“The most unimpressive favorite in history.” “Fat, clumsy, gushing and stupid.” These were but a few of the things said about Anna Vyroubova, favorite of the Russian Imperial Family from 1905 until 1917 when she was arrested at the onset of the Revolution and sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg on suspicion of being part of an imperial conspiracy – orchestrated by the German-born Empress Alexandra – to hand over Russia treacherously to her bitterest enemy. She has also been called the “unintended genius of the Russian Revolution.” Painted at various times ...

Empress Elisabeth of Austria (known by all as “Sisi”), was considered to be the most beautiful woman of her time. Looks she had in abundance and they gained her the heart of an Emperor before her sixteenth birthday. Emperor Franz Josef was tall and handsome, and for him it was love at first sight. She loved him as well and said yes. Now young, newly-wed, and an Empress, the world was at her feet. All the people truly wanted was simply to gaze upon her. How could this ever go wrong …? But it did … horribly wrong. Sisi was a woman out of her time and place. She wanted the one thing ...

The love story of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra of Russia has long been considered a fairytale romance with a startlingly tragic ending, when the entire Imperial Romanov Family was shot and bayoneted to death by a Bolshevik firing squad in a cellar in Ekaterinburg on July 17, 1918. Nicholas and Alexandra were famously devoted to each other, writing each other cooing notes daily, but successive tides of political, military, and then revolutionary, history swept them away. At least that is the received wisdom, but the truth is somewhat more complicated. Tsar Nicholas never wanted to ...

As the ‘Funeral Bride,’ Alexandra of Hesse-Darmstadt marries Tsar Nicholas II only a week after the premature death of his father, Tsar Alexander III. Already dismissed out of hand by the court, Alexandra has to further contend with the continuing ambition of her mother-in-law, the Dowager-Empress Minnie, who has no intention of ceding imperial precedence to the new Empress or of giving up one inch of her power and influence over her emotionally-dependent son, the new Tsar. Nevertheless, Empress Alexandra is determined to stamp her authority on Russia as a whole and on Nicholas in ...

Empress Alexandra Romanov – the last empress of Russia, wife of Tsar Nicholas II, and now a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church – chose Countess Sophie Buxhoeveden, one of her ladies-in-waiting, to be her authorized biographer, opening up to her about her closest relationships and giving her access to copies of her private correspondence. Additionally, as a lady-in-waiting, Countess Buxhoeveden attended on the Empress for much of the reign of Tsar Nicholas II, only leaving her side when the Imperial Family was removed to Tobolsk after the Tsar’s abdication in 1917. Thereafter, she ...