Alexandra Feodorovna

Alexandra Feodorovna was the last Empress of Russia as the wife of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. She was born as Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. She married Nicholas in 1894 and became Empress consort of Russia after his coronation in 1896. She was a devoted mother to her five children, especially her only son Alexei, who suffered from hemophilia. She was also a devout convert to the Russian Orthodox Church and a follower of the mystic Grigori Rasputin, who claimed to have healing powers for her son. Alexandra Feodorovna was unpopular among the Russian people and the nobility for her German origin, her aloofness, her influence on her husband, and her involvement with Rasputin. She was blamed for many of the problems that plagued Russia during the First World War and the February Revolution of 1917. After Nicholas abdicated the throne, she and her family were imprisoned by the Bolsheviks in several locations until they were executed in Yekaterinburg on July 17, 1918. Their remains were buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in Saint Petersburg in 1998. In 2000, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized her as Saint Alexandra the Passion Bearer.