Empress of Russia
Alexander III died on 1 November 1894 and Nicholas became the Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias at the age of twenty-six. Alix of Hesse accompanied the Imperial family as they returned to St Petersburg with the body of the tsar, and it is said that the people greeted their new Empress-to-be with ominous whispers of "She comes to us behind a coffin."
The marriage with Nicholas was not delayed. Alexandra and Nicholas were wed in the Grand Church of the Winter Palace of St Petersburg on 26 November 1894. The marriage that began that night remained exceptionally close until the pair was assassinated simultaneously in 1918. It was a Victorian marriage, outwardly serene and proper, but based on intensely passionate physical love.
Read more about this topic: Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix Of Hesse)
Famous quotes containing the words empress and/or russia:
“We never really are the adults we pretend to be. We wear the mask and perhaps the clothes and posture of grown-ups, but inside our skin we are never as wise or as sure or as strong as we want to convince ourselves and others we are. We may fool all the rest of the people all of the time, but we never fool our parents. They can see behind the mask of adulthood. To her mommy and daddy, the empress never has on any clothes—and knows it.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“A fool may be a dangerous customer, but the fact of his having such a vulnerable top-end turns danger into a first-rate sport; and whatever defects the old administration in Russia had, it must be conceded that it possessed one outstanding virtue—a lack of brains.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)