His impact on Nicholas has been both criticized and appreciated. His memoirs document that he openly challenged Empress
Alexandra's political influence on her husband but wished that Nicholas had used troops to resist the revolution. He also admitted that he had been brought up to share the anti-Semitic views that he claimed were prevalent in Russia prior to the revolution. His appeal to Nicholas, as his children approached adulthood, to relax the requirement for
equal marriage for Romanov
dynasts was rejected, and all seven of his children married titled but non-royal Russian aristocrats, but only his daughter obtained permission of Nicholas to do so. When Alexander's eldest son, Andrei Alexandrovich, married at
Yalta in the
Crimea on 12 June 1918, Nicholas, who had abdicated on 15 March 1917, was a prisoner at
Yekaterinburg with his family. They would be murdered by the Bolsheviks just over a month later. Alexander left the Crimea with his eldest son,
Prince Andrei Alexandrovich, and his son's new bride,
Elisabetta Ruffo di Sant'Antimo, who was pregnant, in December 1918. His wife and mother-in-law, Empress-Dowager
Maria Fyodorovna and his sons as well as other Romanovs, were rescued from the Crimea by the British
battleship in 1919. Alexander lived in
Paris and wrote his
memoirs.
Once a Grand Duke (
Farrar & Rinehart 1933) is a source of dynastical and court life in Imperial Russia's last half-century. He also spent a time as guest of future Emperor
Ras Tafari(Haile Selassie). He talks about why he was invited to the
Ethiopian Empire in his sequel,
Always a Grand Duke. He died in
Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, France. He was the last surviving legitimate grandchild of
Nicholas I of Russia. He was buried there in Roquebrune. His wife, Xenia, died in
Hampton Court Palace in 1960. While in exile after 1917, he became fascinated with
archaeology and conducted a number of successful expeditions. ==Freemasonry==