Post by Admin on Apr 24, 2021 12:54:19 GMT -4
Alexandra was born on 6 June 1872 at the New Palace in Darmstadt as Princess Alix Viktoria Helene Luise Beatrix of Hesse and by Rhine, a Grand Duchy then part of the German Empire. She was the sixth child and fourth daughter among the seven children of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and his first wife, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the second daughter of Queen Victoria and her husband Albert, Prince Consort.
Alix was baptized on 1 July 1872 (her parents' tenth wedding anniversary) in the Protestant Lutheran Church and given the names of her mother and each of her mother's four sisters, some of which were transliterated into German. Her mother wrote to Queen Victoria, "‘Alix’ we gave for ‘Alice’ as they murder my name here: ‘Ali-ice’ they pronounce it, so we thought ‘Alix’ could not so easily be spoilt.”[34] Her mother gave her the nickname of "Sunny", due to her cheerful disposition, a name adopted later by her husband. Her British relatives nicknamed her as "Alicky", to distinguish her from her aunt Alexandra, Princess of Wales, who was known within the family as Alix.
Alix's godparents were the Prince and Princess of Wales (her maternal uncle and aunt), Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom (her maternal aunt), the Duchess of Cambridge (her great-grandaunt), the Tsesarevich and Tsesarevna of Russia (her future parents-in-law), and Princess Anna of Prussia.
Alix's older brother Prince Friedrich of Hesse and by Rhine ("Frittie") suffered from hemophilia and died in May 1873 after a fall, when Alix was about one year old. Of her siblings, Alix was closest to Princess Marie ("May"), who was two years younger; they were noted as "inseparable".
In November 1878, diphtheria swept through the House of Hesse; Alix, her three sisters, her brother Ernst ("Ernie"), and their father fell ill. Elisabeth ("Ella"), Alix's older sister, was visiting their paternal grandmother, and escaped the outbreak. Alix's mother Alice tended to the children herself, rather than abandon them to nurses and doctors. Alice fell ill and died on 14 December 1878, when Alix was six years old. This was the 17th anniversary of Alice's own father's death. Marie also died, but the rest of the siblings survived. After her mother and sister's deaths, Alix became more reserved and withdrawn.[citation needed] She described her childhood before her mother and sister's death as "unclouded, happy babyhood, of perpetual sunshine, then of a great cloud.
Queen Victoria doted on the motherless Alix and became a surrogate mother to Alix. She felt highly protective of Alix and declared that "while I live Alicky, til she is married, will be more than ever my own child."[38] She handpicked Alix's tutors and instructed them to send detailed reports back to Windsor every month. She invited Alix and her surviving siblings to England for their holidays, and they grew close to their British cousins. Every birthday and Christmas, she sent Alix gifts of dresses, jewelry, lace, and dolls. Unlike her other siblings, Alix signed herself "your loving and grateful child," rather than grandchild, in her letters. Alix reflected that she saw Queen Victoria as "the best and dearest of grandmamas," "a very august person," "a Santa Clause," [39] and "the dearest and kindest Woman alive." When she was betrothed to Nicholas, Alix assured Victoria that "my marrying will [not] make a difference to my love for You."[40] When Queen Victoria died in 1901, Alix openly wept at her memorial service in St. Petersburg and shocked the Russian courtiers who considered her cold and unfeeling.
Along with her sister, Princess Irene, Alix was a bridesmaid at the 1885 wedding of her godmother and maternal aunt, Princess Beatrice, to Prince Henry of Battenberg. At the age of 15, she attended Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee celebrations in 1887.
In March 1892, when Alix was just nineteen years old, her father Grand Duke Louis IV, died of a heart attack. According to her biographer, Baroness Buxhoeveden, Alix regarded the death of her father as the greatest sorrow of her life. Buxhoeveden recalled in her 1928 biography that "for years she could not speak of him, and long after when she was in Russia, anything that reminded her of him would bring her to the verge of tears". This loss was probably so much greater for Alix because Grand Duke Louis IV had been Alix's only remaining parent since she was six.
