The Romanovs

Rejection by the Russian People

Unlike her predecessor Maria Feodorovna (spouse to Alexander III), Alexandra was heartily disliked among her subjects. She came off as very cold and curt, although according to her and many other close friends, she was only terribly shy and nervous in front of the Russian people. She felt her feelings were bruised and battered from the Russians' "hateful" nature. She was also frowned upon by the wealthy and poor alike for her distaste for Russian culture (her near-fanatical embrace of Orthodoxy notwithstanding), whether it was the food or the manner of dancing. Her inability to produce a son also incensed the people. After the birth of the Grand Duchess Olga, her first-born child, Nicholas was reported to have said, "We are grateful she was a daughter; if she was a boy she would have belonged to the people, being a girl she belongs to us." When her "sunbeam" Alexei the tsarevitch was born, she further isolated herself from the Russian court by spending nearly all of her time with him; his haemophiliac disorder did little to distance their close relationship. She associated herself with more solitary figures such as Anna Vyrubova and the invalid Princess Sonia Orbeliani, rather than the "frivolous" young Russian aristocratic ladies. These women were constantly ignored by the "haughty" tsarina.

Historian Barbara W. Tuchman in The Guns of August writes of Alexandra as tsarina, "Though it could hardly be said that the Czar governed Russia in a working sense, he ruled as an autocrat and was in turn ruled by his strong-willed if weak-witted wife. Beautiful, hysterical, and morbidly suspicious, she hated everyone but her immediate family and a series of fanatic or lunatic charlatans who offered comfort to her desperate soul."

Along with her association with Vyrubova and Orbeliani, Alexandra associated herself with Grand Duchess Militza Nikolaevna of Russia, who was a Montenegrin princess by birth and wife of a relative of Nicholas. Through her, Alexandra was introduced to a mystic by the name of Philippe Nizier-Vachot in 1901. Philippe enjoyed a brief influence over the imperial couple, until he was exposed as a charlatan in 1903 and was expelled from Russia. In 1902, it was also suggested that if Nicholas and Alexandra were to sponsor the canonisation of Seraphim of Sarov, Alexandra would give birth to a son. Imperial pressure from the tsar led to the church canonising him in 1903. Imperial interference in the canonisation process, which forced the Church to disregard the established rules regarding canonisation, led to an outcry from both laity and clergy alike.

Alexandra lived mainly as a recluse during her husband's reign. She also was reported to have had a terrible relationship with her mother-in-law, Maria Feodorovna. Maria had tried to assist Alexandra in learning about the position of Empress, but was shunned by the younger woman. Unlike other European courts of the day, in the Russian court, the position of Dowager Empress was senior in rank and precedence to that of the tsarina-a rule that Maria, with the support of Nicholas II, enforced strictly. At royal balls and other formal Imperial gatherings, Maria would enter on her son's arm, and Alexandra would silently trail behind them according to court protocol. It didn't help that Maria tended to be extremely possessive of her sons. In addition, Alexandra resented the ostentatiously considerate treatment of Maria by her husband the tsar, which only slightly evaporated after the birth of their five children. For Maria's part, she did not approve of her son's marriage to a German bride and was appalled at her daughter-in-law's inability to win favour with the Russian people. Also, Maria had spent seventeen years in Russia prior to her coronation with Alexander III; Alexandra had a scarce month to learn the rules of the Russian court (which she seldom ever followed), and this might have contributed to her unpopularity. Alexandra at least was astute enough not to criticise openly the woman she publicly referred to as "Mother dear."

Alexandra's only real associations were with Nicholas's siblings and a very small number of the otherwise close-knit Romanov family: Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich (husband of Nicholas's sister Xenia), Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich (the most artistic of the Imperial house) and his family, and Grand Duke George Mikhailovich, who was married to Nicholas's maternal first cousin, Maria of Greece). Alexandra, like her mother-in-law, disliked in particular the family of Nicholas's senior uncle, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, and his wife, Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna, who, during the war, openly criticized the Empress. She considered their sons Kyrill, Boris and Andrei to be irredeemably immoral, and in 1913 refused Boris's proposal for the hand of Grand Duchess Olga.

Alexandra was very supportive of her husband Nicholas, yet she often gave him bad advice. She was a fervent advocate of the "Divine Right To Rule" and believed that it was unnecessary to attempt to secure the approval of the people. Her aunt, German Empress Frederick, wrote to Queen Victoria that "Alix is very Imperious and will always insist on having her own way; she will never yield one iota of power she will imagine she wields..." During World War I, with the national citizens aroused, all the complaints Russians had about the Empress--for instance, her German birth, her poor ideals, her devotion to Rasputin-circled and twisted around the deadly designs that claimed her entire family. Her assassination, according to the daughter of the British ambassador, was openly spoken of in aristocratic drawing rooms, as the only way of saving the Empire.