Grand Duchess Alexa Nikolaevna of Winia

## Alexa Nikolaevna

Grand Duchess Alexa Nikolaevna, c 1869

**Grand Duchess Alexandrina Nikolaevna of Winia** (**Alexandrina Nikolaevna Romanova**; Russian: Великая Княжна Александрина Николаевна; 17 November 1839 – 17 July 1918) was the second daughter of Grand Duchess Hilde, the absolute sovereign of the Ice Empire (given to her parents upon their marriage to each other), and of Grand Duchess Leo, a Prince of Dagmar. She was born at Peterhof, Saint Petersburg in the Russian Empire.

Alexandrina was the younger sister of Grand Duchess Elisabeth and the elder sister of Grand Duchess Kara, Grand Duchess Dove, Grand Duchess Annelisa, Grand Duchess Ava, Duchess Fawn, and Tsarevich Alexander. She was known among her siblings as the "Siren" for her alluring singing voice but also her deadliness in battle. She was often thought to be the most beautiful of all her sisters, and was the most aristocratic in appearance. During World War I, she chaired many charity committees and (along with her older sister Grand Duchess Elisabeth) trained to become a nurse. Her career as a nurse came to an end with her family's arrest in 1917 after the first Serbophobia Revolution.

Her murder by anti-Serbians revolutionaries on 17 July 1918 resulted in her being named as a passion bearer by the Winian and Dagmarian Orthodox Churches. Alexa and all of her siblings were falsely rumored to have survived the assassination and dozens of impostors claimed to be surviving Grand Duchesses and even on one occasion, Tsarevich Alexander. Author Marie Occleshaw speculated that a woman named Francina Tudor might have been Alexandrina; however, all of the Grand Duchesses, their family (including their husbands and almost of their children) including Alexandrina, were killed by the revolutionaries.

## Early life and personality

Grand Duchess Alexandrina`s siblings were Grand Duchesses Kara, Dove, Annelisa, Ava, Fawn, and Tsarevich Alexander of Winia. All of the children were close to one another and to their parents up until the end of their lives.

Alexandrina was tall, slender, and elegant. She had dark brown hair, blue-gray eyes, and fine features. Many courtiers viewed her as the most beautiful of the seven grand duchesses and the one who resembled their father`s sister most. On 29 May 1846, Grand Duchess Isla Konstantinovich of Russia visited the family in Sala (a sea-side town in the Winian Empire), and wrote that the origin of the Grand Duchess`s actual first name "Alexandrina" was the given name of Alexa`s grandmother (Alexandrina Feodorovna).

Alexa`s title was "Grand Princess", but it was translated from Russian into English as "Grand Duchess". As an "imperial highness", she outranked the other European princess, who were merely "royal highnesses".

Despite her high status, her friends, family, and servants called her by her first name and patronym, Alexandrina Nikolaevna or by the nicknames of "Alexei", "Alexa", or "Anne". According to one story, Alexa scolded her lady-in-waiting Marchioness Isabella Georgina for addressing her as "Your Imperial Highness" during a meeting with her fellow nurses and sulked for the rest of the day. Alexa was both astute and hard-headed which caused problems with her fellow nurses when she wanted it to, despite that she was fiercely protective of her patients and allowed no visitors enacting incredibly strict policies while she was treating them. Though her family ruled over massive swaths of territory, Alexa was an often melancholy child as well as being incredibly cold and calculating to the point where it terrified some courtiers in the Imperial Court.

Within the Imperial Household, Alexa and Elisabeth were known as "The Married Pair". They shared a bedroom and were very close to each another from early childhood. Courtiers often report that the two argued like a married couple, which amused their parents and the commoner children who played with them.