by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2018

Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark was the eldest of the three daughters and the third of the eight children of King George I of Greece and Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna of Russia. Named after her paternal aunt Alexandra of Denmark (the future Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, wife of King Edward VII), Alexandra was born on August 30, 1870, at the Mon Repos villa on the Greek island of Corfu in the Ionian Sea.

Alexandra had seven siblings:

• King Constantine I (1868–1923), married Princess Sophia of Prussia, had six children including King George II, King Alexander, King Paul and Helen, Queen Mother of Romania
• Prince George (1869–1957), married Princess Marie Bonaparte, had two children
• Prince Nicholas (1872–1938), married Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia, had three daughters including Princess Marina who married Prince George, Duke of Kent
• Prince Maria (1876–1940), married (1) Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia, had two children; (2) Admiral Perikles Ioannidis, no children
• Princess Olga (born and died1880), died in infancy
• Prince Andrew (1882–1944), married Princess Alice of Battenberg, had five children including Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
• Prince Christopher (1888–1940), married (1) Nancy Stewart Worthington Leeds (Princess Anastasia), no children (2) Princess Françoise of Orléans, had one son

Alexandra’s father was born Prince Vilhelm of Denmark, the second son of King Christian IX of Denmark. His older brother would succeed their father as King Frederik VIII of Denmark. His older sister Alexandra married Edward, Prince of Wales who would succeed his mother Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom as King Edward VII. Dagmar, one of his younger sisters would marry the future Alexander III, Emperor of All Russia, and be known as Empress Maria Feodorovna. Dagmar’s son would succeed his father as the ill-fated Nicholas II, the last Emperor of All Russia.

Alexandra’s mother was born Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna of Russia. She was the daughter of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich and Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg (Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna). Her father was the second son of Nicholas I, Emperor of All Russia and the brother of Alexander II, Emperor of All Russia. Queen Olga’s brother Grand Duke Dimitri Konstantinovich of Russia was one of the four Grands Dukes who was killed by a firing squad in the courtyard of the Peter and Paul Fortress on January 28, 1919.  Sadly, Alexandra’s husband was also one of those four Grand Dukes.

How did a Prince of Denmark become King of Greece? In 1862, King Otto of Greece (born Prince Otto of Bavaria) was deposed. Still wanting a monarchy, but rejecting Otto’s proposed successor, Greece began searching for a new King. Initially, the focus fell on Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (the second son of Queen Victoria), who received overwhelming support from the Greek people. However, the London Conference of 1832 stipulated that no one from the ruling families of the Great Powers could accept the Greek throne. While several other European princes were put forward as possible sovereigns, the Greek people and the Great Powers soon chose Prince Vilhelm as their next King. On March 30, 1863, the 17-year old Vilhelm was unanimously elected by the Greek National Assembly and took the name King George I.

Embed from Getty Images 
Tatoi Palace, sadly abandoned

King George, Queen Olga, and their family spent much of their time at Tatoi, a 10,000-acre estate outside Athens which the King purchased in the 1870s. Along with the main palace, King George built a winery and a Danish-style dairy farm. He established the Royal Cemetery on the grounds, following the death of his daughter Princess Olga in 1880. In 1864, King George had acquired Mon Repos, a villa on the island of Corfu, which the royal family used as a summer residence.

Alexandra (called Aline in the family) was given a proper education by governesses, focusing on foreign languages, music, dancing, and riding. The family usually spent their vacations in Russia or Denmark with their British, Danish, and Russian relatives and so Alexandra had early contact with the family of Alexander II, Emperor of all Russia, including her future husband Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich who was the youngest child of Alexander II and his wife Empress Maria Alexandrovna, born Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine.

Grand Duke Paul’s health was delicate as a child and as an adult, he suffered from a lung ailment (perhaps asthma) and spent time in warmer climates to recuperate. On medical advice, Paul spent the first of several winters in Greece in 1887. Queen Olga was Paul’s first cousin as they were both grandchildren of Nicholas I, Emperor of All Russia. With all the family connections and family visits, Paul felt quite comfortable with the Greek royal family and it was no surprise that he grew closer and fell in love with the eldest daughter Princess Alexandra.

Paul and Alexandra’s engagement was announced on November 10, 1888, and the couple was married in the chapel at the Grand Church of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia on June 17, 1889. Alexandra took the name Alexandra Georgievna. The couple had two children:

• Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna (1890–1958), married (1) Prince Wilhelm of Sweden, Duke of Södermanland, had one son, divorced (2) Prince Sergei Mikhailovich Putyatin, had one son
• Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich (1891–1942), married morganatically Audrey Emery, had one son, divorced

The newlyweds lived in a palace in St. Petersburg on the English Embankment and were given rooms at the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo. Paul and Alexandra’s marriage was a happy one but sadly, it was to be a short marriage.

Alexandra, seven months pregnant with her second child, spent time together with her husband Paul, his brother Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, and Sergei’s wife Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, born Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine, at Ilinskoye, Sergei and Elizabeth’s country estate outside Moscow. While there, Alexandra took a walk with her friends on the bank of the Moskva River and jumped directly into a boat that was permanently moored there and fell. The next day, she collapsed from violent labor pains in the middle of a ball. Alexandra gave birth prematurely to a son, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, and then she lapsed into a coma. Alexandra did not recover consciousness and died six days later on September 24, 1891, at the age of 21. Her parents arrived from Greece shortly before her death.

It seems that the fall in the boat was not the actual cause of the premature labor. An autopsy showed that Alexandra’s premature labor was caused by eclampsia, a condition that causes a pregnant woman, usually previously diagnosed with preeclampsia (high blood pressure and protein in the urine), to develop seizures or coma. Nephritis, a kidney disorder, and heart damage were also detected.

Alexandra was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. At her funeral, her husband Paul could not bear to have the coffin closed and his brother Sergei had to take him in his arms and lead him away.  In 1939, at the request of Alexandra’s nephew King George II of Greece and the Greek government, the Soviet government allowed Alexandra’s remains to be transferred to Greece. Her coffin was removed from the crypt in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, put aboard a Greek ship, and brought back to Greece where it was reinterred at the traditional burial site of the Greek royal family, the Royal Cemetery on the grounds of Tatoi Palace. Alexandra’s original marble tomb in the Peter and Paul Cathedral was placed over its original site and is the only tomb in the cathedral over an empty grave.

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Works Cited

• De.wikipedia.org. (2018). Alexandra von Griechenland und Dänemark. [online] Available at: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_von_Griechenland_und_D%C3%A4nemark [Accessed 27 Feb. 2018].
• En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Alexandra_of_Greece_and_Denmark [Accessed 27 Feb. 2018].
• Hall, Coryne. (2006). Little Mother of Russia – A Biography of Empress Marie Feodorovna. Teaneck, N.J.: Holmes & Meier.
• Ru.wikipedia.org. (2018). Александра Георгиевна. [online] Available at: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B4%D1%80%D0%B0_%D0%93%D0%B5%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B0 [Accessed 27 Feb. 2018].