Dagmar of Denmark (26 November 1847-13 October 1928), also known as Maria Feodorovna, was Czarina of the Russian Empire from 13 March 1881 to 1 November 1894 as the wife of Czar Alexander III of Russia.
Biography[]
Marie Sophie Frederikke Dagmar von Glucksburg was born in Copenhagen, Denmark on 26 November 1847, the daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark and Louise of Hesse-Kassel. In 1864, she was betrothed to marry Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich of Russia, but he died from meningitis a year later; his last wish was for Dagmar to marry his younger brother Alexander instead. She was warmly welcomed at Kronstadt, as she had already become emotionally attached to Russia, and they married on 9 November 1866. Dagmar converted to Orthodoxy and assumed the Russian name "Maria Feodorovna", and she learned the Russian language early on and devoted her time to her family and to charities. She bore Alexander six children: Nicholas, Alexander, George, Xenia, Michael, and Olga. The family survived an 1888 train derailment, but Alexander died in 1894 at the age of 49, leading to Maria's 26-year-old son Nicholas becoming the new Czar. She continued to wield great influence in the royal family during her son's reign, although she occasionally clashed with her daughter-in-law, Czarina Alix of Hesse, who came to dominate her husband. She engaged in Red Cross and hospital work in Kiev during World War I, and she survived the 1917 Russian Revolution and the purge of the royal family which occurred a year later; in 1919, she reluctantly went into exile in London a year after her son, her daughter-in-law, and five of her grandchildren were massacred at Yekaterinburg. When her sister Alexandra of Denmark died in 1925, Maria fell into a depression, and she died in Copenhagen in 1928 at the age of 80.