Alexandra Feodorovna
Alexandra Fyodorovna (1872-1918), czarina of Russia, 1894-1917. A grand-daughter of Queen Victoria of Great Britain, she was Princess Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt before her marriage to Czar Nicholas II in 1894. Although devoted to him, Alexandra was an obstinate and unstable woman who dominated her husband. Their resistance to reform and their autocratic policies were among the causes of the Revolution of 1917.
Alexandra came under the influence of the notorious Rasputin shortly after the birth of her only son, Alexis, heir to the throne, in 1904. She believed that Rasputin possessed mystical powers that could protect Alexis, a victim of the blood disease hemophilia. Because of this association, Rasputin played an increasingly influential role in the imperial court. When the czar was personally commanding troops during World War I, the czarina and Rasputin ran the government, 1915-16. In 1917 Alexandra, Nicholas, and their children were seized by revolutionaries. They were executed in 1918.