On July 1, 1872, she was baptized according to the rituals of the Lutheran Church. The Prince and Princess of Wales were chosen as their godparents among many others.
On December 14, 1878, when he was six years old, the mother of Alix died of a diphtheria epidemic. Alix and his three other siblings survived the disease, but his younger sister, Princess Marie succumbed to it.
In 1884, Alix she met her future husband, Nicholas II, the heir to the Russian throne, during the wedding of the latter’s uncle, Sergei, to Alix’s sister Elizabeth, in St. Petersburg. But the union was problematic for several reasons.
The bride was disapproved of by Nicholas’ father, Alexander III, notoriously anti-German, who wanted his son to marry the daughter of Phillipe, Count of Paris, heir to the French throne. Queen Victoria was also against the union. However, he had to give in and let Alexandra get away with it.
Alexandra She herself had her share of doubts, because marriage would require her to convert to the Orthodox religion, which is why she rejected Nicholas’s first proposal. However, he accepted his second proposal.
The marriage took place after the death of Alexander III on November 1, 1894. Tsarévich Nicholas II became the new Tsar of Russia, and he married Alexandra in the Great Church of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, on November 26, 1894.
The coronation of Alexandra and Nicholas II occurred on May 14, 1896 in the Kremlin, in Moscow. Unfortunately, Alejandra was not able to make a favorable impression of herself among the courtiers, the common people, and even her family. She was perceived as very cold and haughty, although it was probably due to her calm and shy personality. His relationship with his mother-in-law, Marie Fyodorovna, is said to be also very troublesome.
Alexandra He had four daughters – Olga, Tatania, Maria and Anastasia. At that time, both inside and outside the family, they had begun to despise her because of her inability to conceive a male child. Finally, on August 12, 1904, she gave birth to her first son and successor to the Russian throne, Alexei Nikolaevich. But unfortunately, the royal heir had inherited hemophilia.
It was during her search for a cure for her son that Alexandra came into contact with the mystic Gregori Rasputin. She began to blindly trust him and his ability to reduce Alexei’s pain. This relationship seemed to increase Rasputin’s political powers during the Tsar’s absence in 1915, and turned most of the aristocracy against the Tsarina.
The February revolution brought a provisional government. The government, led by Alexander Kerensky, imprisoned the former Tsar along with his wife and children in the Alexander Palace, from which they were transferred to the Ipatiev House, on April 30, 1918.
Early in the morning of July 17, 1918, Alexandra, along with the members and servants of his family, were killed by a firing squad in the basement of the house. The execution was led by Yakov Yurovski. Alejandra had to witness the murder of her husband, Tsar Nicholas II, in front of her eyes before she was shot by military commissioner Peter Ermakov. The bullet entered just above his left ear.
Alexandra she was canonized as Saint Alexandra by the Russian Orthodox Church, along with her husband and children, in 2000. In 1998 the family’s remains were re-interred in Saint Petersburg, in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.