Cantacuzino's policies within the Association of Romanian Women were mirrored in the legislation of World War II fascist regimes, beginning with the National Renaissance Front.

Sympathetic toward the revolutionary fascist Iron Guard, of which her son Alecu was also an affiliate, Cantacuzino switched her support toward Ion Antonescu's government in early 1941.

[2] She was by birth a member of the boyar upper-class: her father, Lieutenant Colonel Theodor Pallady (1847/1853–1916), an aristocrat from the eastern region (and former state) of Moldavia, had earned distinction in the Romanian Land Forces; her mother, also named Alexandrina (1845/1848 – 1881), was a Kretzulescu boyaress from Wallachia, and the heiress of a large estate.

[13] According to historian Marian Pruteanu, Alexandrina was "an avid collector of decorations and titles", who studied genealogy with the goal of establishing her blood relations with various noble families.

[16] The central core of SONFR was a group of high-society ladies, including Alexandrina Cantacuzino and, among others, Zoe Râmniceanu, Elena Odobescu, Anastasia Filipescu, Maria Glagoveanu, Sultana Miclescu and Zetta Manu.

[19] However, the society was soon involved in a number of adjacent projects, such as disseminating propaganda among the Romanians of Transylvania, Bukovina, and other parts of Austria-Hungary, and circulating letters of protest against Magyarization.

[20] Although SONFR was sponsored by "the Nawab" and other mainline Conservatives, such ideological positions resonated with the National Liberal program of Spiru Haret, the education minister, who offered his full support.

[2][18] As noted by gender historian Roxana Cheșchebec, Cantacuzino was primarily an elitist, who believed in fulfilling a "historic mission of the upper classes", focusing on assisting "the socially disadvantaged as a way of serving the country and the nation.

[18] The hospital she managed was eventually evicted by the Germans, and Alexandrina published a letter a protest; she and her husband also spoke up in favor of Conon, the Metropolitan Bishop, who was being pressured into handing in the church administration to Mariu Theodorian-Carada, a Catholic.

[40] The year 1918 ended in unexpected defeat for the Germanophiles: the November Armistice signaled a sudden victory for the Entente Powers, and instantly brought the fall of Marghiloman's administration.

Alexandrina Cantacuzino, who witnessed the events, mediated between the disgraced Marghiloman and General Alexandru Averescu, the King's favorite minister, circulating rumors that Romania was prey to revolutionary socialism.

[41] Organizing the welcome-back celebrations for Queen Marie, she also urged Marghiloman to stay indoors, because the Entente's military mission and the general populace wished to avoid him.

[44] Such claims are also found in the diaries of Pia Alimănișteanu (Brătianu's daughter and Sabina's niece), who additionally writes that "Didina" enjoyed "hunting with the hounds and running with the hare".

[53] She took up similar activities at SONFR, where she lectured about the Orthodox and nationalist ethos, attracting into society ranks many female members of the middle classes,[25] as well as new arrivals from the province of Bessarabia: Elena Alistar[54] and Iulia Siminel-Dicescu.

[2] While advocating the emergence of a "mother-citizen" generation, she deplored the rapid urbanization of the age, claiming that village children were abandoning "the great reservoir of family life" so as to "quickly become Mr. and Mrs.

[2] At SONFR, where she still invested most of her efforts,[25] she tackled generic Orthodox causes, such as taking sides with Meletius IV, the Ecumenical Patriarch, in his conflict with Kemalist Turkey.

[64] She was generally hostile to the ethnic minorities,[2] but also interested in finding common ground with feminists from the Transylvanian Saxon and Hungarian communities, inviting them to the women's congress of 1925.

[68] Under the provisions of a law which allowed some women to run in local elections, Cantacuzino served on the Bucharest Financial Commission in 1927, and was a City Councilor after 1928, helping to establish the CNFR-run vocational school for female "social auxiliaries".

[71] One of the GFR's main goals, cemented in its charter, was "an active propaganda work, oral as well as written, among the feminine masses"; another one was the setting up of Initiative Committees for female representation.

[79] This circle was a local affiliate of Europe's Federation of Intellectual Unions, whose founders included Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Paul Valéry and Nicolae Titulescu, and whose stated mission was finding a solution to "the vital crisis of the continent".

[81] Received and celebrated in Prague by Methodius Zavoral, Abbot of Strahov Monastery (1928), Cantacuzino was also a delegate to the Federation of Intellectual Unions Congress in Barcelona (October 1929).

[72] The immediate effect of such interventions was the creation of a GFR youth wing, Tinerele Grupiste, likely modeled on Italy's Gruppo Universitario Fascista (but, unlike it, focused only on campaigns for female employment).

[89] At home, her eclectic feminist program included a project for making paramilitary services fully staffed by women, with the goal of achieving the total conscription of men.

[72] Transformed by King Carol's decrees into a corporatist chamber, and controlled by the National Renaissance Front, the Senate received its first female member, Maria M. Pop, in 1939.

He wrote tracts disseminating the Iron Guard's ideology, focusing on praise of its "irrational and persistent impulse",[94] but also relating to "Jewish Bolshevism", eugenics, race, and sexuality.

In a 1937 letter (recovered and published in 2005), General Cantacuzino-Grănicerul threatens Alexandrina to stop intervening between him, Alecu, and Codreanu, accusing her of having "filled our Orthodox schools with kikes" and of "preach[ing] an entente with the enemies of the people.

[69] Her decision to join the Iron Guard was motivated, according to Bucur, by "sheer opportunism or because [she] hoped to carve out a leading, powerful role in such a dynamic movement", and most likely not by fear of reprisals.

[101] Signs of this rapprochement are recorded in the Guard's newspapers: in 1940, Porunca Vremii published Lucrezzia Karnabatt's interview with Cantacuzino, where she described the political role of women in the National Legionary regime.

In an article for the official propaganda paper, Universul, Cantacuzino celebrated "the holy hour" as the definitive end of "Jewish democracy", and envisaged a redemption of Europe under fascist rule.

[107] In the years following Alexandrina's death, Zamora Castle was nationalized, then assigned to the Interior Ministry; reclaimed by the Cantacuzinos after the Romanian Revolution of 1989, and finally reassigned to them in 2004, it was later sold to other private owners.