I admit, I never thought I would find anything written by my grandfather which included the Russian Imperial Family. After all, it was my grandmother, Olga Woronoff, formally Countess Kleinmichel, who was known to be the writer in the family. She had written her memoir, Upheaval, detailing her life in
The first time my grandmother, Countess Olga Kleinmichel, saw Empress Alexandra the Empress wasn’t smiling. In fact, according to my grandmother’s memoir in which she describes the celebration of Grand Duchess Olga’s sixteenth birthday, Empress Alexandra “wore an expression of weariness and sadness which ‘society’ took for coldness and haughtiness.”
I have often written about letters and my passion for reading other people’s thoughts and descriptions of their lives. I have already written a post on one of the letters written by Empress Alexandra of Russia to her husband, Tsar Nicholas II. It was taken from the book Letters of
Was I named after Empress Alexandra (pictured above), wife of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia? It is a question I have been asked time and time again. It was not something I ever discussed with my mother. How do parents decide on names for their children? I had a few
Rasputin, friend to Empress Alexandra of Russia and enemy of so many more, was murdered on 30 December 1916 – (17 December in the old calendar). As a follow up to my post a couple of weeks ago, here is how the Empress expressed her fears in a letter, the
Empress Alexandra, wife of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia, wrote frequently to her husband, numbering each of her letters. Several years ago, at a second hand book stall, I found a book of her letters, written between 1914 and 1916. It is called Letters of the Tsaritsa to