Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia (born Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine; 1 November 1864 – 18 July 1918) was a German Hessian and Rhenish princess of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt, and the wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, the fifth son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine.

A granddaughter of Queen Victoria and an older sister of Alexandra, the last Russian empress, Elisabeth became famous in Russian society for her dignified beauty and charitable works for the poor. Elisabeth married Grand Duke Sergei on 15 (3) June 1884. The couple never had children of their own, but their Ilyinskoye estate was usually filled with parties that Elisabeth organized especially for children. They eventually became the foster parents of Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, Sergei's niece and nephew.

After the Socialist Revolutionary Party's Combat Organization assassinated her husband with a bomb in 1905, Elisabeth publicly forgave Sergei's murderer, Ivan Kalyayev, and unsuccessfully campaigned for him to be pardoned. She then departed the Imperial Court and became a nun, founding the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent dedicated to helping the downtrodden of Moscow.

During the February Revolution of 1917, which ended the Tsar's rule in Russia, Elisabeth's brother-in-law Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate the throne. The political upheavals initially had no impact on life in the monastery. However, Elisabeth was worried about her relatives, who were under house arrest in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo.