I love this question! When I was reading up on “victims” of the so-called Alexandra Curse, I happened upon their portraits and was captivated by them, especially this one by Vladimir Hau, and by her tragic fate. I’ve done extensive research on Adini in four different languages and even gotten halfway through writing a novel about her (which I hope to finish within the next few years, once I finish my current project)! Obviously, I agree with you—it’s fascinating! Adini is my favorite, but I have a special interest in all the lesser known Romanov women, especially the grand duchesses who died young and tragically.

Hi! If you are an Amazon Prime video subscriber, you can watch it there, but maybe one of my followers knows of a better option :)

The family of Nicholas I was very close-knit, and the grand duchesses were no exception, but they weren’t generally perceived as one single group or unit like OTMA. Maria married the Duke of Leuchtenberg in 1839, when Adini was only fourteen, so the two younger girls became more tightly bonded after that. It’s hard to believe because she was out in society and already married, but Adini was actually the same age as Nicholas II’s daughter Maria when she died; Olga of Wurttemberg lived to be 70, and her elder sister lived into her 50s.

Hi! Helen Rappaport is currently at work on a biography of Anna Feodorovna. She seems to be a controversial historian around the Romanov “fandom,” but I am personally very excited to read the new book—as you said, there isn’t much information available about Anna Feodorovna. In the meantime, I will give you what I can: Anna was born Princess Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, so she was sister to King Leopold I of the Belgians and aunt to both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who even had a portrait of her at (I think)Kensington Palace. Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld was small, and by royal standards, poor, but when Catherine the Great’s adjutant went on the hunt for a bride for Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, he fell ill there and was tended to by Coburg court doctor Baron Stockmar; Stockmar pointed the Russian general in the direction of the Coburg princesses, whose parents were very enthusiastic about the possibility of such an advantageous match. So, Juliane traveled to St. Petersburg with her mother and sisters, and Konstantin ultimately (albeit unwillingly—he did not want to get married in the first place) chose her as his bride. He referred to her as “the little monkey” and remarked that “it dances prettily.” The marriage took place, although the new Grand Duchess Anna was only 14, but it was a VERY unhappy union. Konstantin was jealous of his wife’s popularity, and he was was physically and emotionally abusive. He even forbade her to leave her room! Anna was close to her sister-in-law, Elizaveta Alexeievna, and the two girls supported each other through their difficult marriages. After her father-in-law became emperor, Anna pleaded illness and returned to Coburg for treatment, but she had no intention of returning to Russia… and she did not. She wanted a divorce, but the Russian court refused, and she began having romantic not-so-secret affairs; she was still legally married, but she wanted to be a mother, and she had two illegitimate children. During the Napoleonic wars, Alexander I tried to bring about a reconciliation between Konstantin and Anna, but the grand duchess adamantly refused to go back to the man who had made her life so miserable, and the marriage was finally annulled after almost 20 years of separation. Konstantin remarried, morganatically, to a Polish countess, but Anna never married again. She lived the rest of her life in Germany, where she was devoted to charity work and musical societies. That’s about all the info I have, but I think it’s safe to say that she was a strong, brave woman who was far ahead of her time.