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[[Image:01 ALexandra Feodorovna portrait in Peterhoff.jpg|thumb|250px|<center>Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, Palace of Peterhof]]
'''Alexandra Feodorovna''', born Charlotte, Princess of Prussia, ([[July 13]], [[1798]] - [[November 1]], [[1860]]) was Empress consort of [[Russia]] . She was the wife of Tsar [[Nicholas I of Russia]], and mother of Tsar [[Alexander II of Russia]].
== Princess of Prusia ==
Alexandra Foedorovna was born on [[July 13]], [[1798]] in [[Charlottenburg]] Palace, as Princess Frederica Louise Charlotte Wilhelmina of Prusia. She was the eldest surviving daughter and fourth child of [[Frederick William III]], King of Prussia and [[Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz]].
Princess Charlotte childhood was marked by the [[Napoleonic Wars]]. After the French defeat of the Prussian army, Princess Charlotte with her whole family had to flee to [[East Prussia]], where they look for the protection of Tsar [[Alexander I of Russia]]. [[Berlin]] fell under [[Napoleon]]’s control and Princess Charlotte grew up in [[Memel]], in War torn [[Prussia]]. Her mother died in [[1810]], shortly after Charlotte’s twelve birthday, for the rest of her life she treasured her mother’s memory. From her early youth Princess Chartlote ocupied the first female rank in Prusia as the eldest daughter of her widower father. She would remained all her life attached to Prusia and her family.
In the fall of [[1814]], Grand Duke Nicholas Pavlovich of Russia, the future Tsar [[Nicholas I]], and his brother Grand Duke Michael, visited Berlin. It was understood between the two royal families that Nicholas would marry Princess Charlotte. In a second visit the following year, according to plan, Nicholas fell in love with her seventeen year old host, Princess Charlotte. She felt the same way “I like him and am sure of being happy with him.” She wrote to her brother, “What we have in common is our inner life; let the world do as it pleases, in our hearts we have a world of our own.” Hand in hand they wandered over the Postdam country side, they went to the opera in Berlin and by the end of Grand Duke Nicholas visit they were engaged. They had to wait two years to get married.
On [[June 9]], [[1817]] Princess Charlotte came to Russia with her brother [[William I, German Emperor|William]]. Nicholas when to meet her at the frontier. After arriving at [[St Petersburg]], she converted to the [[Orthodox Church]], took the title of Grand Duchess of Russia and traded the name Charlotte for Alexandra Feodorovna. The wedding was celebrated with great pomp in the chapel of the [[Winter Palace]] on [[July 13]], [[1817]], on Alexandra’s Feodorovna nineteenth birthday. “I felt myself very, very happy when our hands joined,” she later wrote about her wedding. “With complete confidence and trust, I gave my life into the hands of my Nicholas, and he never once betrayed it”
== Grand Duchess of Russia ==
At first, Alexandra Feodorovna had problems adapting to the Russian court, the change of religion affected her and she was overwhelmed but the strange sourrondings. Home sick, she found solace in her lonliness in the military formations, that she was accostum to watch in her militaristic native country. She gained the favor of her mother-in-law, [[Maria Feodorovna]], but did not get along well, with Empress [[Elizabeth Alexeiyevna (Louise of Baden)|Elizabeth Alexeiyevna ]], Alexander I's wife.
[[Image:02 alejandrafeodo1820.jpg|thumb|left||280px|<center>Alexandra Feodorovna in 1820 with her two eldest children, the [[Alexander II of Russia|the Tsarevich Alexander]], and [[Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg|the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna]]. The Tsarina interfered little in politics, preferring the role of devoted wife and mother.]]
Weeks after the wedding, Alexandra was pregnant. On [[April 17]], [[1818]] she gave birth to her first son, the future Tsar [[Alexander II]], the next year she had a daughter, [[Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg|Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna]]. In [[1820]] Alexandra produced a stillborn daughter, her third pregnancy in three years and the lost of the baby brought on a deep depression. The doctors advised a holiday and Nicholas took her to see her family in Berlin, they spent autum of 1820 and much of [[1821]] at the Prusian court, returning again in the summer of [[1824]]. They did not come back to St. Petersburg until March [[1825]] when [[Alexander I]] required their presence in [[Russia]].
Alexandra Feodorovna spent her first years in Russia trying to learn the language and custums of her adopted country under the tutelage of the poet Vasily Zhukovski, whom she characterized as being “too much of a poet to be a good tutor”. The Imperial family spoke [[German language|German]] and wrote their letters in French, as a consequence, Alexandra never completely mastered the [[Russian]] language.
Nicholas and Alexandra Fedodorovna were private people who found great pleasure in each other’s company. She wrote in a memoir of her first years in Russia that “We both were truly happy only when we found ourselves alone in our apartments with me sitting on his knees while he was loving and tender”.
For eight years, during the reign of Tsar Alexander I, the couple lived quietly, enjoying their privacy. Neither Nicholas nor Alexandra welcomed the possibility of ocupying the Russian throne.
[[Alexander I of Russia|Tsar Alexander I]] had no children and the next in line, and [[Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia|Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich]], renounced his right in 1822 making Nicholas Alexander’s heir.
In [[1825]] Alexandra received from her brother-in-law, Tsar Alexander I the [[Peterhof|Palace of Peterhof]], the Imperial state that had pleased her most at the start of her life in Russia. It would remained her favorite summer residence.
== Personality ==
Alexandra was tall, slender with a small head of refine features. Her blue eyes were set deep in her head. She had an air of regal majesty. Her quick, light walk was graceful. She was frail, often in poor health. Her voice was [[hoarse]], but she spoke rapidly and with decision.
Alexandra Feodorovna was an avid reader and enjoyed music. She was kind and liked privacy and simplicity. She dressed elegantly, with a decided preference for light colors, and collected beautiful jewels. Neither arrogant nor frivolous, Alexandra was not without intelligence and had an excellent memory; her reading was quite extensive; her judgment of men sure, slightly ironical. However, her interests were mostly shallow. She loved to dance and the fantastic world of the Palaces and court balls filled her horizon. She did not worry about knowing the real problems of the Russian people that demanded from its Empress the energy to take care of the needed and the sick.
For her, Russia was summed up in the person of her beloved husband. By forcing his will on this fragile, irresponsible and delicate creature, Nicholas destroyed Alexandra’s individuality. Her husband gave her no time for reflection, for giving herself a sustained occupation, other than adoring wife and devoted mother.
== Empress of Russia ==
[[Image:06 Alexnadra Feodorovna, 1836 MALIOUKOVA.jpg|thumb|right|280px|<center>Alexandra Feodorovna. St. Petersburg, 1836]]
Alexandra Fedorovna became empress consort upon her husband's accession as [[Nicholas I]] on [[December]], [[1825]]. It was a turbulent period marked by the bloody represion of the [[Decembrist revolt]]. In this time, the new Tsarina felt attracted to Nicholas’ dashing aide-de-camp, the handsome calvary general [[Orlov#Alexey Fyodorovich Orlov|Alexis Orlov]], Alexandra had some tender, tought only platonic feelings for him.
Nicholas and Alexandra were devoted to each other and to their offspring, as their name sakes the last Russian Imperial couple, they were deeply in love. By [[1832]] they had seven children that they brought up with care.
Nicolas I never waived in his love for his wife, he called her “Mouffy”. “God has bestow upon you such a happy character that is not merit to love you, I exit for you”, he wrote her in [[1836]], nearly twenty years after their marriage. In [[1837]] when much of the [[Winter Palace]] was destroyed by fire, Nicholas reportedly told an aide-de-camp “ Let everything else burn up, only just save for me the small case of letters in my study which my wife wrote to me when she was my betrhoted”. Theirs was an actraction of opposites: Nicholas, tall robust, dynamic, and Alexandra, slender, frail, often in poor health.
Only after more than twenty five years of fidelity, Nicholas took a mistress. He turned to Barbara Nelidova, one of Alexandras’ ladys-in-waiting. Alexandra’s recurring heart attacks made it impossible to continued their conjugal life. If physical love was forbidden by the Empress’s doctors much love remained between them. Nicholas continued to seek refuge from the cares of state in Alexandra’s company. “Happiness, joy, and repose- that is what I seek and find in my old Mouffy,” he once wrote. His letters always were filled with those detailed accounts Alexandra so loved to read about costumes, furnishing, uniforms and military reviews at the courts he visited. Always he found time to remember her in small but tender ways when they were apart.
In [[1845]] Nicholas wept when Court doctors urged the Empress to visit [[Palermo]] for several months. “Leave me my wife,” he begged her physicians, and when he learned that she indeed must go, he made plans to join her, if only for a brief time. He followed her to Italy. Nelidova went with them and is widely assumed that it was about this time that Nicholas after years of waiting for Nelidova, she finally became his lover. Alexandra jealosus at the beginning, soon not only reconciled herself with the idea, but remained in excellent terms with her husband’s mistress.
The death of the Imperial couple youngest daughter, [[Grand Duchess Alexandra Nikolaevna of Russia|Grand Duchess Alexandra]], in [[1844]] was a gret blow. The Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, was always frail and in bad health. At forty she was prematurly aged looking far older than her years. She was increasingly thin; for long time she suffered from a nervous twitching that became a convulsive shaking of her head.
Looking for a place in Russia that suited Alexandra’s delicate health, Nicholas and Alexandra visited [[Crimea]] in 1837. Nicholas order to build for her, the palace of Oreanda in Crimea, but she visited it only once, in 1852, because the following year began the [[Crimean War|Crimea War]]. Towards the end of [[1854]] Alexandra Feodorovna was very sick and it was tought she was going to die, but she not only recovered but outlived her husband. Depressed by the outcome of the [[Crimea War]], Nicholas contracted influenza and died on 6/18 February [[1855]].
== Dowager Empress ==
[[Image:Alexandra Feodorvona 07.JPG|thumb|left|230px|<center>The Dowager Empress Alexandra Feodorovna in old age.1860]]
Grive stricken, Alexandra Feodorovna survived her husband for five years. She retired to the [[Alexander Palace]] at [[Tsarskoe Selo]] remaining in good terms with her husband’s mistress Barbara Nelidova, who she made her personal reader. The dowager Empress, spoilt for almost forty years by her husband, was now protected by her grown up children.
Alexandra Feodorovna ill health only grew worse with the years. Unable to spend the harsh winters in [[Russia]], she was forced to make long sojourns abroad. She wrote in September [[1859 ]] “I am homesick for my country and I reproached myself for costing so much money at a time when Russia has need of every ruble. But I cough and my sick lungs cannot go without a southern climate.” In the autumn of [[1868]], the doctors made her understand that she would not live through the winter if she did not return once more to the south. Knowing the danger, she preferred to stay in St. Petersburg, to die on Russian soil. She died without suffering. The night before her death, she was heard to say, ”Niki, I am coming to you.” She died at the age of sixty-two on [[November 1]], [[1860]] [[Alexander Palace]] at [[Tsarskoe Selo]].
== Children ==
[[Image:Nicholas I of Russia.jpg|thumb|right||200px|Tsar Nicholas I of Russia was a loving husband, his behavior towards his wife was touching and charming, but he crushed his wife personality]]
* Alexander Nicolaievich, the future Tsarevich and then Emperor [[Alexander II of Russia]] ([[1818]]-[[1881]]), married firstly [[Marie of Hesse and by Rhine|Marie of Hesse-Darmstadt]] and secondly, morganatically, Princess [[Catherine Dolgoruki]].
* [[Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna, Duchess of Leuchtenberg|Maria Nicolaievna]] ([[1819]]-[[1876]]). Married Maximilian de Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg (son of [[Eugène de Beauharnais]]). She married, second, Count Gregory Alexandrovich Stroganov in 1856.
* Still born daughter (1820)
*[[Queen Olga of Württemberg|Olga Nicolaievna]] ([[1822]]-[[1892]]). Married [[Karl I of Württemberg]] in 1846 and was childless.
* Still born daughter (1823)
* [[Grand Duchess Alexandra Nikolaevna of Russia]] ([[1825]]-[[1844]]). Married [[Landgraf Friedrich]] of [[Hesse-Kassel]] in 1843, but died in childbirth the following year.
*Grand Duchess Elisabeth Nikolaevna of Russia, born in June 1826. Died in childhood.
* [[Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia]] ([[1827]]-[[1892]]). Married [[Alexandra Iosifovna|Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg]] and had issue.
* [[Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich of Russia]] ([[1831]]-[[1891]]). Married his first cousin's daughter, Princess Alexandra Petrovna of Oldenburg and had [[issue]].
* [[Grand Duke Michael Nicolaevich of Russia]] ([[1832]] -[[1909]]). Married Cecilie of Baden (Olga Fedorovna) and had issue.
==References==
* Grunwald, Constantin de, '' Tsar Nicholas I the Life of An Absolute Monarch'', Alcuin Press, ASIN B000I824DU.
* Lincoln, W. Bruce, ''The Romanovs: Autocrats of All the Russias'', Anchor, ISBN 0385279086.
* Zaeepvat, Charlotte, '' Romanov Autumn '', Sutton Publishing, ISBN 0750927399
* Lincoln, W. Bruce, '' Nicholas I, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias '', Northern Illinois University Press, ISBN 0875805485.
{{start box}}
{{succession box|title=[[Royal Consorts of Russia]]|after=[[Maria Alexandrovna of Hesse|Marie of Hesse-Darmstadt]]|before=[[Louise of Baden]]|years='''[[1825]] – [[1855]]'''}}
{{end box}}
[[Category:1798 births|Prussia, Princess Charlotte of]]
[[Category:1860 deaths|Prussia, Princess Charlotte of]]
[[Category:House of Hohenzollern]]
[[Category:Russian tsarinas]]
[[Category:Female rulers of Finland]]
[[Category:House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov]]
[[bg:Александра Фьодоровна (Шарлота)]]
[[ca:Carlota de Prússia (tsarina de Rússia)]]
[[de:Charlotte von Preußen]]
[[es:María Fiódorovna Románova]]
[[fr:Charlotte de Prusse]]
[[nl:Charlotte van Pruisen (Alexandra Fjodorovna)]]
[[ja:アレクサンドラ・フョードロヴナ (ニコライ1世皇后)]]
[[ru:Александра Фёдоровна (императрица, жена Николая I)]]
[[fi:Aleksandra Fjodorovna (Charlotte)]]
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