Alexandra Russian Aleksandra Fyodorovna orig. Alix, Prin¬ cess von Hesse-Darmstadt (b. June 6, 1872, Darmstadt, German Empire—d. July 16/17, 1918, Yekaterinburg, Russia) Consort of Russia’s Tsar Nicholas II. A granddaughter of Queen Victoria, she married Nicho¬ las in 1894 and sought to restore absolute power in the monarchy. Des¬ perate to help her hemophiliac son, Alexis, she turned to the hypnotic powers of Grigory Rasputin, who became her spiritual adviser. In 1915 Nicholas left Moscow to command Russian forces in World War I, and Alexandra dismissed capable ministers and replaced them with nonenti¬
ties favored by Rasputin. Her misrule contributed to the collapse of the imperial government. After the Bolshevik takeover in the Russian Revo¬ lution of 1917, the royal family was imprisoned and later executed.
Alexandria Arabic Al-lskandarlyah City (metro, area pop., 2004 est.: 3,755,900) and chief seaport, northern Egypt. It lies on a strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and Lake Mareotis. The ancient island of Pharos, whose lighthouse was one of the Seven Wonders of the World, is now a peninsula connected to the mainland. Alexandria’s modem harbour is west of the peninsula. The city was founded in 332 bc by Alexander the Great and was noted as a centre of Hellenistic culture. Its library (destroyed early centuries ad) was the greatest in ancient times; a new library was opened in 2002. The city was captured by the Arabs in ad 642 and by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. After a long period of decline, caused by the rise of Cairo, Alexandria was revived commercially when Muhammad ‘AlT joined it by a canal to the Nile River in the early 19th century. Modem Alexandria is a thriving commercial community; cotton is its chief export, and important oil fields lie nearby. Other cultural insti¬ tutions include the Museum of Alexandria.
Alexandria City (pop., 2000: 128,283), northern Virginia, U.S., on the Potomac River. The site was settled in the late 17th century, and in 1749 it was named for John Alexander, the land’s original grantee. It was part of Washington, D.C., from 1801 to 1847, after which it was ceded back to Virginia. Many colonial buildings survive in Alexandria’s Old Town; George Washington’s estate, Mount Vernon, is nearby.
Alexandria, Library of Most famous library of classical antiquity. It was part of the Alexandrian Museum, a research institute at Alexandria, Egypt. The museum and library were founded and maintained by a suc¬ cession of Ptolemies from the early 3rd century bc. The library aspired to the ideal of an international library—incorporating all Greek literature and also translations into Greek—but it is uncertain how close this ideal came to being realized. A bibliography of the library compiled by Calli¬ machus, lost in the Byzantine period, was long a standard reference work. The museum and library were destroyed in civil war in the late 3rd cen¬ tury ad; a subsidiary library was destroyed by Christians in ad 391.
Alexandria, Museum of Ancient centre of Classical learning at Alexandria, Egypt. It was a research institute, organized into faculties and headed by a president-priest, with a renowned library. It was built near the royal palace either by Ptolemy II Philadelphus c. 280 bc or by his father, Ptolemy I Soter. The best surviving description is by Strabo. In ad 270 its buildings were destroyed, although its educational and research functions seem to have continued until the 5 th century.
Alexandrina X.a-lig-.zan-'dre-noV Lake Lagoon, southeastern South Australia. The lake covers 220 sq mi (570 sq km) and is about 23 mi (37 km) long and 13 mi (21 km) wide. With Lake Albert and the Coorong lagoon, it forms the mouth of the Murray River. In 1830 the explorer Charles Sturt named the lake after Princess Alexandrina (later Queen Vic¬ toria). Five barrages built in the 1940s across the lake’s exits prevent the intrusion of seawater upstream, allowing for the development of irrigated agriculture in that area.
alexandrine X.al-ek-'zan-dronX Verse form that is the most popular measure in French poetry. It consists of a line of 12 syllables with a pause after the sixth syllable, major stresses on the sixth and the last syllable, and one secondary accent in each half line. It is a flexible form, adapt¬ able to a wide range of subjects. It became the preeminent French verse form for dramatic and narrative poetry in the 17th century and reached its highest development in the tragedies of Pierre Corneille and Jean Racine.
Alexandrists Italian Renaissance philosophers, led by Pietro Pompon- azzi (1462-1525), who followed the explanation of Aristotle’s De anima given by Alexander of Aphrodisias (2nd-3rd century ad). Alexander held that De anima denied individual immortality, considering the soul a mate¬ rial and therefore a mortal entity, organically connected with the body. The Alexandrists disagreed with Thomas Aquinas and his followers, who interpreted Aristotle as saying that the individual soul is immortal, and with the Latin Averroists (see Averroes), who held that the individual intellect is reabsorbed after death into the eternal intellect.
Alexis Russian Aleksey Mikhaylovich (b. March 9, 1629, Mos¬ cow, Russia—d. Jan. 29, 1676, Moscow) Tsar of Russia (1645-76). Son of Michael, the first Romanov monarch of Russia, Alexis acceded to the throne at age 16. He encouraged trade with the West, which brought an upsurge in foreign influences. During his reign the peasants were enserfed,
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Alexius I Comnenus ► Alfonso XIII I 45
the land assemblies fell into gradual disuse, the professional bureaucracy and regular army grew in importance, and patriarch Nikon’s reforms of the Russian Orthodox church were adopted. Though reportedly warm¬ hearted and popular, Alexis was a weak ruler who sometimes entrusted matters of state to incompetent favourites.
Alexius I Comnenus \kam-'ne-n9s\ (b. 1048, Constantinople—d. Aug. 15, 1118) Byzantine emperor (1081-1118). An experienced mili¬ tary leader, he seized the Byzantine throne in 1081, driving back the invading Normans and Turks and founding the Comnenian dynasty.
Alexius increased Byzantine strength in Anatolia and in the eastern Medi¬ terranean but failed to curb the power of the landed magnates who had divided the empire in the past. He protected the Eastern Orthodox church but did not hesitate to seize its assets when in financial need. His appeal for Western support in 1095 was a factor in Pope Urban II’s call for the First Crusade. Alexius’s relations with the Crusaders were difficult, and from 1097 onward the Crusades frus¬ trated his foreign policy.
Alexius V Ducas Mourt- zouphlus \thu-kas-'murt-su-fl6s\
(d. 1204, Constantinople) Byzantine emperor. In 1204 he led a Greek revolt against his coemperors Isaac II and Alexius IV, who had been sup¬ ported by the Fourth Crusade, and he became the last Greek emperor of united Byzantium before its over¬ throw and partition by the Crusaders.
He imprisoned Alexius IV and demanded the Crusaders leave Con¬ stantinople, but they instead besieged the city. He fled to join the fugitive Alexius III (his father-in- law), who, instead of allying with him, had him blinded. Captured by the Crusaders, he was thrown from the top of a column to his death.