When, in 1852, Prince Christian from the little-known Danish Glücksburg line was designated heir to the Danish throne, no one suspected that his daughters would transform the face of Europe’s royal courts. Alexandra and Dagmar, born princesses of this small kingdom, would soon wear the crowns of two of the world’s most powerful empires.
Sisters from Copenhagen
The age gap between the sisters was just three years, allowing them to grow up almost as peers. Both were renowned for their beauty, though contemporaries noted subtle differences. Dagmar had darker eyes and a more delicate frame, while Alexandra stood out for her more statuesque presence.
The resemblance between them was so striking that they often used it to amuse themselves, baffling people who couldn’t tell them apart.
Both princesses married in the same turbulent year—1863, when their father ascended the Danish throne as Christian IX. Alexandra married Albert Edward, Prince of Wales and future King Edward VII.
Dagmar was initially engaged to Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich, but his untimely death changed the course of history. A year later, she married his younger brother, the future Tsar Alexander III.
The Tsarina with Greek Beauty
After her marriage, Dagmar converted to Orthodoxy and took the name Maria Feodorovna, beginning an extraordinary transformation from Danish princess to Russian Tsarina. Her language skills were widely admired. Within a few years, she mastered Russian to such an extent that her husband wrote letters to her exclusively in that language. She once remarked that Russian rivals Italian in melodiousness and English in richness and expressiveness.
Parisian designer Charles Frederick Worth called her his greatest muse. According to contemporaries, Empress Elisabeth of Austria surpassed her in beauty, but in terms of elegance, Maria Feodorovna was unrivaled. Her style inspired women across Europe, and each visit to western courts became a fashion event.
Yet it was neither her beauty nor wardrobe that won her the hearts of her subjects. The daughter of Premier Pyotr Stolypin recalled that the Tsarina combined innate majesty with such kindness that all who met her simply adored her. She possessed the rare gift of remembering faces and names, making every conversation feel personal and sincere.
Fabergé Gifts and Blood Ties
Despite the thousands of kilometers separating London and St. Petersburg, the sisters never lost touch. They regularly exchanged gifts, of which those from the famous Fabergé firm held a special place.
Small treasures from St. Petersburg and Moscow workshops began making their way to Sandringham, forming the beginnings of a royal collection now numbering over five hundred objects. Among them are pendants, photo frames, gold and silver boxes, and more than two hundred miniature farm animal sculptures, known as the Sandringham Commission.
Their sons, Tsar Nicholas II and King George V, inherited not only their mothers’ family ties but also a striking physical resemblance. Photos of the two rulers are so similar they’re often confused by historians. Yet this closeness could not shield the Russian line from tragedy.
The Death of Maria Feodorovna
The Revolution of 1917 shattered the world the sisters had helped shape for half a century. Maria Feodorovna managed to escape Russia with some of the Romanov family, finding refuge in England. Her son Nicholas, the last tsar, along with his wife and five children, was not so fortunate. Murdered in the basement of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, they became symbols of an era’s end.
Alexandra died in 1925, and Maria Feodorovna survived her by three years. Both lived to a great age, witnessing the collapse of the European order their marriages once reinforced. At Sandringham, their joint portraits and photographs still testify to a friendship that survived wars, revolutions, and the fall of empires.
Margot Cleverly
Margot's journey into women's history began with a box of forgotten letters in a Cambridge archive – suffragettes whose voices had been silenced for over a century. Since then, she's been on a mission to uncover the stories history overlooked.
What she writes about: Queens who ruled from the shadows. Scientists whose male colleagues took credit. Revolutionaries who risked everything. But also ordinary women – those who survived wars, raised families through upheaval, and shaped their communities in ways no one bothered to record.
Margot turns historical figures into real people. She writes with warmth and detail, making centuries-old stories feel surprisingly relevant. Rigorous research meets accessible storytelling – no dusty academic jargon, just compelling narratives backed by solid facts.
When she's not writing, you'll find her in regional archives, collecting oral histories, or visiting sites connected to the women she writes about.