Who was the grandfather of Tsar Nicholas 2. Nicholas II. Nicholas II Alexandrovich Romanov

Years of life : the 6th of May 1868 - July 17, 1918 .

Life highlights

His reign coincided with the rapid industrial and economic development of the country. Under Nicholas II, Russia was defeated in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, which was one of the reasons for the Revolution of 1905-1907, during which the Manifesto of October 17, 1905 was adopted, which allowed the creation of political parties and established the State Duma; The Stolypin agrarian reform began to be implemented.
In 1907, Russia became a member of the Entente, as part of which it entered the First World War. Since August 1915, Supreme Commander-in-Chief. During the February Revolution of 1917, on March 2 (15), he abdicated the throne.
Shot along with his family in Yekaterinburg.

Upbringing and education

The upbringing and education of Nicholas II took place under the personal guidance of his father on a traditional religious basis. The educators of the future emperor and his younger brother George received the following instructions: “Neither I nor Maria Feodorovna want to turn them into hothouse flowers. They must pray well to God, study, play, be naughty in moderation. Teach well, don’t let them down, ask questions all the strictness of the laws, do not encourage laziness in particular. If anything, then contact me directly, and I know what to do. I repeat that I don’t need porcelain. I need normal Russian children. They will fight, please. But the informer is the first whip. . This is my very first requirement."

The future emperor's studies were conducted according to a carefully developed program for thirteen years. The first 8 years were devoted to the subjects of the gymnasium course. Particular attention was paid to the study of political history, Russian literature, French, German and English, which Nikolai Alexandrovich mastered to perfection. The next five years were devoted to the study of military affairs, legal and economic sciences necessary for a statesman. The teaching of these sciences was carried out by outstanding Russian academic scientists with a worldwide reputation: N.N. Beketov, N.N. Obruchev, Ts.A. Cui, M.I. Dragomirov, N.H. Bunge. and etc.

In order for the future emperor to become familiar with military life and the order of combat service in practice, his father sent him to military training. For the first 2 years, Nikolai served as a junior officer in the ranks of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. For two summer seasons he served in the ranks of a cavalry hussar regiment as a squadron commander, and finally in the ranks of the artillery. At the same time, his father introduces him to the affairs of governing the country, inviting him to participate in meetings of the State Council and the Cabinet of Ministers.

The education program of the future emperor included numerous trips to various provinces of Russia, which he made together with his father. To complete his education, his father gave him a cruiser to travel to the Far East. In 9 months, he and his retinue visited Greece, Egypt, India, China, Japan and then returned to the capital of Russia by land through all of Siberia. By the age of 23, Nikolai Romanov is a highly educated young man with a broad outlook, an excellent knowledge of history and literature and a perfect command of the main European languages. His brilliant education was combined with deep religiosity and knowledge of spiritual literature, which was rare for statesmen of that time. His father managed to instill in him selfless love for Russia, a sense of responsibility for its fate. Since childhood, the idea became close to him that his main purpose was to follow Russian principles, traditions and ideals.

The model of a ruler for Nicholas II was Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (father of Peter I), who carefully preserved the traditions of antiquity and autocracy as the basis of the power and well-being of Russia.

In one of his first public speeches he declared:
“Let everyone know that, devoting all my strength to the good of the people, I will protect the principles of autocracy as firmly and unswervingly as my late, unforgettable parent guarded it.”
It wasn't just words. Nicholas II defended the “beginnings of autocracy” firmly and unswervingly: he did not give up a single significant position during the years of his reign until his abdication from the throne in 1917, which was tragic for the fate of Russia. But these events are yet to come.

Development of Russia

The reign of Nicholas II was a period of the highest rates of economic growth in Russian history. For 1880-1910 The growth rate of Russian industrial output exceeded 9% per year. According to this indicator, Russia has taken first place in the world, ahead of even the rapidly developing United States of America. Russia has taken first place in the world in the production of the main agricultural crops, growing more than half of the world's rye, more than a quarter of wheat, oats and barley, and more than a third of potatoes. Russia has become the main exporter of agricultural products, the first “breadbasket of Europe”. Its share accounted for 2/5 of all world exports of peasant products.

Successes in agricultural production were the result of historical events: the abolition of serfdom in 1861 by Alexander II and the Stolypin land reform during the reign of Nicholas II, as a result of which more than 80% of arable land ended up in the hands of peasants, and almost all of it in the Asian part. The area of ​​landowners' lands was steadily declining. Granting peasants the right to freely dispose of their land and the abolition of communities had enormous national significance, the benefits of which, first of all, the peasants themselves were aware of.

The autocratic form of government did not impede Russia's economic progress. According to the manifesto of October 17, 1905, the population of Russia received the right to personal integrity, freedom of speech, press, assembly, and unions. Political parties grew in the country, and thousands of periodicals were published. The Parliament - the State Duma - was elected by free will. Russia was becoming a rule of law state - the judiciary was practically separated from the executive.

The rapid development of the level of industrial and agricultural production and a positive trade balance allowed Russia to have a stable gold convertible currency. The Emperor attached great importance to the development of railways. Even in his youth, he participated in the laying of the famous Siberian road.

During the reign of Nicholas II, the best labor legislation for those times was created in Russia, providing for the regulation of working hours, the choice of worker elders, remuneration for industrial accidents, compulsory insurance of workers against illness, disability and old age. The Emperor actively promoted the development of Russian culture, art, science, and reforms of the army and navy.

All these achievements of the economic and social development of Russia are the result of the natural historical process of development of Russia and are objectively related to the 300th anniversary of the reign of the House of Romanov.

Anniversary celebrations for the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov

The official celebration of the 300th anniversary began with a service in the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg. On the morning of the service, Nevsky Prospekt, along which the royal carriages moved, was jam-packed with an excited crowd. Despite the ranks of soldiers holding back the people, the crowd, frantically shouting greetings, broke through the cordons and surrounded the carriages of the emperor and empress. The cathedral was packed to capacity. In front were members of the imperial family, foreign ambassadors, ministers and Duma deputies. The following days after the service in the Cathedral were filled with official ceremonies. Delegations in national dress arrived from all over the empire to present gifts to the king. In honor of the monarch, his wife and all the great Romanov princes, the nobility of the capital gave a ball to which thousands of guests were invited. The royal couple attended a performance of Glinka's opera "A Life for the Tsar" ("Ivan Susanin"). When Their Majesties appeared, the whole hall stood up and gave them a passionate ovation.

In May 1913, the royal family went on a pilgrimage to places memorable for the dynasty to trace the path taken by Mikhail Romanov, from his birthplace to the throne. On the Upper Volga they boarded a ship and sailed to the ancient patrimony of the Romanovs - Kostroma, where in March 1913 Mikhail was invited to the throne. Along the way, on the banks, peasants lined up to watch the passage of the small flotilla, some even went into the water to see the king closer.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna recalled this trip:

“Wherever we passed, everywhere we met such loyal manifestations that seemed to border on frenzy. When our ship sailed along the Volga, we saw crowds of peasants standing chest-deep in the water to catch at least the eye of the tsar. In some cities I I saw artisans and workers falling on their faces to kiss his shadow when he passed. The cheers were deafening!

The culmination of the 300th anniversary celebrations reached Moscow. On a sunny June day, Nicholas II rode into the city on horseback, 20 meters ahead of the Cossack escort. On Red Square, he dismounted, walked with his family across the square and entered through the Kremlin gates into the Assumption Cathedral for the solemn service.

In the royal family, the anniversary once again revived faith in the indestructible bond between the king and the people and boundless love for God’s anointed. It would seem that the popular support for the tsarist regime, shown during the anniversary days, should have strengthened the monarchical system. But, in fact, both Russia and Europe were already on the brink of fatal changes. The wheel of history was ready to turn, having accumulated a critical mass. And it turned, releasing the accumulated uncontrollable energy of the masses, which caused an “earthquake”. In five years, three European monarchies collapsed, three emperors either died or fled into exile. The oldest dynasties of the Habsburgs, Hohenzollerns and Romanovs collapsed.

Could Nicholas II, who saw crowds of people full of enthusiasm and worship during the anniversary days, imagine for even a moment what awaited him and his family in 4 years?

Development of the crisis and growth of the revolutionary movement

The reign of Nicholas II coincided with the beginning of the rapid development of capitalism and the simultaneous growth of the revolutionary movement in Russia. In order to preserve autocracy and, most importantly, ensure the further development and prosperity of Russia, the emperor took measures to strengthen the alliance with the emerging bourgeois class and transfer the country to the rails of a bourgeois monarchy while maintaining the political omnipotence of the autocracy: the State Duma was established, agrarian reform was carried out.

The question arises: why, despite the undeniable achievements in the economic development of the country, not reformist, but revolutionary forces prevailed in Russia, leading to the fall of the monarchy? It seems that in such a huge country, the successes achieved as a result of economic reforms could not immediately lead to a real increase in the well-being of all layers of society, especially the poorest. The discontent of the working masses was skillfully picked up and fanned by extremist left parties, which initially led to the revolutionary events of 1905. Crisis phenomena in society especially began to manifest themselves with the beginning of the First World War. Russia simply did not have enough time to reap the fruits of the economic and social transformations begun along the country's transition to a constitutional monarchy or even a constitutional bourgeois republic.

The deep interpretation of the events of that time given by Winston Churchill is interesting:

"For no country was fate as cruel as for Russia. Her ship sank when the harbor was in sight. She had already endured the storm when everything collapsed. All sacrifices had already been made, all the work was completed. Despair and betrayal took hold power, when the task was already completed, the long retreat was over, weapons were pouring in in a wide stream; a stronger, more numerous, better equipped army was guarding the huge front; Alekseev was in charge of the army and Kolchak was in charge of the fleet. this, no more difficult actions were required: to hold on, without showing much activity, the weakening forces of the enemy on one’s front; in other words, to hold on; that was all that stood between Russia and the fruits of a common victory; the Tsar was on the throne; held, the front was secured and victory was indisputable."

According to the superficial fashion of our time, the tsarist system is usually interpreted as a blind, rotten tyranny, incapable of anything. But an analysis of the thirty months of war with Austria and Germany should correct these facile ideas. We can measure the strength of the Russian Empire by the blows it has survived, by the inexhaustible forces it has developed, and by the restoration of forces of which it has been capable.

In government, when great events happen, the leader of the nation, whoever he may be, is condemned for his failures and glorified for his successes. Why deny Nicholas II this ordeal? The burden of the final decisions lay with him. At the top, where events surpass human understanding, where everything is inscrutable, he had to give answers. He was the compass needle. To fight or not to fight? Advance or retreat? Go right or left? Agree to democratization or stand firm? Leave or stand? Here is the battlefield of Nicholas II. Why not give him honor for this?

The selfless impulse of the Russian armies that saved Paris in 1914; overcoming a painful, shell-free retreat; slow recovery of strength; Brusilov's victories; Russia entering the 1917 campaign invincible, stronger than ever; wasn't he part of all this? Despite the mistakes, the system that he led, to which he gave a vital spark with his personal qualities, by that moment won the war for Russia.

"Now he will be struck down. The Tsar leaves the stage. He and all those who love him are given over to suffering and death. His efforts are downplayed; his memory is defamed. Stop and say: who else turned out to be suitable? In people talented and brave, people ambitious and There was no shortage of those who were proud in spirit, brave and powerful. But no one was able to answer those few questions on which the life and glory of Russia depended. With victory already in hand, she fell to the ground.”

It is difficult to disagree with this deep analysis and assessment of the personality of the Russian Tsar. For more than 70 years, the rule for government historians and writers in our country was a mandatory negative assessment of the personality of Nicholas II. All humiliating characteristics were attributed to him: from treachery, political insignificance and pathological cruelty to alcoholism, debauchery and moral decay. History has put everything in its place. Under the rays of its spotlights, the entire life of Nicholas II and his political opponents is illuminated to the smallest detail. And with this light it became clear who was who.

Illustrating the tsar’s “cunning,” Soviet historians usually cited the example of how Nicholas II removed some of his ministers without any warning. Today he could speak graciously to the minister, and tomorrow send him his resignation. A serious historical analysis shows that the tsar put the cause of the Russian state above individuals (and even his relatives), and if, in his opinion, a minister or dignitary was not coping with the matter, he removed him, regardless of previous merits.

In the last years of his reign, the emperor experienced a crisis of encirclement (lack of reliable, capable people who shared his ideas). A significant part of the most capable statesmen took Westernizing positions, and the people on whom the tsar could rely did not always have the necessary business qualities. Hence the constant change of ministers, which, with the light hand of ill-wishers, was attributed to Rasputin.

The role and significance of Rasputin, the degree of his influence on Nicholas II were artificially inflated by the left, who thus wanted to prove the political insignificance of the tsar. The dirty hints of the leftist press about some special relationship between Rasputin and the Tsarina did not correspond to reality. The affection of the royal couple for Rasputin was associated with the incurable disease of their son and heir to the throne Alexei, hemophilia - the incoagulability of blood, in which any trifling wound could lead to death. Rasputin, possessing a hypnotic gift, through psychological influence was able to quickly stop the blood of the heir, which the best certified doctors could not do. Naturally, his loving parents were grateful to him and tried to keep him close. Today it is already clear that many scandalous episodes associated with Rasputin were fabricated by the leftist press in order to discredit the Tsar.

When accusing the tsar of cruelty and heartlessness, they usually cite the example of Khodynka, January 9, 1905, an execution during the first Russian revolution. However, documents indicate that the tsar had nothing to do with either the Khodynka tragedy or the execution on January 9 (Bloody Sunday). He was horrified when he learned about this disaster. Negligent administrators, through whose fault the events occurred, were removed and punished.

Death sentences under Nicholas II were carried out, as a rule, for an armed attack for power that had a tragic outcome, i.e. for armed banditry. Total for Russia for 1905-1908 There were less than four thousand death sentences in court (including military ones), mostly against terrorist militants. For comparison, the extrajudicial killings of representatives of the old state apparatus, clergy, citizens of noble origin, and dissident intelligentsia in just six months (from the end of 1917 to mid-1918) claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people. From the second half of 1918, the number of executions went up to hundreds of thousands, and subsequently to millions of innocent people.

The alcoholism and debauchery of Nicholas II are as shameless inventions of the left as his deceit and cruelty. Everyone who knew the tsar personally notes that he drank wine rarely and little. Throughout his life, the emperor carried his love for one woman, who became the mother of his five children. It was Alice of Hesse, a German princess. Having seen her once, Nicholas II remembered her for 10 years. And although his parents, for political reasons, predicted the French princess Helen of Orleans as his wife, he managed to defend his love and in the spring of 1894 achieve an engagement to his beloved. Alice of Hesse, who took the name Alexandra Feodorovna in Russia, became the emperor’s lover and friend until the tragic end of their days.

Of course, there is no need to idealize the personality of the last emperor. He, like every person, had both positive and negative traits. But the main accusation that they are trying to bring against him in the name of history is political lack of will, which resulted in the collapse of Russian statehood and the collapse of autocratic power in Russia. Here we must agree with W. Churchill and some other objective historians, who, based on the analysis of historical materials of that time, believe that in Russia at the beginning of February 1917 there was only one truly outstanding statesman who worked for victory in the war and the prosperity of the country - This is Emperor Nicholas II. But he was simply betrayed.

The rest of the politicians thought more not about Russia, but about their personal and group interests, which they tried to pass off as the interests of Russia. At that time, only the idea of ​​a monarchy could save the country from collapse. She was rejected by these politicians, and the fate of the dynasty was sealed.

Contemporaries and historians accusing Nicholas II of political lack of will believe that if another person had been in his place, with a stronger will and character, the history of Russia would have taken a different path. Maybe, but we should not forget that even a monarch of the caliber of Peter I with his superhuman energy and genius in the specific conditions of the early twentieth century would hardly have achieved different results. After all, Peter I lived and acted in conditions of medieval barbarism, and his methods of sovereign governance would not have suited a society with the principles of bourgeois parliamentarism.

The final act of the political drama was approaching. On February 23, 1917, the Sovereign Emperor arrived from Tsarskoye Selo to Mogilev - to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. The political situation became increasingly tense, the country was tired of the war, the opposition grew day by day, but Nicholas II continued to hope that despite all this, feelings of patriotism would prevail. He maintained an unshakable faith in the army; he knew that the military equipment sent from France and England arrived in a timely manner and that it improved the conditions in which the army fought. He had high hopes for the new units created in Russia during the winter, and was convinced that the Russian army would be able to join in the spring the great Allied offensive that would deal a fatal blow to Germany and save Russia. A few more weeks and victory will be assured.

But he had barely left the capital when the first signs of unrest began to appear in the working-class neighborhoods of the capital. Factories went on strike, and the movement grew rapidly in the following days. 200 thousand people went on strike. The population of Petrograd was subjected to great hardships during the winter, because... Due to the lack of rolling stock, the transportation of food and fuel was greatly hampered. Crowds of workers demanded bread. The government failed to take measures to calm the unrest and only irritated the population with ridiculous repressive police measures. They resorted to the intervention of military force, but all the regiments were at the front, and only trained reserve units remained in Petrograd, severely corrupted by the propaganda organized by the left parties in the barracks, despite supervision. There were instances of disobedience to orders, and after three days of weak resistance the troops defected to the revolutionaries.

Abdication of the throne. End of the Romanov dynasty

At Headquarters, at first they were not aware of the significance and scale of the events unfolding in Petrograd, although on February 25 the emperor sent a message to the commander of the Petrograd Military District, General S.S. Khabalov, demanding: “I command you to stop the riots in the capital tomorrow.” The troops opened fire on the demonstrators. But it was already too late. On February 27, the city was almost entirely in the hands of the strikers.

February 27, Monday. (Diary of Nicholas II): “Unrest began in Petrograd several days ago; unfortunately, troops began to take part in them. It’s a disgusting feeling to be so far away and receive fragmentary bad news. After lunch, I decided to go to Tsarskoe Selo as quickly as possible and at one in the morning got on the train."

In the Duma, back in August 1915, the so-called Progressive Bloc of Parties was created, which included 236 Duma members out of a total of 442 members. The bloc formulated the conditions for the transition from autocracy to a constitutional monarchy through a “bloodless” parliamentary revolution. Then in 1915, inspired by temporary successes at the front, the tsar rejected the terms of the bloc and closed the meeting of the Duma. By February 1917, the situation in the country had become even more aggravated due to failure at the front, large losses in men and equipment, ministerial leapfrog, etc., which caused widespread discontent with the autocracy in large cities and primarily in Petrograd, as a result of which the Duma was already ready to carry out this “bloodless” parliamentary revolution. Chairman of the Duma M.V. Rodzianko continuously sends alarming messages to Headquarters, presenting, on behalf of the Duma, to the government more and more insistent demands for the reorganization of power. Part of the tsar’s entourage advises him to make concessions by agreeing to the formation by the Duma of a government that will be subordinate not to the tsar, but to the Duma. They will only coordinate ministerial candidates with him. Without waiting for a positive answer, the Duma began to form a Government independent of the tsarist power. This is how the February Revolution of 1917 took place.

On February 28, the tsar sent military units led by General N.I. Ivanov to Petrograd from Mogilev to restore order in the capital. In a night conversation with General Ivanov, exhausted, fighting for the fate of Russia and his family, agitated by the embittered demands of the rebellious Duma, the Tsar expressed his sad and difficult thoughts:

“I was not protecting the autocratic power, but Russia. I am not convinced that a change in the form of government will give peace and happiness to the people.”

This is how the sovereign explained his stubborn refusal to the Duma to create an independent government.

The military units of General Ivanov were detained by revolutionary troops on the way to Petrograd. Not knowing about the failure of General Ivanov’s mission, Nicholas II, on the night of February 28 to March 1, also decides to leave Headquarters for Tsarskoe Selo.

February 28, Tuesday. (Diary of Nicholas II): “I went to bed at three and a quarter o’clock in the morning, because I had a long talk with N.I. Ivanov, whom I am sending to Petrograd with the troops to restore order. We left Mogilev at five o’clock in the morning. The weather was frosty, sunny. During the day we drove through Smolenks, Vyazma, Rzhev, Likhoslavl."

March 1, Wednesday. (Diary of Nicholas II): “At night we turned back from the Malaya Vishchera station, because Lyuban and Tosno were busy. We went to Valdai, Dno and Pskov, where we stopped for the night. I saw General Ruzsky. Gatchina and Luga were also busy. Shame and shame! We didn’t manage to get to Tsarskoye Selo. And my thoughts and feelings are there all the time. How painful it must be for poor Alix to experience all these events alone!

March 2, Thursday. (Diary of Nicholas II): “In the morning Ruzsky came and read his long conversation on the apparatus with Rodzianko. According to him, the situation in Petrograd is such that now the ministry from the Duma seems powerless to do anything, because the social the democratic party represented by the workers' committee. Ruzsky conveyed this conversation to Headquarters, and Alekseev to all the Commanders-in-Chief of the fronts. By two and a half hours, the answer was received from everyone: in the name of saving Russia and keeping the army calm at the front. I need to decide on this step. I agreed. A draft of the Manifesto was sent from Headquarters. In the evening, Guchkov and Shulgin arrived from Petrograd, with whom I spoke and handed over the signed and revised manifesto. At one in the morning I left Pskov with a heavy feeling of betrayal and cowardice all around. , and deception!"

Explanations should be given to the latest entries from the diary of Nicholas II. After the royal train was detained in Malye Vishery, the Tsar ordered to head to Pskov under the protection of the headquarters of the Northern Front. The commander-in-chief of the Northern Front was General N.V. Ruzsky. The general, having talked with Petrograd and Headquarters in Mogilev, suggested that the Tsar try to localize the uprising in Petrograd by agreeing with the Duma and forming a Ministry responsible to the Duma. But the tsar postponed the decision until the morning, still hoping for General Ivanov’s mission. He did not know that the troops had lost control, and three days later he was forced to return to Mogilev.

On the morning of March 2, General Ruzsky reported to Nicholas II that General Ivanov’s mission had failed. Chairman of the State Duma M.V. Rodzianko, through General Ruzsky, stated by telegraph that the preservation of the Romanov dynasty is possible subject to the transfer of the throne to the heir Alexei under the regency of Nicholas II's younger brother, Mikhail.

The Emperor instructed General Ruzsky to request the opinion of the front commanders by telegraph. When asked about the desirability of Nicholas II’s abdication, everyone answered positively (even Nicholas’s uncle, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, commander of the Caucasian Front), with the exception of the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral A.V. Kolchak, who refused to send a telegram.

The betrayal of the army leadership was a heavy blow for Nicholas II. General Ruzsky told the emperor that he must surrender to the mercy of the winner, because... the high command, standing at the head of the army, is against the emperor, and further struggle will be useless.

The king was faced with a picture of the complete destruction of his power and prestige, his complete isolation, and he lost all confidence in support from the army if its heads went over to the side of the emperor’s enemies in a few days.

The Emperor did not sleep for a long time that night from March 1 to 2. In the morning, he handed over a telegram to General Ruzsky notifying the Chairman of the Duma of his intention to abdicate the throne in favor of his son Alexei. He himself and his family intended to live as a private individual in the Crimea or Yaroslavl province. A few hours later, he ordered Professor S.P. Fedorov to be called into his carriage and told him: “Sergei Petrovich, answer me frankly, is Alexei’s disease incurable?” Professor Fedorov replied: “Sir, science tells us that this disease is incurable.” There are, however, cases when a person obsessed with her reaches a respectful age. But Alexei Nikolaevich, nevertheless, will always depend on any chance. The Emperor said sadly: “That’s exactly what the Empress told me... Well, since this is so, since Alexey cannot be useful to the Motherland, as I would like, then we have the right to keep him with us."

He made the decision, and on the evening of March 2, when the representative of the Provisional Government A.I. Guchkov, the Minister of War and Navy and member of the Duma executive committee V.V. Shulgin arrived from Petrograd, he gave them an act of abdication.

The act of renunciation was printed and signed in 2 copies. The king's signature was made in pencil. The time specified in the Act, 15 hours, corresponded not to the actual signing, but to the time when Nicholas II made the decision to abdicate. After signing the Act, Nicholas II went back to Headquarters to say goodbye to the army.

March 3, Friday. (Diary of Nicholas II): “Slept long and soundly. Woke up far beyond Dvinsk. The day was sunny and frosty. Talked with my people about yesterday. Read a lot about Julius Caesar. At 8.20 arrived in Mogilev. All ranks of the headquarters were on the platform. Accepted Alekseev in the carriage. At 9.30 Alekseev came with the latest news from Rodzianko. It turns out that Misha (the tsar’s younger brother) abdicated in favor of the elections after 6 months of the Constituent Assembly. God knows who convinced him to sign such a nasty thing! “If only this continues.”

So, 300 years and 4 years after the shy sixteen-year-old boy, who reluctantly accepted the throne at the request of the Russian people (Michael I), his 39-year-old descendant, also named Michael II, under pressure from the Provisional Government and the Duma, lost it, having been on the throne for 8 hours from 10 to 18 o'clock on March 3, 1917. The Romanov dynasty ceased to exist. The final act of the drama begins.

Arrest and murder of the royal family

On March 8, 1917, the former emperor, after saying goodbye to the army, decided to leave Mogilev and on March 9 arrived in Tsarskoye Selo. Even before leaving Mogilev, the Duma representative at Headquarters said that the former emperor “must consider himself as if under arrest.”

March 9, 1917, Thursday. (Diary of Nicholas II): “Soon and safely arrived in Tsarskoe Selo - 11.30. But God, what a difference, there are sentries on the street and around the palace, inside the park, and some warrant officers inside the entrance! I went upstairs and there I saw Alix and my dear children She looked cheerful and healthy, and they were still lying sick in the dark room. But everyone was feeling well, except for Maria, who recently started having measles. I walked with Dolgorukov and worked with him in the kindergarten, because she couldn’t go out anymore. ! After tea we laid things out."

From March 9 to August 14, 1917, Nikolai Romanov and his family lived under arrest in the Alexander Palace of Tsarskoye Selo.

The revolutionary movement is intensifying in Petrograd, and the Provisional Government, fearing for the lives of the royal prisoners, decides to transfer them deep into Russia. After much debate, Tobolsk is determined to be the city of their settlement. The Romanov family is transported there. They are allowed to take the necessary furniture and personal belongings from the palace, and also offer service personnel, if they wish, to voluntarily accompany them to the place of new accommodation and further service.

On the eve of departure, the head of the Provisional Government, A.F. Kerensky, arrived and brought with him the brother of the former emperor, Mikhail Alexandrovich. The brothers see each other and say for the last time - they will not meet again (Mikhail Alexandrovich will be deported to Perm, where on the night of June 13, 1918 he was killed by local authorities).

On August 14 at 6:10 a.m., a train with members of the imperial family and servants under the sign “Japanese Red Cross Mission” set off from Tsarskoye Selo. The second composition included a guard of 337 soldiers and 7 officers. Trains are running at maximum speed, junction stations are cordoned off by troops, and the public is removed.

On August 17, the trains arrive in Tyumen, and on three ships the arrested are transported to Tobolsk. The Romanov family is accommodated in the governor's house, specially renovated for their arrival. The family was allowed to walk across the street and boulevard to services at the Church of the Annunciation. The security regime here was much lighter than in Tsarskoe Selo. The family leads a calm, measured life.

In April 1918, permission was received from the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the fourth convocation to transfer the Romanovs to Moscow for the purpose of trialing them.

On April 22, 1918, a column of 150 people with machine guns set out from Tobolsk to Tyumen. On April 30, the train from Tyumen arrived in Yekaterinburg. To house the Romanovs, a house belonging to mining engineer N.I. Ipatiev was temporarily requisitioned. Five service personnel lived here with the Romanov family: Doctor Botkin, footman Trupp, room girl Demidova, cook Kharitonov and cook Sednev.

At the beginning of July 1918, the Ural military commissar Isai Goloshchekin (“Philip”) went to Moscow to resolve the issue of the future fate of the royal family. The execution of the entire family was sanctioned by the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. In accordance with this decision, the Urals Council, at its meeting on July 12, adopted a resolution on the execution, as well as on the methods of destroying the corpses, and on July 16, transmitted a message about this via direct wire to Petrograd - Zinoviev. At the end of the conversation with Yekaterinburg, Zinoviev sent a telegram to Moscow: “Moscow, Kremel, Sverdlov. Copy to Lenin. From Yekaterinburg the following is transmitted by direct wire: Inform Moscow that we cannot wait for the trial agreed with Philip due to military circumstances. If your opinion is the opposite , immediately, out of turn, report to Ekaterinburg.”

The telegram was received in Moscow on July 16 at 21:22. The phrase “the trial agreed upon with Philip” is, in encrypted form, the decision to execute the Romanovs, which Goloshchekin agreed upon during his stay in the capital. However, the Urals Council asked to once again confirm in writing this previously made decision, citing “military circumstances”, because the fall of Yekaterinburg was expected under the blows of the Czechoslovak Corps and the White Siberian Army.

A reply telegram to Yekaterinburg from Moscow from the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, i.e. from Lenin and Sverdlov with the approval of this decision was immediately sent.

L. Trotsky, in his diary dated April 9, 1935, while in France, provided a recording of his conversation with Ya. Sverdlov. When Trotsky found out (he was away) that the royal family had been shot, he asked Sverdlov: “Who decided?” “We decided here,” Sverdlov answered him. Ilyich believed that it was impossible to leave them a living banner, especially in the current difficult conditions.” Further, Trotsky writes: “Some people think that the Ural Executive Committee, cut off from Moscow, acted independently. This is incorrect. The resolution was made in Moscow.”

Was it possible to take the Romanov family out of Yekaterinburg in order to bring it to open trial, as was previously announced? Obviously yes. The city fell 8 days after the execution of the family - sufficient time for evacuation. After all, the members of the Uralsvet presidium and the perpetrators of this terrible action themselves managed to get out of the city safely and reach the location of the Red Army units.

So, on this fateful day, July 16, 1918, the Romanovs and the servants went to bed, as usual, at 10:30 p.m. At 11:30 p.m. Two special representatives from the Urals Council came to the mansion. They presented the decision of the executive committee to the commander of the security detachment, Ermakov, and the commandant of the house, Yurovsky, and proposed to immediately begin to carry out the sentence.

The awakened family members and staff are told that due to the advance of white troops, the mansion may be under fire, and therefore, for safety reasons, they need to move to the basement. Seven family members - Nikolai Alexandrovich, Alexandra Fedorovna, daughters Olga, Tatyana, Maria and Anastasia and son Alexey, three voluntarily remaining servants and a doctor descend from the second floor of the house and move to the corner semi-basement room. After everyone entered and closed the door, Yurovsky stepped forward, took a sheet of paper out of his pocket and said: “Attention! The decision of the Urals Council is being announced...” And as soon as the last words were heard, shots rang out. They shot: a member of the board of the Ural Central Committee - M.A. Medvedev, the commandant of the house L.M. Yurovsky, his assistant G.A. Nikulin, the commander of the guard P.Z. Ermakov and other ordinary soldiers of the guard - Magyars.

8 days after the murder, Yekaterinburg fell under the onslaught of the Whites, and a group of officers broke into Ipatiev’s house. In the yard they found the Tsarevich's hungry spaniel, Joy, wandering in search of his owner. The house was empty, but its appearance was ominous. All rooms were heavily littered, and the stoves in the rooms were filled with ash from burned things. The daughters' room was empty. An empty box of chocolates, a woolen blanket on the window. The camp beds of the grand duchesses were found in the guard rooms. And no jewelry, no clothes in the house. The security "tried" to do this. Scattered around the rooms and in the trash heap where the guards lived were the most precious things for the family - icons. There are also books left. And there were also many bottles of medicine. In the dining room they found a cover from the headboard of one of the princesses. The case had a bloody trace of wiped hands.

In the trash they found the St. George's ribbon, which the Tsar wore on his overcoat until his last days. By this time, the old royal servant Chemodurov, released from prison, had already arrived at the Ipatiev House. When Chemodurov saw the image of the Feodorovskaya Mother of God among the holy icons scattered around the house, the old servant turned pale. He knew that his living mistress would never part with this icon.

Only one room of the house was put in order. Everything was washed and cleaned. It was a small room, 30-35 square meters in size, covered in checkered wallpaper, dark; its only window rested on a slope, and the shadow of a high fence lay on the floor. There was a heavy grill on the window. One of the walls, the partition, was littered with bullet marks. It became clear: they were shooting here.

Along the cornices on the floor there are traces of washed-up blood. There were also many bullet marks on the other walls of the room, the marks fanned out along the walls: apparently, the people who were shot were rushing around the room.

On the floor there are dents from bayonet blows (here, obviously, they were stabbing) and two bullet holes (they shot at a lying person).

By that time, they had already excavated the garden near the house, examined the pond, dug up mass graves in the cemetery, but could not find any traces of the royal family. They disappeared.

The Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral A.V. Kolchak, appointed an investigator for particularly important cases, Nikolai Alekseevich Sokolov, to investigate the case of the royal family. He conducted the investigation passionately and fanatically. Kolchak had already been shot, Soviet power returned to the Urals and Siberia, and Sokolov continued his work. With the investigation materials, he made a dangerous journey through all of Siberia to the Far East, then to America. While in exile in Paris, he continued to take testimony from surviving witnesses. He died of a broken heart in 1924 while continuing his highly professional investigation. It was thanks to the painstaking investigation of N.A. Sokolov that the terrible details of the execution and burial of the royal family became known. Let us return to the events of the night of July 17, 1918.

Yurovsky lined up the arrested in two rows, in the first - the entire royal family, in the second - their servants. The Empress and the Heir were sitting on chairs. The king stood on the right flank in the first row. One of the servants stood at the back of his head. Yurovsky stood face to face in front of the Tsar, holding his right hand in his trouser pocket, and holding a small piece of paper in his left, then he read out the verdict...

Before he had time to finish reading the last words, the king loudly asked him: “What, I didn’t understand?” Yurovsky read it a second time; at the last word, he immediately grabbed a revolver from his pocket and shot point-blank at the Tsar. The king fell backwards. The Tsarina and daughter Olga tried to make the sign of the cross, but did not have time.

Simultaneously with Yurovsky's shot, shots from the firing squad rang out. All the other ten people fell to the floor. Several more shots were fired at those lying down. The smoke obscured the electric light and made breathing difficult. The shooting stopped, the doors of the room were opened so that the smoke dispersed.

They brought a stretcher and began to remove the corpses. The king's corpse was carried out first. The corpses were carried out onto a truck located in the yard. When one of the daughters was placed on a stretcher, she screamed and covered her face with her hand. Others were also alive. It was no longer possible to shoot; with the doors open, shots could be heard on the street. Ermakov took a rifle with a bayonet from a soldier and finished off everyone who was alive. When all those arrested were already lying on the floor, bleeding, the heir was still sitting on the chair. For some reason, he did not fall to the floor for a long time and remained alive... He was shot in the head and chest, and he fell from his chair. The dog that one of the princesses brought with her was shot along with them.

After loading the dead onto the car, at about three o’clock in the morning, we drove to the place that Ermakov was supposed to prepare behind the Verkhne-Isetsky plant. Having passed the factory, we stopped and began to unload the corpses onto carriages, because... It was impossible to drive further by car.

During the overload, it was discovered that Tatyana, Olga, and Anastasia were wearing special corsets. It was decided to strip the corpses naked, but not here, but at the burial site. But it turned out that no one knew where the mine planned for this was.

It was getting light. Yurovsky sent horsemen to look for the mine, but no one found it. After driving a little, we stopped one and a half miles from the village of Koptyaki. In the forest they found a shallow mine with water. Yurovsky ordered the corpses to be undressed. When they undressed one of the princesses, they saw a corset, torn in places by bullets, and diamonds were visible in the holes. Everything valuable was collected from the corpses, their clothes were burned, and the corpses themselves were lowered into a mine and thrown with grenades. Having completed the operation and leaving the guard, Yurovsky left with a report to the Urals Executive Committee.

On July 18, Ermakov again arrived at the crime scene. He was lowered into the mine on a rope, and he tied each dead person individually and lifted him up. When they pulled everyone out, they laid out the firewood, doused them with kerosene, and doused the corpses themselves with sulfuric acid.

Already in our time - in recent years, researchers have found the remains of the burial of the royal family and, using modern scientific methods, have confirmed that members of the royal Romanov family are buried in the Koptyakovsky forest.

On the day of the execution of the royal family, July 17, 1918. A telegram was sent from the Uralsovet to Moscow to Sverdlov, which spoke of the execution of “former Tsar Nikolai Romanov, guilty of countless bloody violence against the Russian people, and the family was evacuated to a safe place.” The same was reported on July 21 in a notice from the Urals Council to Yekaterinburg.

However, on the evening of July 17 at 21:15. An encrypted telegram was sent from Yekaterinburg to Moscow: “Secret. Council of People’s Commissars. Gorbunov. Inform Sverdlov that the whole family suffered the same fate as its head. Officially, the family will die during the evacuation. Beloborodov. Chairman of the Urals Council.”

On July 17, the day after the assassination of the Tsar, other members of the House of Romanov were also brutally killed in Alapaevsk: Grand Duchess Elizabeth (sister of Alexandra Feodorovna), Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, three sons of Grand Duke Constantine, son of Grand Duke Paul. In January 1919, four Grand Dukes, including Paul, the Tsar's uncle, and Nikolai Mikhailovich, a liberal historian, were executed in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Thus, Lenin dealt with extraordinary cruelty to all members of the House of Romanov who remained in Russia for patriotic reasons.

On September 20, 1990, the City Council of Yekaterinburg decided to allocate the site on which Ipatiev’s demolished house stood to the Yekaterinburg Diocese. A temple will be built here in memory of the innocent victims.

Chronos / www.hrono.ru / FROM ANCIENT Rus' TO THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE / Nicholas II Alexandrovich.

Nicholas 2 - the last emperor of the Russian Empire (May 18, 1868 - July 17, 1918). He received an excellent education, spoke several foreign languages ​​perfectly, and rose to the rank of colonel in the Russian army, as well as admiral of the fleet and field marshal of the British army. He became emperor after the sudden death of his father - the accession to the throne of Nicholas 2, when Nicholas was only 26.

Brief biography of Nicholas 2

From childhood, Nicholas was trained as a future ruler - he was engaged in a deep study of economics, geography, politics and languages. He achieved great success in military affairs, to which he had a penchant. In 1894, just a month after his father’s death, he married the German Princess Alice of Hesse (Alexandra Fedorovna). Two years later (May 26, 1896) the official coronation of Nicholas 2 and his wife took place. The coronation took place in an atmosphere of mourning; in addition, due to the huge number of people wishing to attend the ceremony, many people died in the stampede.

Children of Nicholas 2: daughters Olga (November 3, 1895), Tatyana (May 29, 1897), Maria (June 14, 1899) and Anastasia (June 5, 1901), as well as son Alexey (August 2, 1904 .). Despite the fact that the boy was diagnosed with a serious illness - hemophilia (incoagulability of blood) - he was prepared to rule as the only heir.

Russia under Nicholas 2 was in a stage of economic recovery, despite this, the political situation worsened. Nicholas's failure as a politician led to internal tensions growing in the country. As a result, after a meeting of workers marching to the Tsar was brutally dispersed on January 9, 1905 (the event was called “Bloody Sunday”), the first Russian Revolution of 1905-1907 broke out in the Russian Empire. The result of the revolution was the manifesto “On the Improvement of State Order,” which limited the power of the tsar and gave the people civil liberties. Because of all the events that occurred during his reign, the tsar received the nickname Nicholas 2 the Bloody.

In 1914, the First World War began, which negatively affected the state of the Russian Empire and only aggravated internal political tension. The failures of Nicholas 2 in the war led to an uprising breaking out in Petrograd in 1917, as a result of which the tsar voluntarily abdicated the throne. The date of abdication of Nicholas 2 from the throne is March 2, 1917.

Years of reign of Nicholas 2 - 1896 - 1917.

In March 1917, the entire royal family was arrested and later sent into exile. The execution of Nicholas 2 and his family occurred on the night of July 16-17.

In 1980, members of the royal family were canonized by the foreign church, and then, in 2000, by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Politics of Nicholas 2

Under Nicholas, many reforms were carried out. The main reforms of Nicholas 2:

• Agrarian. Assignment of land not to the community, but to private peasant owners;
• Military. Army reform after defeat in the Russo-Japanese War;
• Management. The State Duma was created, the people received civil rights.

Results of the reign of Nicholas 2

• The growth of agriculture, ridding the country of hunger;
• Growth of economy, industry and culture;
• Growing tension in domestic politics, which led to revolution and a change in the government system.

With the death of Nicholas 2 came the end of the Russian Empire and the monarchy in Russia.

"Angel Alexander"

The second child of Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich and Maria Feodorovna was Alexander. He, alas, died in infancy from meningitis. The death of “angel Alexander” after a fleeting illness was deeply experienced by his parents, judging by their diaries. For Maria Fedorovna, the death of her son was the first loss of relatives in her life. Meanwhile, fate had prepared for her to outlive all her sons.

Alexander Alexandrovich. The only (post-mortem) photograph

Handsome Georgy

For some time, the heir of Nicholas II was his younger brother George

As a child, Georgiy was healthier and stronger than his older brother Nikolai. He grew up to be a tall, handsome, cheerful child. Despite the fact that George was his mother's favorite, he, like the other brothers, was raised in Spartan conditions. The children slept on army beds, got up at 6 o'clock and took a cold bath. For breakfast, they were usually served porridge and black bread; for lunch, lamb cutlets and roast beef with peas and baked potatoes. The children had at their disposal a living room, a dining room, a playroom and a bedroom, furnished with the simplest furniture. Only the icon, decorated with precious stones and pearls, was rich. The family lived mainly in the Gatchina Palace.

Family of Emperor Alexander III (1892). From right to left: Georgy, Ksenia, Olga, Alexander III, Nikolai, Maria Fedorovna, Mikhail

George was destined for a career in the navy, but then the Grand Duke fell ill with tuberculosis. Since the 1890s, George, who became crown prince in 1894 (Nicholas did not yet have an heir), lives in the Caucasus, in Georgia. Doctors even forbade him to go to St. Petersburg for his father’s funeral (although he was present at his father’s death in Livadia). George's only joy was visits from his mother. In 1895, they traveled together to visit relatives in Denmark. There he had another attack. Georgiy was bedridden for a long time until he finally felt better and returned to Abastumani.

Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich at his desk. Abastumani. 1890s

In the summer of 1899, Georgy was traveling from the Zekar Pass to Abastumani on a motorcycle. Suddenly his throat started bleeding, he stopped and fell to the ground. On June 28, 1899, Georgy Alexandrovich died. The section revealed: extreme degree of exhaustion, chronic tuberculous process in the period of cavernous decay, cor pulmonale (right ventricular hypertrophy), interstitial nephritis. The news of George's death was a heavy blow for the entire imperial family and especially for Maria Feodorovna.

Ksenia Alexandrovna

Ksenia was her mother’s favorite, and even looked like her. Her first and only love was Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich (Sandro), who was friends with her brothers and often visited Gatchina. Ksenia Alexandrovna was “crazy” about the tall, slender brunette, believing that he was the best in the world. She kept her love a secret, telling about it only to her older brother, the future Emperor Nicholas II, Sandro’s friend. Ksenia was Alexander Mikhailovich’s cousin. They married on July 25, 1894, and she bore him a daughter and six sons during the first 13 years of their marriage.

Alexander Mikhailovich and Ksenia Alexandrovna, 1894

When traveling abroad with her husband, Ksenia visited with him all those places that could be considered “not quite decent” for the Tsar’s daughter, and even tried her luck at the gaming table in Monte Carlo. However, the married life of the Grand Duchess did not work out. My husband has new hobbies. Despite seven children, the marriage actually broke up. But Ksenia Alexandrovna did not agree to a divorce from the Grand Duke. Despite everything, she managed to preserve her love for the father of her children until the end of her days and sincerely experienced his death in 1933.

It is curious that after the revolution in Russia, George V allowed a relative to live in a cottage not far from Windsor Castle, while Ksenia Alexandrovna’s husband was forbidden to appear there due to infidelity. Among other interesting facts, her daughter, Irina, married Felix Yusupov, the killer of Rasputin, a scandalous and shocking personality.

Possible Michael II

Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich was, perhaps, the most significant for all of Russia, with the exception of Nicholas II, the son of Alexander III. Before the First World War, after his marriage to Natalya Sergeevna Brasova, Mikhail Alexandrovich lived in Europe. The marriage was unequal; moreover, at the time of its conclusion, Natalya Sergeevna was married. The lovers had to get married in the Serbian Orthodox Church in Vienna. Because of this, all the estates of Mikhail Alexandrovich were taken under the control of the emperor.

Mikhail Alexandrovich

Some monarchists called Mikhail Alexandrovich Mikhail II

With the beginning of the First World War, Nikolai’s brother asked to go to Russia to fight. As a result, he headed the Native Division in the Caucasus. Wartime was marked by many plots being prepared against Nicholas II, but Mikhail did not participate in any of them, being loyal to his brother. However, it was the name of Mikhail Alexandrovich that was increasingly mentioned in various political combinations drawn up in the court and political circles of Petrograd, and Mikhail Alexandrovich himself did not take part in drawing up these plans. A number of contemporaries pointed to the role of the wife of the Grand Duke, who became the center of the “Brasova salon,” which preached liberalism and promoted Mikhail Alexandrovich to the role of head of the reigning house.

Alexander Alexandrovich with his wife (1867)

The February Revolution found Mikhail Alexandrovich in Gatchina. Documents show that during the days of the February Revolution he tried to save the monarchy, but not because of the desire to take the throne himself. On the morning of February 27 (March 12), 1917, he was called by telephone to Petrograd by the Chairman of the State Duma M.V. Rodzianko. Arriving in the capital, Mikhail Alexandrovich met with the Provisional Committee of the Duma. They convinced him to essentially legitimize the coup d'etat: to become a dictator, dismiss the government and ask his brother to create a responsible ministry. By the end of the day, Mikhail Alexandrovich was convinced to take power as a last resort. Subsequent events would reveal the indecisiveness and inability of brother Nicholas II to engage in serious politics in an emergency situation.

Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich with his morganatic wife N.M. Brasova. Paris. 1913

It is appropriate to recall the description given to Mikhail Alexandrovich by General Mosolov: “He was distinguished by exceptional kindness and gullibility.” According to the memoirs of Colonel Mordvinov, Mikhail Alexandrovich was “of a gentle character, although quick-tempered. He is inclined to succumb to the influence of others... But in actions that touch upon issues of moral duty, he always shows persistence!”

The Last Grand Duchess

Olga Alexandrovna lived to be 78 years old and died on November 24, 1960. She outlived her older sister Ksenia by seven months.

In 1901 she married the Duke of Oldenburg. The marriage was unsuccessful and ended in divorce. Subsequently, Olga Alexandrovna married Nikolai Kulikovsky. After the fall of the Romanov dynasty, she left for Crimea with her mother, husband and children, where they lived in conditions close to house arrest.

Olga Aleksandrovka as honorary commander of the 12th Akhtyrsky Hussar Regiment

She is one of the few Romanovs who survived the October Revolution. She lived in Denmark, then in Canada, and outlived all the other grandchildren (granddaughters) of Emperor Alexander II. Like her father, Olga Alexandrovna preferred a simple life. During her life she painted more than 2,000 paintings, the proceeds from the sale of which allowed her to support her family and engage in charity work.

Protopresbyter Georgy Shavelsky recalled her this way:

“Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, among all the persons of the imperial family, was distinguished by her extraordinary simplicity, accessibility, and democracy. On his estate in Voronezh province. she completely grew up: she walked around the village huts, nursed peasant children, etc. In St. Petersburg, she often walked on foot, rode in simple cabs, and really loved to talk with the latter.”

The imperial couple among their circle of associates (summer 1889)

General Alexey Nikolaevich Kuropatkin:

“My next date is with my boyfriend. Princess Olga Alexandrovna was born on November 12, 1918 in Crimea, where she lived with her second husband, captain of the hussar regiment Kulikovsky. Here she became even more at ease. It would be difficult for someone who didn’t know her to believe that this was the Grand Duchess. They occupied a small, very poorly furnished house. The Grand Duchess herself nursed her baby, cooked and even washed the clothes. I found her in the garden, where she was pushing her child in a stroller. She immediately invited me into the house and there treated me to tea and her own products: jam and cookies. The simplicity of the situation, bordering on squalor, made it even more sweet and attractive.”

Titled from birth His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Nikolai Alexandrovich. After the death of his grandfather, Emperor Alexander II, in 1881 he received the title of Heir Tsesarevich.

...neither by his figure nor by his ability to speak, the tsar touched the soldier’s soul and did not make the impression that was necessary to lift the spirit and strongly attract hearts to himself. He did what he could, and one cannot blame him in this case, but he did not produce good results in the sense of inspiration.

Childhood, education and upbringing

Nikolai received his home education as part of a large gymnasium course and in the 1890s - according to a specially written program that combined the course of the state and economic departments of the university law faculty with the course of the Academy of the General Staff.

The upbringing and training of the future emperor took place under the personal guidance of Alexander III on a traditional religious basis. Nicholas II's studies were conducted according to a carefully developed program for 13 years. The first eight years were devoted to the subjects of the extended gymnasium course. Particular attention was paid to the study of political history, Russian literature, English, German and French, which Nikolai Alexandrovich mastered to perfection. The next five years were devoted to the study of military affairs, legal and economic sciences necessary for a statesman. Lectures were given by outstanding Russian academicians of world renown: N. N. Beketov, N. N. Obruchev, Ts. A. Cui, M. I. Dragomirov, N. H. Bunge, K. P. Pobedonostsev and others. Presbyter I. L. Yanyshev taught the Tsarevich canon law in connection with the history of the church, the most important departments of theology and the history of religion.

Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. 1896

For the first two years, Nikolai served as a junior officer in the ranks of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. For two summer seasons he served in the ranks of a cavalry hussar regiment as a squadron commander, and then served in a camp in the ranks of the artillery. On August 6 he was promoted to colonel. At the same time, his father introduces him to the affairs of governing the country, inviting him to participate in meetings of the State Council and the Cabinet of Ministers. At the suggestion of the Minister of Railways S. Yu. Witte, Nikolai in 1892, in order to gain experience in government affairs, was appointed chairman of the committee for the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. By the age of 23, Nikolai Romanov was a widely educated man.

The emperor's education program included travel to various provinces of Russia, which he made together with his father. To complete his education, his father allocated a cruiser at his disposal for a trip to the Far East. In nine months, he and his retinue visited Austria-Hungary, Greece, Egypt, India, China, Japan, and later returned to the capital of Russia by land through all of Siberia. In Japan, an attempt was made on Nicholas's life (see Otsu Incident). A shirt with blood stains is kept in the Hermitage.

He combined his education with deep religiosity and mysticism. “The Emperor, like his ancestor Alexander I, was always mystically inclined,” recalled Anna Vyrubova.

The ideal ruler for Nicholas II was Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich the Quiet.

Lifestyle, habits

Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich Mountain landscape. 1886 Paper, watercolor Signature on the drawing: “Nicky. 1886. July 22” The drawing is pasted on the passe-partout

Most of the time, Nicholas II lived with his family in the Alexander Palace. In the summer he vacationed in Crimea at the Livadia Palace. For recreation, he also annually made two-week trips around the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea on the yacht “Standart”. I read both light entertainment literature and serious scientific works, often on historical topics. He smoked cigarettes, the tobacco for which was grown in Turkey and sent to him as a gift from the Turkish Sultan. Nicholas II was fond of photography and also loved watching films. All his children also took photographs. Nikolai began keeping a diary at the age of 9. The archive contains 50 voluminous notebooks - the original diary for 1882-1918. Some of them were published.

Nikolai and Alexandra

The first meeting of the Tsarevich with his future wife took place in 1884, and in 1889 Nicholas asked his father for his blessing to marry her, but was refused.

All correspondence between Alexandra Feodorovna and Nicholas II has been preserved. Only one letter from Alexandra Feodorovna was lost; all her letters were numbered by the empress herself.

Contemporaries assessed the empress differently.

The Empress was infinitely kind and infinitely compassionate. It was these properties of her nature that were the motivating reasons for the phenomena that gave rise to intriguing people, people without conscience and heart, people blinded by the thirst for power, to unite among themselves and use these phenomena in the eyes of the dark masses and the idle and narcissistic part of the intelligentsia, greedy for sensations, to discredit The Royal Family for their dark and selfish purposes. The Empress became attached with all her soul to people who really suffered or skillfully acted out their suffering in front of her. She herself suffered too much in life, both as a conscious person - for her homeland oppressed by Germany, and as a mother - for her passionately and endlessly beloved son. Therefore, she could not help but be too blind to other people approaching her, who were also suffering or who seemed to be suffering... ...The Empress, of course, sincerely and strongly loved Russia, just as the Sovereign loved her.

Coronation

Accession to the throne and beginning of reign

Letter from Emperor Nicholas II to Empress Maria Feodorovna. January 14, 1906 Autograph. “Trepov is irreplaceable for me, a kind of secretary. He is experienced, smart and careful in giving advice. I let him read thick notes from Witte and then he reports them to me quickly and clearly. This is, of course, a secret from everyone!”

The coronation of Nicholas II took place on May 14 (26) of the year (for the victims of coronation celebrations in Moscow, see “Khodynka”). In the same year, the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition was held in Nizhny Novgorod, which he attended. In 1896, Nicholas II also made a big trip to Europe, meeting with Franz Joseph, Wilhelm II, Queen Victoria (Alexandra Feodorovna's grandmother). The end of the trip was the arrival of Nicholas II in the capital of the allied France, Paris. One of the first personnel decisions of Nicholas II was the dismissal of I.V. Gurko from the post of Governor-General of the Kingdom of Poland and the appointment of A.B. Lobanov-Rostovsky to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs after the death of N.K. Girs. The first of Nicholas II's major international actions was the Triple Intervention.

Economic policy

In 1900, Nicholas II sent Russian troops to suppress the Yihetuan uprising together with the troops of other European powers, Japan and the United States.

The revolutionary newspaper Osvobozhdenie, published abroad, did not hide its fears: “ If Russian troops defeat the Japanese... then freedom will be calmly strangled to the sounds of cheers and the ringing of bells of the triumphant Empire» .

The difficult situation of the tsarist government after the Russo-Japanese War prompted German diplomacy to make another attempt in July 1905 to tear Russia away from France and conclude a Russian-German alliance. Wilhelm II invited Nicholas II to meet in July 1905 in the Finnish skerries, near the island of Bjorke. Nikolai agreed and signed the agreement at the meeting. But when he returned to St. Petersburg, he abandoned it, since peace with Japan had already been signed.

American researcher of the era T. Dennett wrote in 1925:

Few people now believe that Japan was deprived of the fruits of its upcoming victories. The opposite opinion prevails. Many believe that Japan was already exhausted by the end of May and that only the conclusion of peace saved it from collapse or complete defeat in a clash with Russia.

Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (the first in half a century) and the subsequent brutal suppression of the revolution of 1905-1907. (subsequently aggravated by the appearance of Rasputin at court) led to a decline in the authority of the emperor in the circles of the intelligentsia and nobility, so much so that even among the monarchists there were ideas about replacing Nicholas II with another Romanov.

The German journalist G. Ganz, who lived in St. Petersburg during the war, noted a different position of the nobility and intelligentsia in relation to the war: “ The common secret prayer not only of liberals, but also of many moderate conservatives at that time was: “God, help us to be defeated.”» .

Revolution of 1905-1907

With the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Nicholas II tried to unite society against an external enemy, making significant concessions to the opposition. So, after the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs V.K. Plehve by a Socialist-Revolutionary militant, he appointed P.D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky, who was considered a liberal, to his post. On December 12, 1904, a decree “On plans for improving the State order” was issued, promising the expansion of the rights of zemstvos, insurance of workers, emancipation of foreigners and people of other faiths, and the elimination of censorship. At the same time, the sovereign declared: “I will never, under any circumstances, agree to a representative form of government, because I consider it harmful for the people entrusted to me by God.”

...Russia has outgrown the form of the existing system. It strives for a legal system based on civil freedom... It is very important to reform the State Council on the basis of the prominent participation of the elected element in it...

Opposition parties took advantage of the expansion of freedoms to intensify attacks on the tsarist government. On January 9, 1905, a large labor demonstration took place in St. Petersburg, addressing the Tsar with political and socio-economic demands. Demonstrators clashed with troops, resulting in a large death toll. These events became known as Bloody Sunday, the victims of which, according to V. Nevsky's research, were no more than 100-200 people. A wave of strikes swept across the country, and the national outskirts became agitated. In Courland, the Forest Brothers began to massacre local German landowners, and the Armenian-Tatar massacre began in the Caucasus. Revolutionaries and separatists received support with money and weapons from England and Japan. Thus, in the summer of 1905, the English steamer John Grafton, which ran aground, was detained in the Baltic Sea, carrying several thousand rifles for Finnish separatists and revolutionary militants. There were several uprisings in the navy and in various cities. The largest was the December uprising in Moscow. At the same time, Socialist Revolutionary and anarchist individual terror gained great momentum. In just a couple of years, thousands of officials, officers and policemen were killed by revolutionaries - in 1906 alone, 768 were killed and 820 representatives and agents of the authorities were wounded.

The second half of 1905 was marked by numerous unrest in universities and even in theological seminaries: due to the unrest, almost 50 secondary theological educational institutions were closed. The adoption of a temporary law on university autonomy on August 27 caused a general strike of students and stirred up teachers at universities and theological academies.

The ideas of senior dignitaries about the current situation and ways out of the crisis were clearly manifested during four secret meetings under the leadership of the emperor, held in 1905-1906. Nicholas II was forced to liberalize, moving to constitutional rule, while simultaneously suppressing armed uprisings. From a letter from Nicholas II to the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna dated October 19, 1905:

Another way is to provide civil rights to the population - freedom of speech, press, assembly and unions and personal integrity;…. Witte passionately defended this path, saying that although it was risky, it was nevertheless the only one at the moment...

On August 6, 1905, the manifesto on the establishment of the State Duma, the law on the State Duma and the regulations on elections to the Duma were published. But the revolution, which was gaining strength, easily overcame the acts of August 6; in October, an all-Russian political strike began, over 2 million people went on strike. On the evening of October 17, Nicholas signed a manifesto promising: “1. To grant the population the unshakable foundations of civil freedom on the basis of actual personal inviolability, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and association.” On April 23, 1906, the Basic State Laws of the Russian Empire were approved.

Three weeks after the manifesto, the government granted amnesty to political prisoners, except for those convicted of terrorism, and a little over a month later it abolished preliminary censorship.

From a letter from Nicholas II to the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna on October 27:

The people were outraged by the impudence and insolence of the revolutionaries and socialists...hence the Jewish pogroms. It is amazing how unanimously and immediately this happened in all the cities of Russia and Siberia. In England, of course, they write that these riots were organized by the police, as always - an old, familiar fable!.. Incidents in Tomsk, Simferopol, Tver and Odessa clearly showed what lengths an angry crowd could reach when it surrounded houses in The revolutionaries locked themselves in and set them on fire, killing anyone who came out.

During the revolution, in 1906, Konstantin Balmont wrote the poem “Our Tsar”, dedicated to Nicholas II, which turned out to be prophetic:

Our king is Mukden, our king is Tsushima,
Our king is a bloody stain,
The stench of gunpowder and smoke,
In which the mind is dark. Our king is a blind misery,
Prison and whip, trial, execution,
The king is a hanged man, so half as low,
What he promised, but didn’t dare give. He is a coward, he feels with hesitation,
But it will happen, the hour of reckoning awaits.
Who began to reign - Khodynka,
He will end up standing on the scaffold.

The decade between two revolutions

On August 18 (31), 1907, an agreement was signed with Great Britain to delimit spheres of influence in China, Afghanistan and Iran. This was an important step in the formation of the Entente. On June 17, 1910, after lengthy disputes, a law was adopted that limited the rights of the Sejm of the Grand Duchy of Finland (see Russification of Finland). In 1912, Mongolia, which gained independence from China as a result of the revolution that took place there, became a de facto protectorate of Russia.

Nicholas II and P. A. Stolypin

The first two State Dumas were unable to conduct regular legislative work - the contradictions between the deputies on the one hand, and the Duma with the emperor on the other, were insurmountable. So, immediately after the opening, in a response to the speech of Nicholas II from the throne, the Duma members demanded the liquidation of the State Council (the upper house of parliament), the transfer of appanage (private estates of the Romanovs), monastic and state lands to the peasants.

Military reform

Diary of Emperor Nicholas II for 1912-1913.

Nicholas II and the church

The beginning of the 20th century was marked by a reform movement, during which the church sought to restore the canonical conciliar structure, there was even talk of convening a council and establishing the patriarchate, and there were attempts in the year to restore the autocephaly of the Georgian Church.

Nicholas agreed with the idea of ​​an “All-Russian Church Council,” but changed his mind and on March 31 of the year, at the report of the Holy Synod on the convening of the council, he wrote: “ I admit it is impossible to do..."and established a Special (pre-conciliar) presence in the city to resolve issues of church reform and a Pre-conciliar meeting in the city.

An analysis of the most famous canonizations of that period - Seraphim of Sarov (), Patriarch Hermogenes (1913) and John Maksimovich ( -) allows us to trace the process of growing and deepening crisis in relations between church and state. Under Nicholas II the following were canonized:

4 days after Nicholas’s abdication, the Synod published a message supporting the Provisional Government.

Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod N. D. Zhevakhov recalled:

Our Tsar was one of the greatest ascetics of the Church of recent times, whose exploits were overshadowed only by his high title of Monarch. Standing on the last step of the ladder of human glory, the Emperor saw above him only the sky, towards which his holy soul irrepressibly strove...

World War I

Along with the creation of special meetings, in 1915 Military-Industrial Committees began to emerge - public organizations of the bourgeoisie that were semi-oppositional in nature.

Emperor Nicholas II and front commanders at a meeting of Headquarters.

After such severe defeats for the army, Nicholas II, not considering it possible for himself to remain aloof from hostilities and considering it necessary in these difficult conditions to take upon himself full responsibility for the position of the army, to establish the necessary agreement between Headquarters and the governments, and to put an end to the disastrous isolation of power, standing at the head of the army, from the authorities governing the country, on August 23, 1915, assumed the title of Supreme Commander-in-Chief. At the same time, some members of the government, the high army command and public circles opposed this decision of the emperor.

Due to the constant movements of Nicholas II from Headquarters to St. Petersburg, as well as insufficient knowledge of issues of troop leadership, the command of the Russian army was concentrated in the hands of his chief of staff, General M.V. Alekseev, and General V.I. Gurko, who replaced him in late and early 1917. The autumn conscription of 1916 put 13 million people under arms, and losses in the war exceeded 2 million.

During 1916, Nicholas II replaced four chairmen of the Council of Ministers (I.L. Goremykin, B.V. Sturmer, A.F. Trepov and Prince N.D. Golitsyn), four ministers of internal affairs (A.N. Khvostova, B. V. Sturmer, A. A. Khvostov and A. D. Protopopov), three foreign ministers (S. D. Sazonov, B. V. Sturmer and Pokrovsky, N. N. Pokrovsky), two military ministers (A. A. Polivanov, D. S. Shuvaev) and three ministers of justice (A. A. Khvostov, A. A. Makarov and N. A. Dobrovolsky).

Probing the world

Nicholas II, hoping for an improvement in the situation in the country if the spring offensive of 1917 was successful (which was agreed upon at the Petrograd Conference), did not intend to conclude a separate peace with the enemy - he saw the victorious end of the war as the most important means of strengthening the throne. Hints that Russia might begin negotiations for a separate peace were a normal diplomatic game and forced the Entente to recognize the need to establish Russian control over the Mediterranean straits.

February Revolution of 1917

The war affected the system of economic ties - primarily between city and countryside. Famine began in the country. The authorities were discredited by a chain of scandals such as the intrigues of Rasputin and his entourage, as they were then called “dark forces”. But it was not the war that gave rise to the agrarian question in Russia, acute social contradictions, conflicts between the bourgeoisie and tsarism and within the ruling camp. Nicholas's commitment to the idea of ​​unlimited autocratic power extremely narrowed the possibility of social maneuvering and knocked out the support of Nicholas's power.

After the situation at the front stabilized in the summer of 1916, the Duma opposition, in alliance with conspirators among the generals, decided to take advantage of the current situation to overthrow Nicholas II and replace him with another tsar. The leader of the cadets, P. N. Milyukov, subsequently wrote in December 1917:

You know that we made a firm decision to use the war to carry out a coup soon after the start of this war. Note also that we could not wait any longer, because we knew that at the end of April or the beginning of May our army had to go on the offensive, the results of which would immediately completely stop all hints of discontent and would cause an explosion of patriotism and jubilation in the country.

Since February, it was clear that Nicholas’s abdication could take place any day now, the date was given as February 12-13, it was said that a “great act” was coming - the abdication of the Emperor from the throne in favor of the heir, Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, that the regent would be Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich.

On February 23, 1917, a strike began in Petrograd, and 3 days later it became general. On the morning of February 27, 1917, there was an uprising of soldiers in Petrograd and their union with the strikers. A similar uprising took place in Moscow. The queen, who did not understand what was happening, wrote reassuring letters on February 25

The queues and strikes in the city are more than provocative... This is a “hooligan” movement, boys and girls run around shouting that they don’t have bread just to incite, and the workers don’t let others work. If it were very cold, they would probably stay at home. But all this will pass and calm down if only the Duma behaves decently

On February 25, 1917, with the manifesto of Nicholas II, the meetings of the State Duma were stopped, which further inflamed the situation. Chairman of the State Duma M.V. Rodzianko sent a number of telegrams to Emperor Nicholas II about the events in Petrograd. This telegram was received at Headquarters on February 26, 1917 at 10 p.m. 40 min.

I most humbly inform Your Majesty that the popular unrest that began in Petrograd is becoming spontaneous and of threatening proportions. Their foundations are the lack of baked bread and the weak supply of flour, inspiring panic, but mainly complete distrust in the authorities, which are unable to lead the country out of a difficult situation.

The civil war has begun and is flaring up. ...There is no hope for the garrison troops. The reserve battalions of the guards regiments are in revolt... Order the legislative chambers to be reconvened to repeal your highest decree... If the movement spreads to the army... the collapse of Russia, and with it the dynasty, is inevitable.

Abdication, exile and execution

Abdication of the throne by Emperor Nicholas II. March 2, 1917 Typescript. 35 x 22. In the lower right corner is the signature of Nicholas II in pencil: Nikolay; in the lower left corner in black ink over a pencil there is an attestation inscription in the hand of V. B. Frederiks: Minister of the Imperial Household, Adjutant General Count Fredericks."

After the outbreak of unrest in the capital, the tsar on the morning of February 26, 1917 ordered General S.S. Khabalov to “stop the unrest, which is unacceptable in difficult times of war.” Having sent General N.I. Ivanov to Petrograd on February 27

to suppress the uprising, Nicholas II left for Tsarskoye Selo on the evening of February 28, but was unable to travel and, having lost contact with Headquarters, on March 1 arrived in Pskov, where the headquarters of the armies of the Northern Front of General N.V. Ruzsky was located, at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon he made a decision about abdication in favor of his son during the regency of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, in the evening of the same day he announced to the arriving A.I. Guchkov and V.V. Shulgin about the decision to abdicate for his son. On March 2 at 23:40 he handed over to Guchkov the Manifesto of Abdication, in which he wrote: “ We command our brother to rule over the affairs of the state in complete and inviolable unity with the representatives of the people».

The personal property of the Romanov family was looted.

After death

Glorification among the saints

Decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church dated August 20, 2000: “To glorify the Royal Family as passion-bearers in the host of new martyrs and confessors of Russia: Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, Tsarevich Alexy, Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia.” .

The act of canonization was received ambiguously by Russian society: opponents of canonization claim that the canonization of Nicholas II is of a political nature. .

Rehabilitation

Philatelic collection of Nicholas II

Some memoir sources provide evidence that Nicholas II “sinned with postage stamps,” although this hobby was not as strong as photography. On February 21, 1913, at a celebration in the Winter Palace in honor of the anniversary of the House of Romanov, the head of the Main Directorate of Posts and Telegraphs, Actual State Councilor M. P. Sevastyanov presented Nicholas II with albums in morocco bindings with proof proofs and essays of stamps from the commemorative series published in 300 as a gift. -anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. It was a collection of materials related to the preparation of the series, which was carried out over almost ten years - from 1912. Nicholas II valued this gift very much. It is known that this collection accompanied him among the most valuable family heirlooms in exile, first in Tobolsk, and then in Yekaterinburg, and was with him until his death.

After the death of the royal family, the most valuable part of the collection was plundered, and the remaining half was sold to a certain English army officer stationed in Siberia as part of the Entente troops. He then took her to Riga. Here this part of the collection was acquired by philatelist Georg Jaeger, who put it up for sale at auction in New York in 1926. In 1930, it was again put up for auction in London, and the famous collector of Russian stamps, Goss, became its owner. Obviously, it was Goss who significantly replenished it by buying missing materials at auctions and from private individuals. The 1958 auction catalog described the Goss collection as “a magnificent and unique collection of proofs, prints and essays... from the collection of Nicholas II.”

By order of Nicholas II, the Women's Alekseevskaya Gymnasium, now the Slavic Gymnasium, was founded in the city of Bobruisk

see also

• Family of Nicholas II

fiction:

• E. Radzinsky. Nicholas II: life and death.
• R. Massey. Nikolai and Alexandra.

Illustrations

Portrait of Emperor Nicholas II by Ernst Liphart. 1896	Portrait of Nicholas II by Ilya Galkin. 1898.
The Tsar on a gold five-ruble coin. 1899.	Diary of Emperor Nicholas II for 1895-1896.

Nicholas II Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov
Coronation:
Predecessor:	Alexander III
Successor:	Mikhail Alexandrovich (did not accept the throne)
Heir:
Religion:	Orthodoxy
Birth:
Buried:	Secretly buried, presumably in the forest near the village of Koptyaki, Sverdlovsk region; in 1998, the alleged remains were reburied in the Peter and Paul Cathedral
Dynasty:	Romanovs
	Alexander III
	Maria Fedorovna
	Alice of Hesse (Alexandra Fedorovna)
	Daughters: Olga, Tatyana, Maria and Anastasia Son: Alexey
Autograph:
Monogram:

Names, titles, nicknames

First steps and coronation

Economic policy

Revolution of 1905-1907

Nicholas II and the Duma

Land reform

Military command reform

World War I

Probing the world

Fall of the Monarchy

Lifestyle, habits, hobbies

Russian

Foreign

After death

Assessment in Russian emigration

Official assessment in the USSR

Church veneration

Filmography

Film incarnations

Nicholas II Alexandrovich(May 6 (18), 1868, Tsarskoe Selo - July 17, 1918, Yekaterinburg) - the last Emperor of All Russia, Tsar of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland (October 20 (November 1), 1894 - March 2 (March 15), 1917). From the Romanov dynasty. Colonel (1892); in addition, from the British monarchs he had the ranks of: admiral of the fleet (May 28, 1908) and field marshal of the British army (December 18, 1915).

The reign of Nicholas II was marked by the economic development of Russia and at the same time by the growth of socio-political contradictions in it, the revolutionary movement, which resulted in the revolution of 1905-1907 and the revolution of 1917; in foreign policy - expansion in the Far East, the war with Japan, as well as Russia's participation in the military blocs of European powers and the First World War.

Nicholas II abdicated the throne during the February Revolution of 1917 and was under house arrest with his family in the Tsarskoye Selo palace. In the summer of 1917, by decision of the Provisional Government, he and his family were sent into exile in Tobolsk, and in the spring of 1918 he was moved by the Bolsheviks to Yekaterinburg, where he was shot along with his family and associates in July 1918.

Canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church as a passion-bearer in 2000.

Names, titles, nicknames

Titled from birth His Imperial Highness (Sovereign) Grand Duke Nikolai Alexandrovich. After the death of his grandfather, Emperor Alexander II, on March 1, 1881, he received the title of Heir to Tsesarevich.

The full title of Nicholas II as Emperor: “By the advancing grace of God, Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia, Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod; Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Tsar of Poland, Tsar of Siberia, Tsar of Chersonese Tauride, Tsar of Georgia; Sovereign of Pskov and Grand Duke of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volyn, Podolsk and Finland; Prince of Estland, Livonia, Courland and Semigal, Samogit, Bialystok, Korel, Tver, Yugorsk, Perm, Vyatka, Bulgarian and others; Sovereign and Grand Duke of Novagorod of the Nizovsky lands?, Chernigov, Ryazan, Polotsk, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Belozersky, Udorsky, Obdorsky, Kondiysky, Vitebsk, Mstislavsky and all northern countries? Lord; and Sovereign of Iversk, Kartalinsky and Kabardian lands? and the region of Armenia; Cherkasy and Mountain Princes and other Hereditary Sovereign and Possessor, Sovereign of Turkestan; Heir of Norway, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, Stormarn, Ditmarsen and Oldenburg, and so on, and so on, and so on.”

After the February Revolution, it began to be called Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov(previously, the surname “Romanov” was not indicated by members of the imperial house; membership in the family was indicated by the titles: Grand Duke, Emperor, Empress, Tsarevich, etc.).

In connection with the events on Khodynka and January 9, 1905, he was nicknamed “Nicholas the Bloody” by the radical opposition; appeared with this nickname in Soviet popular historiography. His wife privately called him “Niki” (communication between them was mainly in English).

The Caucasian highlanders who served in the Caucasian native cavalry division of the imperial army called Sovereign Nicholas II the “White Padishah,” thereby showing their respect and devotion to the Russian emperor.

Childhood, education and upbringing

Nicholas II is the eldest son of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna. Immediately after birth, on May 6, 1868, he was named Nikolai. The baby's baptism was performed by the confessor of the imperial family, Protopresbyter Vasily Bazhanov, in the Resurrection Church of the Great Tsarskoye Selo Palace on May 20 of the same year; the successors were: Alexander II, Queen Louise of Denmark, Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark, Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna.

In early childhood, the teacher of Nikolai and his brothers was the Englishman Karl Osipovich Heath, who lived in Russia ( Charles Heath, 1826-1900); General G. G. Danilovich was appointed his official tutor as his heir in 1877. Nikolai was educated at home as part of a large gymnasium course; in 1885-1890 - according to a specially written program that combined the course of the state and economic departments of the law faculty of the university with the course of the Academy of the General Staff. The studies were conducted for 13 years: the first eight years were devoted to subjects of an extended gymnasium course, where special attention was paid to the study of political history, Russian literature, English, German and French (Nikolai Alexandrovich spoke English as a native); the next five years were devoted to the study of military affairs, legal and economic sciences necessary for a statesman. Lectures were given by world-famous scientists: N. N. Beketov, N. N. Obruchev, Ts. A. Cui, M. I. Dragomirov, N. H. Bunge, K. P. Pobedonostsev and others. Protopresbyter John Yanyshev taught the Tsarevich canon law in connection with the history of the church, the most important departments of theology and the history of religion.

On May 6, 1884, upon reaching adulthood (for the Heir), he took the oath in the Great Church of the Winter Palace, as announced by the Highest Manifesto. The first act published on his behalf was a rescript addressed to the Moscow Governor-General V.A. Dolgorukov: 15 thousand rubles for distribution, at the discretion of that “among the residents of Moscow who most need help”

For the first two years, Nikolai served as a junior officer in the ranks of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. For two summer seasons he served in the ranks of a cavalry hussar regiment as a squadron commander, and then did a camp training in the ranks of the artillery. On August 6, 1892 he was promoted to colonel. At the same time, his father introduces him to the affairs of governing the country, inviting him to participate in meetings of the State Council and the Cabinet of Ministers. At the suggestion of the Minister of Railways S. Yu. Witte, Nikolai in 1892, in order to gain experience in government affairs, was appointed chairman of the committee for the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. By the age of 23, the Heir was a man who had received extensive information in various fields of knowledge.

The educational program included travel to various provinces of Russia, which he made together with his father. To complete his education, his father gave him a cruiser to travel to the Far East. In nine months, he and his retinue visited Austria-Hungary, Greece, Egypt, India, China, Japan, and later returned to the capital of Russia by land through all of Siberia. In Japan, an attempt was made on Nicholas's life (see Otsu Incident). A shirt with blood stains is kept in the Hermitage.

Opposition politician, member of the State Duma of the first convocation V.P. Obninsky, in his anti-monarchist essay “The Last Autocrat,” argued that Nicholas “at one time stubbornly refused the throne,” but was forced to yield to the demands of Alexander III and “sign a manifesto on his accession during his father’s lifetime.” to the throne."

Accession to the throne and beginning of reign

First steps and coronation

A few days after the death of Alexander III (October 20, 1894) and his accession to the throne (the Highest Manifesto was published on October 21; on the same day the oath was taken by dignitaries, officials, courtiers and troops), on November 14, 1894 in the Great Church of the Winter Palace married to Alexandra Fedorovna; the honeymoon took place in an atmosphere of funeral services and mourning visits.

One of the first personnel decisions of Emperor Nicholas II was the dismissal of the conflict-ridden I.V. in December 1894. Gurko from the post of Governor-General of the Kingdom of Poland and the appointment in February 1895 of A.B. to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. Lobanov-Rostovsky - after the death of N.K. Girsa.

As a result of the exchange of notes dated February 27 (March 11), 1895, “the delimitation of the spheres of influence of Russia and Great Britain in the Pamir region, east of Lake Zor-Kul (Victoria)” was established along the Pyanj River; The Pamir volost became part of the Osh district of the Fergana region; The Vakhan ridge on Russian maps received the designation Ridge of Emperor Nicholas II. The first major international act of the emperor was the Triple Intervention - a simultaneous (April 11 (23) 1895), on the initiative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, presentation (together with Germany and France) of demands for Japan to reconsider the terms of the Shimonoseki Peace Treaty with China, renouncing claims to the Liaodong Peninsula .

The first public appearance of the Emperor in St. Petersburg was his speech, delivered on January 17, 1895 in the Nicholas Hall of the Winter Palace before deputations of the nobility, zemstvos and cities who arrived “to express loyal feelings to Their Majesties and bring congratulations on the Marriage”; The delivered text of the speech (the speech was written in advance, but the emperor pronounced it only from time to time looking at the paper) read: “I know that recently the voices of people who were carried away by meaningless dreams about the participation of zemstvo representatives in internal government affairs have been heard in some zemstvo meetings. Let everyone know that I, devoting all My strength to the good of the people, will protect the beginning of autocracy as firmly and unswervingly as My unforgettable, late Parent guarded it.” In connection with the Tsar’s speech, Chief Prosecutor K.P. Pobedonostsev wrote to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich on February 2 of the same year: “After the Tsar’s speech, excitement continues with chatter of all kinds. I don’t hear her, but they tell me that everywhere among the youth and intelligentsia there is talk of some kind of irritation against the young Sovereign. Yesterday Maria Al came to see me. Meshcherskaya (ur. Panina), who came here for a short time from the village. She is indignant at all the speeches she hears about this in living rooms. But the Tsar’s word made a beneficial impression on ordinary people and villages. Many deputies, coming here, were expecting God knows what, and when they heard, they breathed freely. But how sad it is that in the upper circles there is absurd irritation. I am sure, unfortunately, that the majority of members of the government. The Council is critical of the Sovereign's action and, alas, so are some ministers! God knows what? was in people's heads before this day, and what expectations had grown... It is true that they gave a reason for this... Many straightforward Russian people were positively confused by the awards announced on January 1st. It turned out that the new Sovereign, from the first step, distinguished those very people whom the deceased considered dangerous. All this inspires fear for the future. “In the early 1910s, a representative of the left wing of the Cadets, V.P. Obninsky, wrote about the tsar’s speech in his anti-monarchist essay: “They assured that the word “unrealizable” was in the text. But be that as it may, it served as the beginning not only of a general cooling towards Nicholas, but also laid the foundation for the future liberation movement, uniting zemstvo leaders and instilling in them a more decisive course of action. The speech on January 17, 95 can be considered Nicholas’s first step down an inclined plane, along which he continues to roll to this day, descending ever lower in the opinion of both his subjects and the entire civilized world. “Historian S.S. Oldenburg wrote about the speech of January 17: “Russian educated society, for the most part, accepted this speech as a challenge to itself. The speech of January 17 dispelled the hopes of the intelligentsia for the possibility of constitutional reforms from above. In this regard, it served as the starting point for a new growth of revolutionary agitation, for which funds again began to be found.”

The coronation of the emperor and his wife took place on May 14 (26), 1896 ( about the victims of coronation celebrations in Moscow, see the article by Khodynka). In the same year, the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition was held in Nizhny Novgorod, which he attended.

In April 1896, the Russian government formally recognized the Bulgarian government of Prince Ferdinand. In 1896, Nicholas II also made a big trip to Europe, meeting with Franz Joseph, Wilhelm II, Queen Victoria (Alexandra Feodorovna's grandmother); The end of the trip was his arrival in the capital of the allied France, Paris. By the time of his arrival in Britain in September 1896, there had been a sharp deterioration in relations between London and the Porte, formally associated with the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, and a simultaneous rapprochement between St. Petersburg and Constantinople; guest? at Queen Victoria's in Balmoral, Nicholas, having agreed to jointly develop a project of reforms in the Ottoman Empire, rejected the proposals made to him by the English government to remove Sultan Abdul Hamid, retain Egypt for England, and in return receive some concessions on the issue of the Straits. Arriving in Paris in early October of the same year, Nicholas approved joint instructions to the ambassadors of Russia and France in Constantinople (which the Russian government had categorically refused until that time), approved French proposals on the Egyptian issue (which included “guarantees of neutralization of the Suez Canal” - a goal which was previously outlined for Russian diplomacy by Foreign Minister Lobanov-Rostovsky, who died on August 30, 1896). The Paris agreements of the tsar, who was accompanied on the trip by N.P. Shishkin, aroused sharp objections from Sergei Witte, Lamzdorf, Ambassador Nelidov and others; however, by the end of the same year, Russian diplomacy returned to its previous course: strengthening the alliance with France, pragmatic cooperation with Germany on certain issues, freezing the Eastern Question (that is, supporting the Sultan and opposition to England’s plans in Egypt). It was ultimately decided to abandon the plan for landing Russian troops on the Bosphorus (under a certain scenario) approved at a meeting of ministers on December 5, 1896, chaired by the Tsar. During 1897, 3 heads of state arrived in St. Petersburg to pay a visit to the Russian Emperor: Franz Joseph, Wilhelm II, French President Felix Faure; During the visit of Franz Josef, an agreement was concluded between Russia and Austria for 10 years.

The Manifesto of February 3 (15), 1899 on the order of legislation in the Grand Duchy of Finland was perceived by the population of the Grand Duchy as an encroachment on its rights of autonomy and caused mass discontent and protests

The manifesto of June 28, 1899 (published on June 30) announced the death of the same June 28 “Heir to the Tsarevich and Grand Duke George Alexandrovich” (the oath to the latter, as the heir to the throne, was previously taken along with the oath to Nicholas) and read further: “From now on, until The Lord is not yet pleased to bless Us with the birth of a Son; the immediate right of succession to the All-Russian Throne, on the exact basis of the main State Law on Succession to the Throne, belongs to Our Most Dear Brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich.” The absence in the Manifesto of the words “Heir Tsarevich” in the title of Mikhail Alexandrovich aroused bewilderment in court circles, which prompted the emperor to issue a Personal Highest Decree on July 7 of the same year, which ordered the latter to be called “Sovereign Heir and Grand Duke.”

Economic policy

According to the first general census conducted in January 1897, the population of the Russian Empire was 125 million people; Of these, 84 million had Russian as their native language; 21% of the Russian population were literate, and 34% of people aged 10-19 years.

In January of the same year, a monetary reform was carried out, establishing the gold standard of the ruble. The transition to the gold ruble, among other things, was a devaluation of the national currency: on imperials of the previous weight and fineness it was now written “15 rubles” - instead of 10; However, the stabilization of the ruble at the “two-thirds” rate, contrary to forecasts, was successful and without shocks.

Much attention was paid to the work issue. In factories with more than 100 workers, free medical care was introduced, covering 70 percent of the total number of factory workers (1898). In June 1903, the Rules on Remuneration for Victims of Industrial Accidents were approved by the Highest, obliging the entrepreneur to pay benefits and pensions to the victim or his family in the amount of 50-66 percent of the victim’s maintenance. In 1906, workers' trade unions were created in the country. The law of June 23, 1912 introduced compulsory insurance of workers against illnesses and accidents in Russia. On June 2, 1897, a law was issued to limit working hours, which established a maximum limit of the working day of no more than 11.5 hours on ordinary days, and 10 hours on Saturdays and holidays, or if at least part of the working day fell at night.

A special tax on landowners of Polish origin in the Western Region, introduced as punishment for the Polish uprising of 1863, was abolished. By decree of June 12, 1900, exile to Siberia as a punishment was abolished.

The reign of Nicholas II was a period of relatively high rates of economic growth: in 1885-1913, the growth rate of agricultural production averaged 2%, and the growth rate of industrial production was 4.5-5% per year. Coal production in the Donbass increased from 4.8 million tons in 1894 to 24 million tons in 1913. Coal mining began in the Kuznetsk coal basin. Oil production developed in the vicinity of Baku, Grozny and Emba.

The construction of railways continued, the total length of which, amounting to 44 thousand kilometers in 1898, by 1913 exceeded 70 thousand kilometers. In terms of the total length of railways, Russia surpassed any other European country and was second only to the United States. In terms of output of the main types of industrial products per capita, Russia in 1913 was a neighbor of Spain.

Foreign policy and the Russo-Japanese War

The historian Oldenburg, while in exile, argued in his apologetic work that back in 1895 the emperor foresaw the possibility of a clash with Japan for dominance in the Far East, and therefore was preparing for this struggle - both diplomatically and militarily. From the tsar's resolution on April 2, 1895, at the report of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, his desire for further Russian expansion in the Southeast (Korea) was clear.

On June 3, 1896, a Russian-Chinese agreement on a military alliance against Japan was concluded in Moscow; China agreed to the construction of a railway through Northern Manchuria to Vladivostok, the construction and operation of which was provided to the Russian-Chinese Bank. On September 8, 1896, a concession agreement was signed between the Chinese government and the Russian-Chinese Bank for the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER). On March 15 (27), 1898, Russia and China signed the Russian-Chinese Convention of 1898 in Beijing, according to which Russia was granted lease use for 25 years of the ports of Port Arthur (Lushun) and Dalniy (Dalian) with adjacent territories and waters; In addition, the Chinese government agreed to extend the concession it granted to the CER Society for the construction of a railway line (South Manchurian Railway) from one of the points of the CER to Dalniy and Port Arthur.

In 1898, Nicholas II turned to the governments of Europe with proposals to sign agreements on maintaining world peace and establishing limits to the constant growth of armaments. The Hague Peace Conferences took place in 1899 and 1907, some of whose decisions are still in effect today (in particular, the Permanent Court of Arbitration was created in The Hague).

In 1900, Nicholas II sent Russian troops to suppress the Yihetuan uprising together with the troops of other European powers, Japan and the United States.

Russia's lease of the Liaodong Peninsula, the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway and the establishment of a naval base in Port Arthur, and Russia's growing influence in Manchuria clashed with the aspirations of Japan, which also laid claim to Manchuria.

On January 24, 1904, the Japanese ambassador presented the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs V.N. Lamzdorf with a note, which announced the termination of negotiations, which Japan considered “useless,” and the severance of diplomatic relations with Russia; Japan recalled its diplomatic mission from St. Petersburg and reserved the right to resort to “independent actions” as it deemed necessary to protect its interests. On the evening of January 26, the Japanese fleet attacked the Port Arthur squadron without declaring war. The highest manifesto, given by Nicholas II on January 27, 1904, declared war on Japan.

The border battle on the Yalu River was followed by battles at Liaoyang, the Shahe River and Sandepu. After a major battle in February - March 1905, the Russian army abandoned Mukden.

The outcome of the war was decided by the naval battle of Tsushima in May 1905, which ended in the complete defeat of the Russian fleet. On May 23, 1905, the emperor received, through the US Ambassador in St. Petersburg, a proposal from President T. Roosevelt for mediation to conclude peace. The difficult situation of the Russian government after the Russo-Japanese War prompted German diplomacy to make another attempt in July 1905 to tear Russia away from France and conclude a Russian-German alliance: Wilhelm II invited Nicholas II to meet in July 1905 in the Finnish skerries, near the island of Bjorke. Nikolai agreed and signed the agreement at the meeting; Having returned to St. Petersburg, he abandoned it, since on August 23 (September 5), 1905, a peace treaty was signed in Portsmouth by Russian representatives S. Yu. Witte and R. R. Rosen. Under the terms of the latter, Russia recognized Korea as Japan's sphere of influence, ceded to Japan Southern Sakhalin and the rights to the Liaodong Peninsula with the cities of Port Arthur and Dalniy.

American researcher of the era T. Dennett stated in 1925: “Few people now believe that Japan was deprived of the fruits of its upcoming victories. The opposite opinion prevails. Many believe that Japan was already exhausted by the end of May, and that only the conclusion of peace saved her from collapse or complete defeat in a clash with Russia.”

Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (the first in half a century) and the subsequent suppression of the Troubles of 1905-1907. (later aggravated by the appearance of Rasputin at court) led to a decline in the authority of the emperor in ruling and intellectual circles.

The German journalist G. Ganz, who lived in St. Petersburg during the war, noted the defeatist position of a significant part of the nobility and intelligentsia in relation to the war: “The common secret prayer of not only liberals, but also many moderate conservatives at that time was: “God, help us to be defeated.” "

Revolution of 1905-1907

With the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, Nicholas II made some concessions to liberal circles: after the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs V.K. Plehve by a Socialist Revolutionary militant, he appointed P.D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky, who was considered a liberal, to his post; On December 12, 1904, the Supreme Decree was given to the Senate “On plans for improving the State order,” which promised the expansion of the rights of zemstvos, insurance of workers, emancipation of foreigners and people of other faiths, and the elimination of censorship. When discussing the text of the Decree of December 12, 1904, he, however, privately told Count Witte (according to the latter’s memoirs): “I will never, under any circumstances, agree to a representative form of government, because I consider it harmful for the people entrusted to me by God. »

On January 6, 1905 (the feast of Epiphany), during the blessing of water in Jordan (on the ice of the Neva), in front of the Winter Palace, in the presence of the emperor and members of his family, at the very beginning of the singing of the troparion, a shot was heard from a gun, which accidentally (according to the official version ) there was a charge of buckshot left after the exercise on January 4th. Most of the bullets hit the ice next to the royal pavilion and the facade of the palace, in 4 of whose windows the glass was broken. In connection with the incident, the editor of the synodal publication wrote that “one cannot help but see something special” in the fact that only one policeman named “Romanov” was mortally wounded and the pole of the banner of “the nursery of our ill-fated fleet” - the banner of the naval corps - was shot through .

On January 9 (Old Art.), 1905, in St. Petersburg, on the initiative of priest Georgy Gapon, a procession of workers took place to the Winter Palace. The workers went to the tsar with a petition containing socio-economic, as well as some political, demands. The procession was dispersed by troops, and there were casualties. The events of that day in St. Petersburg entered Russian historiography as “Bloody Sunday”, the victims of which, according to V. Nevsky’s research, were no more than 100-200 people (according to updated government data as of January 10, 1905, 96 were killed and injured in the riots 333 people, which includes a number of law enforcement officers). On February 4, in the Moscow Kremlin, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who professed extreme right-wing political views and had a certain influence on his nephew, was killed by a terrorist bomb.

On April 17, 1905, a decree “On strengthening the principles of religious tolerance” was issued, which abolished a number of religious restrictions, in particular in relation to “schismatics” (Old Believers).

Strikes continued throughout the country; Unrest began on the outskirts of the empire: in Courland, the Forest Brothers began to massacre local German landowners, and the Armenian-Tatar massacre began in the Caucasus. Revolutionaries and separatists received support with money and weapons from England and Japan. Thus, in the summer of 1905, the English steamer John Grafton, which ran aground, was detained in the Baltic Sea, carrying several thousand rifles for Finnish separatists and revolutionary militants. There were several uprisings in the navy and in various cities. The largest was the December uprising in Moscow. At the same time, Socialist Revolutionary and anarchist individual terror gained great momentum. In just a couple of years, revolutionaries killed thousands of officials, officers and police officers - in 1906 alone, 768 were killed and 820 representatives and agents of the government were wounded. The second half of 1905 was marked by numerous unrest in universities and theological seminaries: due to the unrest, almost 50 secondary theological educational institutions were closed. The adoption of a temporary law on university autonomy on August 27 caused a general strike of students and stirred up teachers at universities and theological academies. Opposition parties took advantage of the expansion of freedoms to intensify attacks on the autocracy in the press.

On August 6, 1905, a manifesto was signed on the establishment of the State Duma (“as a legislative advisory institution, which is provided with the preliminary development and discussion of legislative proposals and consideration of the list of state revenues and expenses” - the Bulygin Duma), the law on the State Duma and the regulations on elections to the Duma. But the revolution, which was gaining strength, overstepped the acts of August 6: in October, an all-Russian political strike began, over 2 million people went on strike. On the evening of October 17, Nikolai, after psychologically difficult hesitations, decided to sign a manifesto, which commanded, among other things: “1. To grant the population the unshakable foundations of civil freedom on the basis of actual personal inviolability, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and association. 3. Establish as an unshakable rule that no law can take effect without the approval of the State Duma and that those elected by the people are provided with the opportunity to truly participate in monitoring the regularity of the actions of the authorities appointed by US.” On April 23, 1906, the Basic State Laws of the Russian Empire were approved, which provided for a new role for the Duma in the legislative process. From the point of view of the liberal public, the Manifesto marked the end of the Russian autocracy as the unlimited power of the monarch.

Three weeks after the manifesto, political prisoners were amnestied, except for those convicted of terrorism; The decree of November 24, 1905 abolished preliminary general and spiritual censorship for time-based (periodical) publications published in the cities of the empire (on April 26, 1906, all censorship was abolished).

After the publication of the manifestos, the strikes subsided; the armed forces (except for the navy, where unrest took place) remained faithful to the oath; An extreme right monarchist public organization, the Union of the Russian People, arose and was secretly supported by Nicholas.

During the revolution, in 1906, Konstantin Balmont wrote the poem “Our Tsar”, dedicated to Nicholas II, which turned out to be prophetic:

Our King is Mukden, our King is Tsushima,
Our King is a bloody stain,
The stench of gunpowder and smoke,
In which the mind is dark. Our Tsar is a blind misery,
Prison and whip, trial, execution,
The hanged king is twice as low,
What he promised, but didn’t dare give. He is a coward, he feels with hesitation,
But it will happen, the hour of reckoning awaits.
Who began to reign - Khodynka,
He will end up standing on the scaffold.

The decade between two revolutions

Milestones of domestic and foreign policy

On August 18 (31), 1907, an agreement was signed with Great Britain to delimit spheres of influence in China, Afghanistan and Persia, which generally completed the process of forming an alliance of 3 powers - the Triple Entente, known as the Entente ( Triple Entente); however, mutual military obligations at that time existed only between Russia and France - under the agreement of 1891 and the military convention of 1892. On May 27 - 28, 1908 (Old Art.), a meeting of the British King Edward VIII with the Tsar took place - on the roadstead in the harbor of Revel; the tsar accepted from the king the uniform of an admiral of the British fleet. The Revel meeting of the monarchs was interpreted in Berlin as a step towards the formation of an anti-German coalition - despite the fact that Nicholas was a staunch opponent of rapprochement with England against Germany. The agreement concluded between Russia and Germany on August 6 (19), 1911 (Potsdam Agreement) did not change the general vector of the involvement of Russia and Germany in opposing military-political alliances.

On June 17, 1910, the law on the procedure for issuing laws relating to the Principality of Finland, known as the law on the procedure for general imperial legislation, was approved by the State Council and the State Duma (see Russification of Finland).

The Russian contingent, which had been stationed there in Persia since 1909 due to the unstable political situation, was reinforced in 1911.

In 1912, Mongolia became a de facto protectorate of Russia, gaining independence from China as a result of the revolution that took place there. After this revolution in 1912-1913, Tuvan noyons (ambyn-noyon Kombu-Dorzhu, Chamzy Khamby Lama, noyon Daa-khoshun Buyan-Badyrgy and others) several times appealed to the tsarist government with a request to accept Tuva under the protectorate of the Russian Empire. On April 4 (17), 1914, a resolution on the report of the Minister of Foreign Affairs established a Russian protectorate over the Uriankhai region: the region was included in the Yenisei province with the transfer of political and diplomatic affairs in Tuva to the Irkutsk Governor-General.

The beginning of military operations of the Balkan Union against Turkey in the fall of 1912 marked the collapse of the diplomatic efforts undertaken after the Bosnian crisis by the Minister of Foreign Affairs S. D. Sazonov towards an alliance with the Porte and at the same time keeping the Balkan states under his control: contrary to the expectations of the Russian government, the troops of the latter successfully pushed back Turks and in November 1912 the Bulgarian army was 45 km from the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (see Battle of Chataldzhin). After the actual transfer of the Turkish army under German command (German General Liman von Sanders at the end of 1913 took over the post of chief inspector of the Turkish army), the question of the inevitability of war with Germany was raised in Sazonov’s note to the emperor dated December 23, 1913; Sazonov's note was also discussed at a meeting of the Council of Ministers.

In 1913, a wide celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty took place: the imperial family traveled to Moscow, from there to Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, and then along the Volga to Kostroma, where in the Ipatiev Monastery on March 14, 1613, the first Romanov tsar was called to the throne - Mikhail Fedorovich; In January 1914, the solemn consecration of the Fedorov Cathedral, erected to commemorate the anniversary of the dynasty, took place in St. Petersburg.

Nicholas II and the Duma

The first two State Dumas were unable to conduct regular legislative work: the contradictions between the deputies, on the one hand, and the emperor, on the other, were insurmountable. So, immediately after the opening, in a response to Nicholas II’s speech from the throne, the left Duma members demanded the liquidation of the State Council (the upper house of parliament) and the transfer of monastery and state-owned lands to the peasants. On May 19, 1906, 104 deputies of the Labor Group put forward a land reform project (Project 104), the content of which was the confiscation of landowners' lands and the nationalization of all land.

The Duma of the first convocation was dissolved by the emperor by a personal decree to the Senate of July 8 (21), 1906 (published on Sunday, July 9), which set the time for convening the newly elected Duma on February 20, 1907; the subsequent Highest Manifesto of July 9 explained the reasons, among which were: “Those elected from the population, instead of working on legislative construction, deviated into an area that did not belong to them and turned to investigating the actions of local authorities appointed by Us, to pointing out to Us the imperfections of the Fundamental Laws, the changes of which could to be undertaken only by Our Monarch’s will, and to actions that are clearly illegal, such as an appeal on behalf of the Duma to the population.” By decree of July 10 of the same year, the sessions of the State Council were suspended.

Simultaneously with the dissolution of the Duma, P. A. Stolypin was appointed to the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers instead of I. L. Goremykin. Stolypin's agricultural policy, successful suppression of the unrest, and bright speeches in the Second Duma made him the idol of some right-wingers.

The second Duma turned out to be even more left-wing than the first, since the Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries, who boycotted the first Duma, took part in the elections. The government was ripening the idea of ​​dissolving the Duma and changing the electoral law; Stolypin did not intend to destroy the Duma, but to change the composition of the Duma. The reason for the dissolution was the actions of the Social Democrats: on May 5, at the apartment of a Duma member from the RSDLP Ozol, the police discovered a meeting of 35 Social Democrats and about 30 soldiers of the St. Petersburg garrison; In addition, the police discovered various propaganda materials calling for the violent overthrow of the state system, various orders from soldiers of military units and fake passports. On June 1, Stolypin and the chairman of the St. Petersburg Judicial Chamber demanded that the Duma remove the entire Social Democratic faction from Duma meetings and lift immunity from 16 members of the RSDLP. The Duma did not agree to the government's demand; The result of the confrontation was the manifesto of Nicholas II on the dissolution of the Second Duma, published on June 3, 1907, together with the Regulations on elections to the Duma, that is, the new electoral law. The manifesto also indicated the date for the opening of the new Duma - November 1 of the same year. The act of June 3, 1907 in Soviet historiography was called a “coup d’etat,” since it contradicted the manifesto of October 17, 1905, according to which no new law could be adopted without the approval of the State Duma.

According to General A. A. Mosolov, Nicholas II looked at the members of the Duma not as representatives of the people, but as “simply intellectuals” and added that his attitude towards peasant delegations was completely different: “The Tsar met with them willingly and spoke for a long time , without fatigue, joyfully and affably.”

Land reform

From 1902 to 1905, both statesmen and scientists of Russia were involved in the development of new agrarian legislation at the state level: Vl. I. Gurko, S. Yu. Witte, I. L. Goremykin, A. V. Krivoshein, P. A. Stolypin, P. P. Migulin, N. N. Kutler and A. A. Kaufman. The question of abolishing the community was posed by life itself. At the height of the revolution, N. N. Kutler even proposed a project for the alienation of part of the landowners' lands. On January 1, 1907, the law on the free exit of peasants from the community (Stolypin agrarian reform) began to be practically applied. Granting peasants the right to freely dispose of their land and the abolition of communities was of great national importance, but the reform was not completed and could not be completed, the peasant did not become the owner of land throughout the country, peasants left the community en masse and returned back. And Stolypin sought to allocate land to some peasants at the expense of others and, above all, to preserve landownership, which closed the way to free farming. This was only a partial solution to the problem.

In 1913, Russia (excluding the Vistlensky provinces) was in first place in the world in the production of rye, barley and oats, in third (after Canada and the USA) in wheat production, in fourth (after France, Germany and Austria-Hungary) in production potatoes. Russia has become the main exporter of agricultural products, accounting for 2/5 of all world agricultural exports. Grain yield was 3 times lower than in England or Germany, potato yield was 2 times lower.

Military command reform

The military reforms of 1905-1912 were carried out after the defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, which revealed serious shortcomings in the central administration, organization, recruitment system, combat training and technical equipment of the army.

In the first period of military reforms (1905-1908), the highest military administration was decentralized (the Main Directorate of the General Staff, independent of the War Ministry, was established, the State Defense Council was created, inspector generals were subordinate directly to the emperor), the terms of active service were reduced (in the infantry and field artillery from 5 to 3 years, in other branches of the military from 5 to 4 years, in the navy from 7 to 5 years), the officer corps was rejuvenated; The life of soldiers and sailors (food and clothing allowances) and the financial situation of officers and long-term servicemen were improved.

During the second period of Military reforms (1909-1912), the centralization of senior management was carried out (the Main Directorate of the General Staff was included in the Ministry of War, the Council of State Defense was abolished, inspector generals were subordinate to the Minister of War); Due to the combatively weak reserve and fortress troops, the field troops were strengthened (the number of army corps increased from 31 to 37), a reserve was created in the field units, which during mobilization was allocated for the deployment of secondary ones (including field artillery, engineering and railway troops, communications units) , machine gun teams were created in regiments and corps air detachments, cadet schools were transformed into military schools that received new programs, new regulations and instructions were introduced. In 1910, the Imperial Air Force was created.

World War I

On July 19 (August 1), 1914, Germany declared war on Russia: Russia entered the world war, which for it ended in the collapse of the empire and dynasty.

On July 20, 1914, the Emperor gave and by the evening of the same day published the Manifesto on the War, as well as the Personal Highest Decree, in which he, “not recognizing the possibility, for reasons of a national nature, to now become the head of Our land and naval forces intended for military actions,” ordered Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich to be Supreme Commander-in-Chief.

By decrees of July 24, 1914, the sessions of the State Council and the Duma were interrupted from July 26. On July 26, a manifesto on war with Austria was published. On the same day, the Supreme Reception of members of the State Council and the Duma took place: the emperor arrived at the Winter Palace on a yacht together with Nikolai Nikolaevich and, entering the Nicholas Hall, addressed those gathered with the following words: “Germany and then Austria declared war on Russia. That huge upsurge of patriotic feelings of love for the Motherland and devotion to the Throne, which swept like a hurricane across our entire land, serves in My eyes and, I think, in yours, as a guarantee that Our great Mother Russia will bring the war sent by the Lord God to the desired end. I am confident that each and every one of you in your place will help Me endure the test sent down to Me and that everyone, starting with Me, will fulfill their duty to the end. Great is the God of the Russian Land!” At the end of his response speech, the Chairman of the Duma, Chamberlain M.V. Rodzianko, said: “Without differences of opinions, views and convictions, the State Duma on behalf of the Russian Land calmly and firmly says to its Tsar: “Be of good cheer, Sovereign, the Russian people are with you and, firmly trusting by the mercy of God, will not stop at any sacrifices until the enemy is broken and the dignity of the Motherland is protected.“”

With a manifesto dated October 20 (November 2), 1914, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire: “In a hitherto unsuccessful struggle with Russia, trying by all means to increase their forces, Germany and Austria-Hungary resorted to the help of the Ottoman government and brought Turkey, blinded by them, into the war with us . The Turkish fleet, led by the Germans, dared to treacherously attack our Black Sea coast. Immediately after this, We commanded the Russian ambassador in Constantinople, with all ambassadorial and consular ranks, to leave the borders of Turkey. Together with all the Russian people, we adamantly believe that Turkey’s current reckless intervention in military operations will only accelerate the fatal course of events for it and will open the way for Russia to resolve the historical tasks bequeathed to it by its ancestors on the shores of the Black Sea.” The government press organ reported that on October 21, “the day of the Accession to the Throne of the Sovereign Emperor took on the character of a national holiday in Tiflis, in connection with the war with Turkey”; on the same day, the Viceroy received a deputation of 100 prominent Armenians led by a bishop: the deputation “asked the Count to bring to the feet of the Monarch of Great Russia the feelings of boundless devotion and ardent love of the loyal Armenian people”; then a deputation of Sunni and Shia Muslims presented themselves.

During the period of Nikolai Nikolayevich's command, the tsar traveled to Headquarters several times for meetings with the command (September 21 - 23, October 22 - 24, November 18 - 20); in November 1914 he also traveled to the south of Russia and the Caucasian front.

At the beginning of June 1915, the situation on the fronts deteriorated sharply: Przemysl, a fortress city captured with huge losses in March, was surrendered. At the end of June Lvov was abandoned. All military acquisitions were lost, and the Russian Empire began losing its own territory. In July, Warsaw, all of Poland and part of Lithuania were surrendered; the enemy continued to advance. The public started talking about the government's inability to cope with the situation.

Both from public organizations, the State Duma, and from other groups, even many grand dukes, they started talking about creating a “Ministry of Public Trust.”

At the beginning of 1915, troops at the front began to experience a great need for weapons and ammunition. The need for a complete restructuring of the economy in accordance with the demands of the war became clear. On August 17, Nicholas II approved documents on the formation of four special meetings: on defense, fuel, food and transportation. These meetings, consisting of representatives of the government, private industrialists, the State Duma and the State Council and headed by the relevant ministers, were supposed to unite the efforts of the government, private industry and the public in mobilizing industry for military needs. The most important of these was the Special Conference on Defense.

Along with the creation of special meetings, in 1915 Military-Industrial Committees began to emerge - public organizations of the bourgeoisie that were semi-oppositional in nature.

On August 23, 1915, motivating his decision by the need to establish agreement between Headquarters and the government, to end the separation of the power at the head of the army from the power governing the country, Nicholas II assumed the title of Supreme Commander-in-Chief, dismissing the Grand Duke, popular in the army, from this post Nikolai Nikolaevich. According to State Council member (monarchist by conviction) Vladimir Gurko, the emperor’s decision was made at the instigation of Rasputin’s “gang” and caused disapproval from the overwhelming majority of members of the Council of Ministers, the generals and the public.

Due to the constant movements of Nicholas II from Headquarters to Petrograd, as well as insufficient attention to issues of troop leadership, the actual command of the Russian army was concentrated in the hands of his chief of staff, General M.V. Alekseev, and General Vasily Gurko, who replaced him at the end of 1916 - beginning of 1917. The autumn conscription of 1916 put 13 million people under arms, and losses in the war exceeded 2 million.

During 1916, Nicholas II replaced four chairmen of the Council of Ministers (I. L. Goremykin, B. V. Sturmer, A. F. Trepov and Prince N. D. Golitsyn), four ministers of internal affairs (A. N. Khvostov, B. . V. Sturmer, A. A. Khvostov and A. D. Protopopov), three ministers of foreign affairs (S. D. Sazonov, B. V. Sturmer and N. N. Pokrovsky), two military ministers (A. A. Polivanov, D.S. Shuvaev) and three ministers of justice (A.A. Khvostov, A.A. Makarov and N.A. Dobrovolsky).

On January 19 (February 1), 1917, a meeting of high-ranking representatives of the Allied powers opened in Petrograd, which went down in history as the Petrograd Conference ( q.v.): from Russia's allies it was attended by delegates from Great Britain, France and Italy, who also visited Moscow and the front, had meetings with politicians of different political orientations, with leaders of Duma factions; the latter unanimously told the head of the British delegation about an imminent revolution - either from below or from above (in the form of a palace coup).

Nicholas II assumed the Supreme Command of the Russian Army

Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich’s overestimation of his abilities ultimately led to a number of major military mistakes, and attempts to deflect the corresponding accusations from himself led to the fanning of Germanophobia and spy mania. One of these most significant episodes was the case of Lieutenant Colonel Myasoedov, which ended with the execution of an innocent man, where Nikolai Nikolaevich played the first violin along with A.I. Guchkov. The front commander, due to the disagreement of the judges, did not approve the sentence, but Myasoedov’s fate was decided by the resolution of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich: “Hang him anyway!” This case, in which the Grand Duke played the first role, led to an increase in clearly oriented suspicion of society and played a role, among other things, in the May 1915 German pogrom in Moscow. Military historian A. A. Kersnovsky states that by the summer of 1915, “a military catastrophe was approaching Russia,” and it was this threat that became the main reason for the Supreme decision to remove the Grand Duke from the post of Commander-in-Chief.

General M.V. Alekseev, who came to Headquarters in September 1914, was also “struck by the disorder, confusion and despondency reigning there. Both Nikolai Nikolaevich and Yanushkevich were confused by the failures of the North-Western Front and did not know what to do.”

Failures at the front continued: on July 22, Warsaw and Kovno were surrendered, the fortifications of Brest were blown up, the Germans were approaching the Western Dvina, and the evacuation of Riga began. In such conditions, Nicholas II decided to remove the Grand Duke, who could not cope, and himself stand at the head of the Russian army. According to the military historian A. A. Kersnovsky, such a decision by the emperor was the only way out:

On August 23, 1915, Nicholas II assumed the title of Supreme Commander-in-Chief, replacing Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, who was appointed commander of the Caucasian Front. M.V. Alekseev was appointed chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Soon, General Alekseev’s condition changed dramatically: the general perked up, his anxiety and complete confusion disappeared. The general on duty at Headquarters P.K. Kondzerovsky even thought that good news had come from the front, forcing the chief of staff to cheer up, but the reason was different: the new Supreme Commander-in-Chief received Alekseev’s report on the situation at the front and gave him certain instructions; A telegram was sent to the front saying “not a step back now.” The Vilna-Molodechno breakthrough was ordered to be liquidated by the troops of General Evert. Alekseev was busy implementing the Emperor’s order:

Meanwhile, Nikolai’s decision caused a mixed reaction, given that all the ministers opposed this step and only his wife unconditionally spoke in favor of it. Minister A.V. Krivoshein said:

The soldiers of the Russian army greeted Nicholas's decision to take up the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief without enthusiasm. At the same time, the German command was satisfied with the resignation of Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich from the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief - they considered him a tough and skillful opponent. A number of his strategic ideas were assessed by Erich Ludendorff as extremely bold and brilliant.

The result of this decision of Nicholas II was colossal. During the Sventsyansky breakthrough on September 8 - October 2, German troops were defeated and their offensive was stopped. The parties switched to positional warfare: the brilliant Russian counterattacks that followed in the Vilna-Molodechno region and the events that followed made it possible, after the successful September operation, to prepare for a new stage of the war, no longer fearing an enemy offensive. Work began to begin throughout Russia on the formation and training of new troops. Industry was rapidly producing ammunition and military equipment. Such work became possible due to the emerging confidence that the enemy’s advance had been stopped. By the spring of 1917, new armies were created, provided with equipment and ammunition better than ever before during the entire war.

The autumn conscription of 1916 put 13 million people under arms, and losses in the war exceeded 2 million.

During 1916, Nicholas II replaced four chairmen of the Council of Ministers (I. L. Goremykin, B. V. Sturmer, A. F. Trepov and Prince N. D. Golitsyn), four ministers of internal affairs (A. N. Khvostov, B. V. Sturmer, A. A. Khvostov and A. D. Protopopov), three foreign ministers (S. D. Sazonov, B. V. Sturmer and N. N. Pokrovsky), two military ministers (A. A. Polivanov, D.S. Shuvaev) and three ministers of justice (A.A. Khvostov, A.A. Makarov and N.A. Dobrovolsky).

By January 1, 1917, changes had also occurred in the State Council. Nicholas expelled 17 members and appointed new ones.

On January 19 (February 1), 1917, a meeting of high-ranking representatives of the Allied powers opened in Petrograd, which went down in history as the Petrograd Conference (q.v.): from the allies of Russia it was attended by delegates from Great Britain, France and Italy, who also visited Moscow and the front, had meetings with politicians of different political orientations, with leaders of Duma factions; the latter unanimously told the head of the British delegation about an imminent revolution - either from below or from above (in the form of a palace coup).

Probing the world

Nicholas II, hoping for an improvement in the situation in the country if the spring offensive of 1917 was successful (as agreed upon at the Petrograd Conference), did not intend to conclude a separate peace with the enemy - he saw the victorious end of the war as the most important means of strengthening the throne. Hints that Russia might begin negotiations for a separate peace were a diplomatic game that forced the Entente to accept the need to establish Russian control over the Straits.

Fall of the Monarchy

Growing revolutionary sentiments

The war, during which there was a widespread mobilization of the working-age male population, horses and massive requisition of livestock and agricultural products, had a detrimental effect on the economy, especially in the countryside. Among the politicized Petrograd society, the authorities were discredited by scandals (in particular, related to the influence of G. E. Rasputin and his henchmen - “dark forces”) and suspicions of treason; Nicholas’s declarative commitment to the idea of ​​“autocratic” power came into sharp conflict with the liberal and leftist aspirations of a significant part of the Duma members and society.

General A.I. Denikin testified about the mood in the army after the revolution: “As for the attitude towards the throne, as a general phenomenon, in the officer corps there was a desire to distinguish the person of the sovereign from the court dirt that surrounded him, from the political mistakes and crimes of the tsar government, which clearly and steadily led to the destruction of the country and the defeat of the army. They forgave the sovereign, they tried to justify him. As we will see below, by 1917, this attitude among a certain part of the officers was shaken, causing the phenomenon that Prince Volkonsky called a “revolution on the right,” but on purely political grounds.”

Since December 1916, a “coup” in one form or another was expected in the court and political environment, the possible abdication of the emperor in favor of Tsarevich Alexei under the regency of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich.

On February 23, 1917, a strike began in Petrograd; after 3 days it became universal. On the morning of February 27, 1917, the soldiers of the Petrograd garrison revolted and joined the strikers; Only the police provided resistance to riots and riots. A similar uprising took place in Moscow. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, not realizing the seriousness of what was happening, wrote to her husband on February 25: “This is a “hooligan” movement, boys and girls run around shouting that they have no bread just to incite, and the workers do not allow others to work. If it were very cold, they would probably stay at home. But all this will pass and calm down, if only the Duma behaves decently.”

On February 25, 1917, by decree of Nicholas II, meetings of the State Duma were stopped from February 26 to April of the same year, which further inflamed the situation. Chairman of the State Duma M.V. Rodzianko sent a number of telegrams to the emperor about the events in Petrograd. Telegram received at Headquarters on February 26, 1917 at 22:40: “I most humbly inform Your Majesty that the popular unrest that began in Petrograd is becoming spontaneous and of threatening proportions. Their foundations are the lack of baked bread and the weak supply of flour, inspiring panic, but mainly complete distrust in the authorities, which are unable to lead the country out of a difficult situation.” In a telegram on February 27, 1917 he reported: “The civil war has begun and is flaring up. Order the legislative chambers to be reconvened in order to repeal your Highest decree. If the movement spills over into the army, the collapse of Russia, and with it the dynasty, is inevitable.”

The Duma, which then had high authority in a revolutionary-minded environment, did not obey the decree of February 25 and continued to work in the so-called private meetings of members of the State Duma, convened on the evening of February 27 by the Temporary Committee of the State Duma. The latter assumed the role of the supreme authority immediately upon its formation.

Renunciation

On the evening of February 25, 1917, Nicholas ordered General S.S. Khabalov by telegram to put an end to the unrest by military force. Having sent General N.I. Ivanov to Petrograd on February 27 to suppress the uprising, Nicholas II on the evening of February 28 left for Tsarskoe Selo, but was unable to travel and, having lost contact with Headquarters, on March 1 arrived in Pskov, where the headquarters of the armies of the Northern Front of General N was located. V. Ruzsky. At about 3 p.m. on March 2, he decided to abdicate in favor of his son during the regency of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, and in the evening of the same day he announced to the arriving A.I. Guchkov and V.V. Shulgin about the decision to abdicate for his son.

On March 2 (15) at 23 hours 40 minutes (in the document the time of signing was indicated as 15 hours) Nikolai handed over to Guchkov and Shulgin the Manifesto of Abdication, which, in particular, read: “We command OUR Brother to rule the affairs of the state in complete and inviolable unity with representatives of the people in legislative institutions, on those principles that will be established by them, having taken an inviolable oath. "

Some researchers have questioned the authenticity of the manifesto (renunciation).

Guchkov and Shulgin also demanded that Nicholas II sign two decrees: on the appointment of Prince G. E. Lvov as head of government and Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich as supreme commander-in-chief; the former emperor signed decrees, indicating in them the time of 14 hours.

General A.I. Denikin stated in his memoirs that on March 3 in Mogilev, Nikolai told General Alekseev:

A moderately right-wing Moscow newspaper on March 4 reported the emperor’s words to Tuchkov and Shulgin as follows: “I thought about all this,” he said, “and decided to renounce. But I do not abdicate in favor of my son, since I must leave Russia, since I am leaving the Supreme Power. In no case do I consider it possible to leave my son, whom I love very much, in Russia, to leave him in complete obscurity. That’s why I decided to transfer the throne to my brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich.”

Exile and execution

From March 9 to August 14, 1917, Nikolai Romanov and his family lived under arrest in the Alexander Palace of Tsarskoe Selo.

At the end of March, the Minister of the Provisional Government P. N. Milyukov tried to send Nicholas and his family to England, in the care of George V, for which the preliminary consent of the British side was obtained; but in April, due to the unstable internal political situation in England itself, the King chose to abandon such a plan - according to some evidence, against the advice of Prime Minister Lloyd George. However, in 2006, some documents became known indicating that until May 1918, the MI 1 unit of the British Military Intelligence Agency was preparing for an operation to rescue the Romanovs, which was never brought to the stage of practical implementation.

In view of the strengthening of the revolutionary movement and anarchy in Petrograd, the Provisional Government, fearing for the lives of the prisoners, decided to transfer them deep into Russia, to Tobolsk; they were allowed to take the necessary furniture and personal belongings from the palace, and also offer service personnel, if they wish, to voluntarily accompany them to the place of new accommodation and further service. On the eve of departure, the head of the Provisional Government, A.F. Kerensky, arrived and brought with him the brother of the former emperor, Mikhail Alexandrovich (Mikhail Alexandrovich was exiled to Perm, where on the night of June 13, 1918 he was killed by local Bolshevik authorities).

On August 14, 1917, at 6:10 a.m., a train with members of the imperial family and servants under the sign “Japanese Red Cross Mission” set off from Tsarskoe Selo. On August 17, the train arrived in Tyumen, then the arrested were transported along the river to Tobolsk. The Romanov family settled in the governor's house, which was specially renovated for their arrival. The family was allowed to walk across the street and boulevard to services at the Church of the Annunciation. The security regime here was much lighter than in Tsarskoe Selo. The family led a calm, measured life.

At the beginning of April 1918, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) authorized the transfer of the Romanovs to Moscow for the purpose of their trial. At the end of April 1918, the prisoners were transported to Yekaterinburg, where a house belonging to mining engineer N.N. was requisitioned to house the Romanovs. Ipatiev. Five service personnel lived with them here: doctor Botkin, footman Trupp, room girl Demidova, cook Kharitonov and cook Sednev.

At the beginning of July 1918, the Ural military commissar F.I. Goloshchekin went to Moscow to receive instructions on the future fate of the royal family, which was decided at the highest level of the Bolshevik leadership (except for V.I. Lenin, Ya. M. Sverdlov took an active part in deciding the fate of the former tsar).

On July 12, 1918, the Ural Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, in the face of the retreat of the Bolsheviks under the pressure of white troops and members of the Constituent Assembly of the Czechoslovak Corps loyal to the Committee, adopted a resolution to execute the entire family. Nikolai Romanov, Alexandra Fedorovna, their children, Doctor Botkin and three servants (except for the cook Sednev) were shot in the “House of Special Purpose” - Ipatiev’s mansion in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918. Senior investigator for particularly important cases of the General Russian prosecutor's office Vladimir Solovyov, who led the investigation of the criminal case into the death of the royal family, came to the conclusion that Lenin and Sverdlov were against the execution of the royal family, and the execution itself was organized by the Urals Council, where the left Socialist Revolutionaries had enormous influence, in order to disrupt the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Soviet Russia and Kaiser's Germany. After the February Revolution, the Germans, despite the war with Russia, were worried about the fate of the Russian imperial family, because the wife of Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna, was German, and their daughters were both Russian princesses and German princesses.

Religiosity and view of one's power. Church politics

Protopresbyter Georgy Shavelsky, who was a member of the Holy Synod in the pre-revolutionary years (closely communicated with the emperor at Headquarters during the World War), while in exile, testified to the “humble, simple and direct” religiosity of the tsar, to his strict attendance at Sunday and holiday services, to “ generous outpouring of many benefits for the Church." The opposition politician of the early 20th century, V.P. Obninsky, also wrote about his “sincere piety demonstrated during every divine service.” General A. A. Mosolov noted: “The Tsar was thoughtful about his rank as God’s anointed. You should have seen with what attention he considered requests for pardon from those sentenced to death. He received from his father, whom he revered and whom he tried to imitate even in everyday trifles, an unshakable belief in the fate of his power. His calling came from God. He was responsible for his actions only before his conscience and the Almighty. The king answered to his conscience and was guided by intuition, instinct, that incomprehensible thing that is now called the subconscious. He bowed only to the elemental, irrational, and sometimes contrary to reason, to the weightless, to his ever-increasing mysticism.”

Vladimir Gurko, a former comrade of the Minister of Internal Affairs, in his émigré essay (1927) emphasized: “Nicholas II’s idea of ​​​​the limits of the power of the Russian autocrat was at all times wrong. Seeing himself, first of all, as God’s anointed, he considered every decision he made to be legal and essentially correct. “This is my will,” was the phrase that repeatedly flew from his lips and should, in his opinion, stop all objections to the assumption he had expressed. Regis voluntas suprema lex esto - this is the formula with which he was thoroughly imbued. It was not a belief, it was a religion. Ignoring the law, non-recognition of either existing rules or ingrained customs was one of the distinctive features of the last Russian autocrat.” This view of the character and nature of his power, according to Gurko, determined the degree of favor of the emperor towards his closest employees: “He disagreed with the ministers not on the basis of disagreements in understanding the procedure for managing this or that branch of the state system, but only because the head any department showed excessive benevolence towards the public, and especially if he did not want and could not recognize the royal power in all cases as unlimited. In most cases, the differences of opinion between the Tsar and his ministers boiled down to the fact that the ministers defended the rule of law, and the Tsar insisted on his omnipotence. As a result, only such ministers as N.A. Maklakov or Stürmer, who agreed to violate any laws in order to maintain ministerial portfolios, retained the favor of the Sovereign.”

The beginning of the 20th century in the life of the Russian Church, the secular head of which he was according to the laws of the Russian Empire, was marked by a movement for reforms in church administration; a significant part of the episcopate and some laity advocated the convening of an All-Russian local council and the possible restoration of the patriarchate in Russia; in 1905 there were attempts to restore the autocephaly of the Georgian Church (then the Georgian Exarchate of the Russian Holy Synod).

Nicholas, in principle, agreed with the idea of ​​a Council; but considered it untimely and in January 1906 established the Pre-Conciliar Presence, and by the Highest Command of February 28, 1912 - “a permanent pre-conciliar meeting under the Holy Synod, until the convening of the Council.”

On March 1, 1916, he ordered “that in the future, reports of the Chief Prosecutor to His Imperial Majesty on matters relating to the internal structure of church life and the essence of church government should be made in the presence of the leading member of the Holy Synod, for the purpose of comprehensive canonical coverage of them,” which was welcomed in the conservative press as “a great act of royal trust”

During his reign, an unprecedented (for the synodal period) large number of canonizations of new saints took place, and he insisted on the canonization of the most famous - Seraphim of Sarov (1903) - despite the reluctance of the chief prosecutor of the Synod, Pobedonostsev; also glorified: Theodosius of Chernigov (1896), Isidor Yuryevsky (1898), Anna Kashinskaya (1909), Euphrosyne of Polotsk (1910), Efrosin of Sinozersky (1911), Iosaf of Belgorod (1911), Patriarch Hermogenes (1913), Pitirim of Tambov (1914 ), John of Tobolsk (1916).

As the interference of Grigory Rasputin (acting through the empress and hierarchs loyal to him) in synodal affairs increased in the 1910s, dissatisfaction with the entire synodal system grew among a significant part of the clergy, who, for the most part, reacted positively to the fall of the monarchy in March 1917.

Lifestyle, habits, hobbies

Most of the time, Nicholas II lived with his family in the Alexander Palace (Tsarskoe Selo) or Peterhof. In the summer I vacationed in Crimea at the Livadia Palace. For recreation, he also annually made two-week trips around the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea on the yacht “Standart”. I read both light entertainment literature and serious scientific works, often on historical topics; Russian and foreign newspapers and magazines. I smoked cigarettes.

He was interested in photography and also loved watching movies; All his children also took photographs. In the 1900s, he became interested in the then new type of transport - cars (“the tsar had one of the most extensive car parks in Europe”).

The official government press in 1913, in an essay about the everyday and family side of the emperor’s life, wrote, in particular: “The Emperor does not like so-called secular pleasures. His favorite pastime is the hereditary passion of the Russian Tsars - hunting. It is arranged both in permanent places of the Tsar’s stay, and in special places adapted for this purpose - in Spala, near Skierniewice, in Belovezhye.”

At the age of 9 he began keeping a diary. The archive contains 50 voluminous notebooks - the original diary for the years 1882-1918; some of them were published.

Family. Spouse's political influence

"> " title=" Letter from V.K. Nikolai Mikhailovich to the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna on December 16, 1916: All of Russia knows that the late Rasputin and A.F. are one and the same. The first was killed, now he must disappear and other" align="right" class="img"> !}

The first conscious meeting of Tsarevich Nicholas with his future wife took place in January 1889 (Princess Alice’s second visit to Russia), when mutual attraction arose. That same year, Nikolai asked his father for permission to marry her, but was refused. In August 1890, during Alice's 3rd visit, Nikolai's parents did not allow him to meet her; A letter in the same year to Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna from Queen Victoria of England, in which the grandmother of the potential bride probed the prospects of a marriage union, also had a negative result. However, due to the deteriorating health of Alexander III and the persistence of the Tsarevich, on April 8 (old style) 1894 in Coburg at the wedding of the Duke of Hesse Ernst-Ludwig (Alice's brother) and Princess Victoria-Melita of Edinburgh (daughter of Duke Alfred and Maria Alexandrovna) Their engagement took place, announced in Russia with a simple newspaper notice.

On November 14, 1894, Nicholas II was married to the German princess Alice of Hesse, who after anointing (performed on October 21, 1894 in Livadia) took the name Alexandra Feodorovna. In subsequent years, they had four daughters - Olga (November 3, 1895), Tatyana (May 29, 1897), Maria (June 14, 1899) and Anastasia (June 5, 1901). On July 30 (August 12), 1904, the fifth child and only son, Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, appeared in Peterhof.

All correspondence between Alexandra Feodorovna and Nicholas II has been preserved (in English); only one letter from Alexandra Feodorovna was lost, all her letters were numbered by the empress herself; published in Berlin in 1922.

Senator Vl. I. Gurko attributed the origins of Alexandra’s intervention in the affairs of government to the beginning of 1905, when the tsar was in a particularly difficult political situation - when he began to transmit the state acts he issued for her review; Gurko believed: “If the Sovereign, due to his lack of the necessary internal power, did not possess the authority required for a ruler, then the Empress, on the contrary, was entirely woven from authority, which was also based on her inherent arrogance.”

General A. I. Denikin wrote in his memoirs about the role of the empress in the development of the revolutionary situation in Russia in the last years of the monarchy:

“All possible options regarding Rasputin’s influence penetrated the front, and the censorship collected enormous material on this topic, even in letters from soldiers in the army. But the most amazing impression was made by the fatal word: It referred to the empress. In the army, loudly, not embarrassed by either place or time, there was talk about the empress’s insistent demand for a separate peace, about her betrayal of Field Marshal Kitchener, about whose trip she allegedly informed the Germans, etc. Reliving the past in memory, taking into account that The impression that the rumor about the treason of the empress made in the army, I believe that this circumstance played a huge role in the mood of the army, in its attitude towards both the dynasty and the revolution. General Alekseev, to whom I asked this painful question in the spring of 1917, answered me somehow vaguely and reluctantly: When sorting through the empress's papers, she found a map with a detailed designation of the troops of the entire front, which was produced only in two copies - for me and for the sovereign. This made a depressing impression on me. You never know who could use it... Say no more. Changed the conversation... History will undoubtedly reveal the extremely negative influence that Empress Alexandra Feodorovna had on the management of the Russian state in the period preceding the revolution. As for the issue of “treason,” this unfortunate rumor was not confirmed by a single fact, and was subsequently refuted by an investigation by the Muravyov Commission specially appointed by the Provisional Government, with the participation of representatives from the Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. »

Personal assessments of his contemporaries who knew him

Different opinions about the willpower of Nicholas II and his accessibility to environmental influences

The former Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Count S. Yu. Witte, in connection with the critical situation on the eve of the publication of the Manifesto on October 17, 1905, when the possibility of introducing a military dictatorship in the country was discussed, wrote in his memoirs:

General A.F. Roediger (as Minister of War in 1905-1909, had a personal report to the sovereign twice a week) wrote about him in his memoirs (1917-1918): “Before the start of the report, the sovereign always talked about something extraneous; if there was no other topic, then about the weather, about his walk, about the trial portion that was served to him every day before reports, either from the Convoy or from the Consolidated Regiment. He loved these cookings very much and once told me that he had just tried pearl barley soup, which he could not get at home: Kyuba (his cook) says that such a gain can only be achieved by cooking for a hundred people. The sovereign considered it his duty to appoint senior commanders know. He had an amazing memory. He knew a lot of people who served in the Guard or were seen by him for some reason, remembered the military exploits of individuals and military units, knew the units that rebelled and remained faithful during the unrest, knew the number and name of each regiment, the composition of each division and corps, the location many parts... He told me that in rare cases of insomnia, he begins to list the shelves in his memory in numerical order and usually falls asleep when he reaches the reserve parts, which he does not know so well. To know life in the regiments, he read the orders for the Preobrazhensky Regiment every day and explained to me that he reads them every day, since if you only miss a few days, you will become spoiled and stop reading them. He liked to dress lightly and told me that he sweated differently, especially when he was nervous. At first, he willingly wore a white jacket of a naval style at home, and then, when the riflemen of the imperial family were returned to their old uniform with crimson silk shirts, he almost always wore it at home, moreover, in the summer heat - right on his naked body. Despite the difficult days that befell him, he never lost his composure and always remained calm and affable, an equally diligent worker. He told me that he was an optimist, and indeed, even in difficult moments he retained faith in the future, in the power and greatness of Russia. Always friendly and affectionate, he made a charming impression. His inability to refuse anyone’s request, especially if it came from an honored person and was somewhat feasible, sometimes interfered with the matter and put the minister, who had to be strict and update the command staff of the army, in a difficult position, but at the same time increased his charm his personality. His reign was unsuccessful and, moreover, through his own fault. His shortcomings are visible to everyone, they are also visible from my real memories. His merits are easily forgotten, since they were visible only to people who saw him up close, and I consider it my duty to note them, especially since I still remember him with the warmest feeling and sincere regret.”

Protopresbyter of the military and naval clergy Georgy Shavelsky, who communicated closely with the tsar in the last months before the revolution, wrote about him in his study written in exile in the 1930s: “It is generally not easy for tsars to recognize the true, unvarnished life, for they are fenced off by a high wall from people and life. And Emperor Nicholas II raised this wall even higher with an artificial superstructure. This was the most characteristic feature of his mental make-up and his royal actions. This happened against his will, thanks to his manner of treating his subjects. Once he told the Minister of Foreign Affairs S.D. Sazonov: “I try not to think seriously about anything, otherwise I would have been in a grave long ago.” He put his interlocutor within strictly defined limits. The conversation began exclusively apolitical. The sovereign showed great attention and interest in the personality of his interlocutor: in the stages of his service, in his exploits and merits. But as soon as the interlocutor stepped out of this framework - touched upon any ailments of his current life, the sovereign immediately changed or outright stopped the conversation.”

Senator Vladimir Gurko wrote in exile: “The social environment that was close to the heart of Nicholas II, where he, by his own admission, rested his soul, was the environment of guards officers, as a result of which he so willingly accepted invitations to officer meetings of the guards officers who were most familiar to him from their personal composition.” regiments and sometimes sat on them until the morning. He was attracted to officer meetings by the ease that reigned there and the absence of burdensome court etiquette. In many ways, the Tsar retained his childish tastes and inclinations until his old age.”

Awards

Russian

• Order of St. Andrew the First-Called (05.20.1868)
• Order of St. Alexander Nevsky (05.20.1868)
• Order of the White Eagle (05/20/1868)
• Order of St. Anne 1st class. (05/20/1868)
• Order of St. Stanislaus 1st class. (05/20/1868)
• Order of St. Vladimir 4th class. (08/30/1890)
• Order of St. George 4th class. (25.10.1915)

Foreign

Highest degrees:

• Order of the Wendish Crown (Mecklenburg-Schwerin) (01/09/1879)
• Order of the Netherlands Lion (03/15/1881)
• Order of Merit of Duke Peter-Friedrich-Ludwig (Oldenburg) (04/15/1881)
• Order of the Rising Sun (Japan) (09/04/1882)
• Order of Loyalty (Baden) (15.05.1883)
• Order of the Golden Fleece (Spain) (05/15/1883)
• Order of Christ (Portugal) (05/15/1883)
• Order of the White Falcon (Saxe-Weimar) (05.15.1883)
• Order of the Seraphim (Sweden) (05/15/1883)
• Order of Ludwig (Hesse-Darmstadt) (05/02/1884)
• Order of St. Stephen (Austria-Hungary) (05/06/1884)
• Order of St. Hubert (Bavaria) (05/06/1884)
• Order of Leopold (Belgium) (05/06/1884)
• Order of St. Alexander (Bulgaria) (05/06/1884)
• Order of the Württemberg Crown (05/06/1884)
• Order of the Savior (Greece) (05/06/1884)
• Order of the Elephant (Denmark) (05/06/1884)
• Order of the Holy Sepulcher (Jerusalem Patriarchate) (05/06/1884)
• Order of the Annunciation (Italy) (05/06/1884)
• Order of Saint Mauritius and Lazarus (Italy) (05/06/1884)
• Order of the Italian Crown (Italy) (05/06/1884)
• Order of the Black Eagle (German Empire) (05/06/1884)
• Order of the Romanian Star (05/06/1884)
• Order of the Legion of Honor (05/06/1884)
• Order of Osmaniye (Ottoman Empire) (07/28/1884)
• Portrait of the Persian Shah (07/28/1884)
• Order of the Southern Cross (Brazil) (09/19/1884)
• Order of Noble Bukhara (11/02/1885), with diamond insignia (02/27/1889)
• Family Order of the Chakri Dynasty (Siam) (03/08/1891)
• Order of the Crown of the State of Bukhara with diamond insignia (11/21/1893)
• Order of the Seal of Solomon 1st class. (Ethiopia) (06/30/1895)
• Order of the Double Dragon, studded with diamonds (04/22/1896)
• Order of the Sun of Alexander (Bukhara Emirate) (05/18/1898)
• Order of the Bath (Britain)
• Order of the Garter (Britain)
• Royal Victorian Order (British) (1904)
• Order of Charles I (Romania) (06/15/1906)

After death

Assessment in Russian emigration

In the preface to his memoirs, General A. A. Mosolov, who was for a number of years in the emperor’s close circle, wrote in the early 1930s: “Sovereign Nicholas II, His family and His entourage were almost the only object of accusation for many circles , representing Russian public opinion of the pre-revolutionary era. After the catastrophic collapse of our fatherland, accusations focused almost exclusively on the Sovereign.” General Mosolov assigned a special role in turning society away from the imperial family and from the throne in general to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna: “the discord between society and the court became so aggravated that society, instead of supporting the throne according to its deep-rooted monarchical views, turned away from it and looked at his downfall with real gloating.”

From the beginning of the 1920s, monarchist-minded circles of the Russian emigration published works about the last tsar, which had an apologetic (later also hagiographic) character and a propaganda orientation; The most famous among these was the study of Professor S. S. Oldenburg, published in 2 volumes in Belgrade (1939) and Munich (1949), respectively. One of Oldenburg’s final conclusions was: “The most difficult and most forgotten feat of Emperor Nicholas II was that He, under incredibly difficult conditions, brought Russia to the threshold of victory: His opponents did not allow her to cross this threshold.”

Official assessment in the USSR

An article about him in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1st edition; 1939): “Nicholas II was as limited and ignorant as his father. The inherent traits of Nicholas II of a stupid, narrow-minded, suspicious and proud despot during his stay on the throne received especially vivid expression. The mental squalor and moral decay of court circles reached extreme limits. The regime was rotting at the root Until the last minute, Nicholas II remained what he was - a stupid autocrat, unable to understand either the surrounding situation or even his own benefit. He was preparing to march on Petrograd in order to drown the revolutionary movement in blood and, together with the generals close to him, discussed a plan of treason. »

The later (post-war) Soviet historiographical publications, intended for a wide circle, in describing the history of Russia during the reign of Nicholas II, sought, as far as possible, to avoid mentioning him as a person and personality: for example, “A Manual on the History of the USSR for Preparatory Departments of Universities” ( 1979) on 82 pages of text (without illustrations), outlining the socio-economic and political development of the Russian Empire in a given period, mentions the name of the emperor who stood at the head of the state at the time described, only once - when describing the events of his abdication in favor of his brother (nothing is said about his accession; the name of V.I. Lenin is mentioned 121 times on the same pages).

Church veneration

Since the 1920s, in the Russian diaspora, on the initiative of the Union of Devotees of the Memory of Emperor Nicholas II, regular funeral commemorations of Emperor Nicholas II were carried out three times a year (on his birthday, namesake day and on the anniversary of his assassination), but his veneration as a saint began to spread after the end of Second World War.

On October 19 (November 1), 1981, Emperor Nicholas and his family were glorified by the Russian Church Abroad (ROCOR), which then had no church communion with the Moscow Patriarchate in the USSR.

Decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church of August 20, 2000: “To glorify the Royal Family as passion-bearers in the host of new martyrs and confessors of Russia: Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, Tsarevich Alexy, Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia.” Memorial Day: July 4 (17).

The act of canonization was received ambiguously by Russian society: opponents of canonization claim that the proclamation of Nicholas II as a saint was of a political nature.

In 2003, in Yekaterinburg, on the site of the demolished house of engineer N.N. Ipatiev, where Nicholas II and his family were shot, the Church on the Blood was built? in the name of All Saints who shone in the Russian land, in front of which there is a monument to the family of Nicholas II.

Rehabilitation. Identification of remains

In December 2005, a representative of the head of the “Russian Imperial House” Maria Vladimirovna Romanova sent to the Russian Prosecutor’s Office an application for the rehabilitation of the executed former Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family as victims of political repression. According to the application, after a number of refusals to satisfy, on October 1, 2008, the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation made a decision (despite the opinion of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, who stated in court that the requirements for rehabilitation do not comply with the provisions of the law due to the fact that these persons were not arrested for political reasons , and no judicial decision was made to execute) on the rehabilitation of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family.

On October 30 of the same 2008, it was reported that the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation decided to rehabilitate 52 people from the entourage of Emperor Nicholas II and his family.

In December 2008, at a scientific and practical conference held on the initiative of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, with the participation of geneticists from Russia and the United States, it was stated that the remains found in 1991 near Yekaterinburg and interred on June 17, 1998 in the Catherine's chapel of the Peter and Paul Cathedral (St. Petersburg), belong to Nicholas II. In January 2009, the Investigative Committee completed a criminal investigation into the circumstances of the death and burial of the family of Nicholas II; the investigation was terminated “due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution and the death of persons who committed premeditated murder”

A representative of M.V. Romanova, who calls herself the head of the Russian Imperial House, stated in 2009 that “Maria Vladimirovna fully shares on this issue the position of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has not found sufficient grounds for recognizing the “Ekaterinburg remains” as belonging to members of the Royal Family.” Other representatives of the Romanovs, led by N. R. Romanov, took a different position: the latter, in particular, took part in the burial of the remains in July 1998, saying: “We came to close the era.”

Monuments to Emperor Nicholas II

Even during the life of the last Emperor, no less than twelve monuments were erected in his honor, related to his visits to various cities and military camps. Basically, these monuments were columns or obelisks with an imperial monogram and a corresponding inscription. The only monument, which was a bronze bust of the Emperor on a high granite pedestal, was erected in Helsingfors for the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov. To this day, none of these monuments have survived. (Sokol K. G. Monumental monuments of the Russian Empire. Catalog. M., 2006, pp. 162-165)

Ironically, the first monument to the Russian Tsar-Martyr was erected in 1924 in Germany by the Germans who fought with Russia - officers of one of the Prussian regiments, whose Chief was Emperor Nicholas II, “erected a worthy monument to Him in an extremely honorable place.”

Currently, monumental monuments to Emperor Nicholas II, from small busts to full-length bronze statues, are installed in the following cities and towns:

• village Vyritsa, Gatchina district, Leningrad region. On the territory of the mansion of S.V. Vasiliev. Bronze statue of the Emperor on a high pedestal. Opened in 2007
• ur. Ganina Yama, near Yekaterinburg. In the complex of the Monastery of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers. Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened in the 2000s.
• Yekaterinburg city. Next to the Church of All Saints who shone forth in the Russian Land (Church on the Blood). The bronze composition includes figures of the Emperor and members of His Family. Opened on July 16, 2003, sculptors K.V. Grunberg and A.G. Mazaev.
• With. Klementyevo (near Sergiev Posad) Moscow region. Behind the altar of the Assumption Church. Plaster bust on a pedestal. Opened in 2007
• Kursk. Next to the Church of Saints Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia (Druzhby Ave.). Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened on September 24, 2003, sculptor V. M. Klykov.
• Moscow city. At the Vagankovskoye cemetery, next to the Church of the Resurrection of the Word. A memorial monument consisting of a marble worship cross and four granite slabs with carved inscriptions. Opened on May 19, 1991, sculptor N. Pavlov. On July 19, 1997, the memorial was seriously damaged by an explosion; it was subsequently restored, but was damaged again in November 2003.
• Podolsk, Moscow region. On the territory of the estate of V.P. Melikhov, next to the Church of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers. The first plaster monument by sculptor V. M. Klykov, which was a full-length statue of the Emperor, was opened on July 28, 1998, but was blown up on November 1, 1998. A new, this time bronze, monument based on the same model was reopened on January 16, 1999.
• Pushkin. Near the Feodorovsky Sovereign Cathedral. Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened on July 17, 1993, sculptor V.V. Zaiko.
• Saint Petersburg. Behind the altar of the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross (Ligovsky Ave., 128). Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened on May 19, 2002, sculptor S. Yu. Alipov.
• Sochi. On the territory of St. Michael the Archangel Cathedral. Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened on November 21, 2008, sculptor V. Zelenko.
• village Syrostan (near the city of Miass) Chelyabinsk region. Near the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross. Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened in July 1996, sculptor P. E. Lyovochkin.
• With. Taininskoye (near the city of Mytishchi) Moscow region. A full-length statue of the Emperor on a high pedestal. Opened on May 26, 1996, sculptor V. M. Klykov. On April 1, 1997, the monument was blown up, but three years later it was restored using the same model and reopened on August 20, 2000.
• village Shushenskoye, Krasnoyarsk Territory. Next to the factory entrance of Shushenskaya Marka LLC (Pionerskaya St., 10). Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened on December 24, 2010, sculptor K. M. Zinich.

• In 2007, at the Russian Academy of Arts, sculptor Z. K. Tsereteli presented a monumental bronze composition consisting of figures of the Emperor and members of His Family standing before the executioners in the basement of the Ipatiev House, and depicting the last minutes of their lives. To date, not a single city has yet expressed a desire to install this monument.

Memorial temples - monuments to the Emperor include:

• Temple - a monument to the Tsar - Martyr Nicholas II in Brussels. It was founded on February 2, 1936, built according to the design of the architect N.I. Istselenov, and solemnly consecrated on October 1, 1950 by Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky). The temple-monument is under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church (z).
• Church of All Saints who shone forth in the Russian Land (Church - on - Blood) in Yekaterinburg. (about him, see a separate article on Wikipedia)

Filmography

Several feature films have been made about Nicholas II and his family, among which are “Agony” (1981), the English-American film “Nicholas and Alexandra” ( Nicholas and Alexandra, 1971) and two Russian films “The Regicide” (1991) and “The Romanovs. The Crowned Family" (2000). Hollywood made several films about the supposedly saved daughter of the Tsar Anastasia “Anastasia” ( Anastasia, 1956) and “Anastasia, or the secret of Anna” ( , USA, 1986), as well as the cartoon “Anastasia” ( Anastasia, USA, 1997).

Film incarnations

• Alexander Galibin (The Life of Klim Samgin 1987, “The Romanovs. The Crowned Family” (2000)
• Anatoly Romashin (Agony 1974/1981)
• Oleg Yankovsky (The Kingslayer)
• Andrey Rostotsky (Split 1993, Dreams 1993, His cross)
• Andrey Kharitonov (Sins of the Fathers 2004)
• Borislav Brondukov (Kotsyubinsky Family)
• Gennady Glagolev (Pale Horse)
• Nikolay Burlyaev (Admiral)
• Michael Jayston ("Nikolai and Alexandra" Nicholas and Alexandra, 1971)
• Omar Sharif (“Anastasia, or the Secret of Anna” Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna, USA, 1986)
• Ian McKellen (Rasputin, USA, 1996)
• Alexander Galibin (“The Life of Klim Samgin” 1987, “The Romanovs. The Crowned Family”, 2000)
• Oleg Yankovsky (“The Kingslayer”, 1991)
• Andrey Rostotsky (“Raskol”, 1993, “Dreams”, 1993, “Your Cross”)
• Vladimir Baranov (Russian Ark, 2002)
• Gennady Glagolev (“White Horse”, 2003)
• Andrei Kharitonov (“Sins of the Fathers”, 2004)
• Andrey Nevraev (“Death of an Empire”, 2005)
• Evgeny Stychkin (You are my happiness, 2005)
• Mikhail Eliseev (Stolypin...Unlearned Lessons, 2006)
• Yaroslav Ivanov (“Conspiracy”, 2007)
• Nikolay Burlyaev (“Admiral”, 2008)