with Catherine II’s Great Imperial Crown, moves forward to place the smaller consort’s crown on his wife’s head. Moments before this scene, the Emperor would have briefly lifted off the crown which he had just placed on his head, and touched it to his wife’s forehead, symbolically joining her to his exercise of the monarchical power entrusted to him by God.}

ohsoromanov:

Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia sitting in her famous Mauve Room at the Alexander Palace.

Alexandra was only 22 when she moved into the Alexander Palace. Until then she had felt like something of a vagabond and perennial guest without a real ‘home’ of her own. She was shuttled between Darmstadt and her grandmother Queen Victoria’s homes at Balmoral in Scotland and Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Even the Darmstadt palaces in which she lived belonged first to her father and then to her brother and his wife, not to her. When she was a teenager it was understood she would make her home elsewhere with her future husband. Should no husband arrive to rescue her Alexandra’s fate would have been to retreat as a spinster to an obscure suite in one of family’s palaces or a cottage on some Royal estate - relying on the charity of others.

When Alexandra came to Russia she was involved for the first time in creating her own living spaces. She was inexperienced and most of what she knew about decorating came from magazines and the advice she had received over the years from of her English Grandmother and observations of Victoria’s old-fashioned, sentimental style of decorating which dominated a century. Although Alexandra’s tastes were conventional and hesitant she made many suggestions to the decorator, Roman Meltzer about placement of furniture, colors and fabrics. Her objective was to create a bright and cozy environment for her husband and future family. She wanted a room where Nicholas could come and unburden himself from the affairs of government - a sanctuary where they could be together, safe and alone. As Alexandra worked with Meltzer price was never discussed. This was considered undignified. Not knowing prices was disconcerting to Alexandra, who was used to very carefully managing her money like any good German “hausfrau”. She wanted to keep costs down while everyone else involved seemed not to care at all about cost, focusing instead on obtaining the finest quality materials available. The total budget for the redecoration of the Alexander Palace would have astounded the young Tsaritsa, if she had been brave enough to enquire what it all had cost.

The Mauve “Boudoir” was Alexandra’s favorite room and for 20 years it was the center of her family’s life in the palace. At the time it was the most celebrated room in Russia and the subject of much gossip as to the events that were supposed to have taken place there. Even today it remains a room of mystery and it is the room of the palace which interests the public the most. The room was also much derided for its’ style and family atmosphere by elite society of the time. Elegant Petersburg thought proper Romanov Empresses should live semi-publically in splendid rooms graciously decorated in the latest style with fine art and sophisticated furnishings. (x)

imperial-russia:

Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna of Russia

What an hour for that woman … she who would listen to no one except Rasputin, and separated herself little by little from all the members of the family, then from the whole of society, never showing herself any more, shutting herself up either in Tsarskoe or in the Crimea … What may her feelings be to-day? How does she bear it, separated, as she is from her husband, he not able to get to her and all her children down with measels. A ghastly situation. I sit and ponder over it and to me it seems tragic and fearful beyond words. … What influence will it have on the War, on our fate? Tragic questions to which I find no answer.

Queen Marie of Romania upon hearing about the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II

adini-nikolaevna:

Princess Alix of Hesse, the future Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia.

The young Imperial family of Russia c. 1901

Emperor Nicholas II and his wife Empress Alexandra Feodorovna photographed on the Imperial Yacht in June of 1908. 10 years later they would be murdered with their five children in a cellar of Ipatiev House in 1918.

imperial-russia:

The last Russian Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna (1872-1918), born Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt

history-of-fashion:

1840-1841 Christina Robertson - Empress Alexandra Feodorovna (Charlotte of Prussia)

(State Hermitage Museum)

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna holding baby Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov 1904.

Empress Alexandra walking with three of four daughters - Grand Duchesses, Olga, Marie and Tatiana Nikolaevna Romanov. Love Marie’s smile here.

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna playing the piano!

teatimeatwinterpalace:

On 29 April 1818 a long-awaited event took place. “At 11 o’clock,” wrote Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, “I heard the first cry of my first baby! Niks kissed me and cried, and we thanked God together not knowing yet whether He sent us a sonor a daughter, but at this moments Maman [the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna] came and said: “It is a son”. On learning we felt ourselves even more happy, but I remember that sensed something important and sad at the thought that this small creature was to become the Emperor some day.” The future Tsar Alexander II was thus born.

April 29, 1818 – Birth of Tsar Alexander II

imperial-russia:

The year 1888 saw another wedding in the family, which brought both married sisters back to Germany. The Princess Irene was married to her first cousin, Prince Henry of Prussia, at the palace of Charlottenburg, near Berlin. This was Princess Alix’s first visit to the capital of the German Empire, where she created quite a sensation by her beauty. In the autumn the Princess’s coming-out was celebrated by a ball at the New Palace, for which the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess Serge came specially from Russia. The Grand Duchess saw to every detail of her young sister’s appearance. She wore white muslin, with bunches of lilies of the valley on her hair and dress, and contemporary accounts say that she was very much admired.

The Life and Tragedy of Alexandra Fyodorovna (Sophie Buxhoeveden)

imperial-russia:

Imperial couple Nicholas II and Alexandra Fyodorovna posing with their new-born daughter Grand Duchess Tatiana, summe 1897.