In this they were quite the opposite of Alexandra Vladimirovna. She herself could get upset, overjoyed or angry over matters that had nothing to do with her or anyone close to her. The period of general collectivization, the events of 1937, the fate of women who had been sent to camps because of their husbands, the children who had been put in orphanages after their parents had been sent to camps, the summary execution of Russian prisoners-of-war, the many tragedies of the war – all these troubled her as deeply as the sufferings of her own family.
