I've just been a'surfing the interweb and I've come across some rather amazing websites with photos of the Imperial Royal Family of Russia on, both formal and informal, and this has really sparked an interest in them generally. Now, while I try and work out how to put photos on here, I've persuaded Toby the Suicidal Lemming to type out what I know about the Last Tsar and his family.
Nicholas II of Russia came to the throne rather unexpectedly in 1894, after the untimely death of his father, Alexander III. Alexander was a huge Tsar, not just in height (he was 6ft 4) but in build as well and he'd ruled since the assassination of his father, Alexander II (they're an imaginative lot with names) in 1881. He married Princess Dagmar of Denmark, who changed her name to Marie Feodorovna, which is a pity, as Dagmar's a great name in my opinion. Anyway, Minnie (her nickname, obviously the one that springs to mind from 'Dagmar') was the daughter of Queen Louise and King Christian IX of Denmark and her siblings included the future Queen Alexandra of England (married Edward VII in 1863) and King George I of Greece ("Greek Georgie".) They had five children: Nicholas ("Nicky", Nicholas II), George ("Musie"), Xenia, Micheal and Olga, all of whom survived to adulthood.
Nicky was ill-equipped to be Tsar, as both he and his father had thought that Alexander would continue ruling well into the 20th century, and it was a horrible shock to him when the time came. Three weeks after his father's funeral, Nicky married Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt, daughter of Princess Alice of the United Kingdom and Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt, and therefore a granddaughter of Queen Victoria (told you she'd be in everything.)
Alix grew up in Hesse-Darmstadt (another German province) and was such a merry child that she was given the nickname 'Sunny' by her family. However, Alix's happiness was to be short-lived, as tragedy after tragedy struck the Hesse family. Her brother, Frederick, or "Frittie", died in 1873 after falling 20 feet from a window when playing in his mother's room. As he was a haemophliac, he could not survive such a fall and died of internal bleeding.
[This is my favourite picture of the young Alix.]
The next tragedy to befall Alix and her family occurred in 1878, when everyone in the family (except Alice and Alix's older sister Victoria) came down with diptheria. Within days, the youngest child, May, died at the age of two and a half and her brother Ernie (who had not yet been told of her demise) repeatedly asked after his sister until Alice forced herself to tell him the tragic news. He was so upset that, against the doctors' orders, she embraced him to offer a little comfort. Alice, exhausted from nursing her family herself, contracted the disease and died two weeks later. In just four weeks, Alix's peaceful life had been shattered forever. Even her toys were burnt to stop the spread of the disease, so everything familiar had been taken from her. Alix was six years old.
It was for this reason that Alix and her siblings (Victoria, Elizabeth ["Ella"], Irene and Ernest ["Ernie"]) grew up under the watchful gaze of their grandmother Queen Victoria. Their father, Louis did remarry ... for just under a year, but when the Queen got wind of it, she immediately insisted that the marriage be annulled.
However, young Nicky had taken quite a fancy to Alix and, despite being refused several billion times (use of poetic license here) by her, as she didn't want to change her religion to the Russian Orthodox Church, he plucked up the courage one final time. It was at the wedding of Alix's brother Ernie (who looks so much like a stereotypical Victorian baddy that it's almost unreal) to the wonderfully nicknamed "Ducky" of Edinburgh (real name: Victoria Melita - what else?) that Nicky finally began to get his act together.
Urged on by cousin Willy (Kaiser Wilhelm II of terrifying moustache fame) and Nicky himself, Alix finally said yes and things were all rather jolly. For a bit. Unfortunately Alexander III, who had been ill for some time, died on the 1st November 1894 and so Nicky became Tsar. Just three weeks after his father's funeral, Nicky and Alix were married, but the gloom that still hung over the court was certainly a sign of things to come.
Thanks to the vast amount of marrying into other royal families, Alix's sister Ella, married to Grand Duke Serge, Nicky's uncle, was now technically Alix's aunt (my brain hurts too) and the couple were now also related to the future George V of the United Kingdom, Constantine I of Greece, Christian X of Denmark, Haakon VII of Norway, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Queen Sophie of Greece, Queen Marie of Romania, Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain, Queen Maud of Norway, Crown Princess Margaret of Sweden and can I please stop now - my typing hand aches? Thanks.
Well after the wedding, there were automatically children (well they were Victorian royals after all) and the first, called Olga and some other names as well, was born in November 1895 and Olga was followed by three more sisters: Tatiana (1897), Marie (1899) and Anastasia (1901.) Four daughters. Born to a ruling monarch's family. With Salic Law (women can't inherit the throne basically - see Hanover for details. Or rather don't, as I haven't written it yet.) Yes, this was a bit of a problem for Alix (who couldn't help it of course) and it wasn't until 1904 when they finally had a son, whom they named Alexei.
Yippee, I hear you cry, all their troubles are over and it's all sunshine and skipping around mulberry bushes from now on. Well, as you will find out in the next installment of The Last Tsar, things were going to get even worse for poor Nicky and Alix.
[In the picture: Alix, inflatable Olga, Nicky, Queen Victoria, Bertie...well the future Edward VII if you insist.]
