Word: alexandra
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Urbane, luxury-loving Alexandra Mihailovna Kollontay (rhymes with O-lone-tie) had known Paasikivi for years, knew the views and fears of Finns as well as Paasikivi understood the fears and foibles of Russians. Mme. Kollontay's father was a Czarist general, her mother a farming Finn; her childhood summers were spent among the birch-crowded lakes of southeastern Finland. Her first book was on the Finnish proletariat. In her quiet study in the Soviet legation, the two old diplomats could talk of peace in tranquil tones...
Woman of Faith. Alexandra Mihailovna (as Russians call her) grew up in a setting lifted straight from Turgenev. She married a cousin, Vladimir Kollontay, bore him a son and left him, all within three years. She rebelled against the brittle brilliance of St. Petersburg society, dove into the pinkish dawn of social revolution. At 24 the police nabbed her, pink-handed, in an attempt to start a strike among girl textile workers. Her father whisked her abroad. That...
...those years Alexandra Mihailovna was a heartbreaker, with grave, grey eyes, a swift smile and an unquenchable faith in the wisdom of wide love...
...week's tense end, Paasikivi turned up again in Stockholm. So did Eljas Erkko, another onetime Foreign Minister, and Leo Ehrnrooth, Minister of Interior. There were persistent reports that the Russian Ambassador, Mme. Alexandra Kollantai, had given them the terms...
Soon young Alexandra's penmanship was supporting himself, the first of a long succession of mistresses and the best known of his various illegitimate children-Alexandre Dumas fils. Dumas was also trying to eke out his earnings by playwriting. Whenever the baby howled too long, Dumas slammed the future author of The Lady of the Camellias against the bed. "I can still see myself in the air," Dumas fils used to say with a shiver years later...