Early Life
Alexandra was born on 6 June 1872 at the New Palace in Darmstadt as Her Grand Ducal Highness Princess Viktoria Alix Helena Louise Beatrice of Hesse and by Rhine, a Grand Duchy that was then part of the German Empire. She was the sixth child among the seven children of Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse and by Rhine, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Albert, the Prince Consort.
Alix was baptised on 1 July 1872 according to the rites of the 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 godparents were the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Russian Tsarevich and Tsarevna, HRH Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom, the Duchess of Cambridge, and HRH Princess Anna of Prussia. Her family nicknamed the girl "Alicky" or "Sunny," a practice picked up later by Nicholas.
In December 1878, diphtheria swept through the Grand Ducal House of Hesse. Alix, her three sisters, and her brother Ernest fell ill. Elisabeth, Alix's older sister, had been sent to visit her paternal grandmother, and escaped the outbreak. Alix's mother Alice tended to the children rather than abandon them to doctors. Alice herself soon fell ill with diphtheria, and died on the anniversary of her father's death, 14 December 1878, when Alix was only six years-old. Alix, Victoria, Irene, and Ernst survived the epidemic, but their youngest sister, Princess Marie, did not.
Alix and her surviving siblings grew close to her British cousins, spending holidays with Queen Victoria. 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.
Read more about this topic: Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix Of Hesse)
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