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- Overall, the reign of Nicholas II was marked by the economic development of Russia on one side, and worsening of socio-political issues on the other. The problems of the state and not a very efficient governance of Nicholas II led to the strengthening of revolutionary movements and, eventually, to the collapse of the Russian Empire.
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Mar 13, 2017 · Russian Revolution. The Abdication of Nicholas II Left Russia Without a Czar for the First Time in 300 Years. Events in Saint Petersburg 100 years ago brought the end to the Romanov dynasty....
He is a good man although he wasn't a good king nor a good listener when Sino-Russian war happen his ministers and even Rasputin advice him to not go with it but he don't listen same to WW1 since the country can be neutral in the argument but nope, he went along with the war
- Overview
- Russians turn against Nicholas II after a series of unpopular decisions
- World War I catastrophes and Rasputin’s reputation erode Nicholas’ public support
- During the October Revolution, Bolsheviks imprison the imperial family in a remote house
- After months of plotting, the Romanov family is assassinated by their Bolshevik captors
The imperial family fell out of favor with the Russian public long before their execution by Bolsheviks in July 1918.
When Nicholas Romanov was crowned czar of Russia in 1894, he seemed bewildered. “What is going to happen to me…to all Russia?” he asked an advisor when he assumed the throne. “I am not prepared to be Czar. I never even wanted to become one.”
Twenty-four years later, he seemed just as bewildered as a group of armed thugs, members of the Bolshevik secret police, moved in to assassinate him. Though he had been deposed months earlier, his crown and his name stolen from him and his family imprisoned, he did not expect to be murdered.
But unlike Czar Nicholas, historians have pieced together the exact reasons why the Romanov family was brutally assassinated and the context that led to their downfall.
The roots of the Romanov family’s murder can be found in the earliest days of Nicholas’ reign. The eldest son of Emperor Alexander III, Nicholas was his father’s designated heir. But Alexander did not adequately prepare his son to rule a Russia that was wracked with political turmoil. A strict autocrat, Alexander believed that a czar had to rule with an iron fist. He forbade anyone within the Russian Empire to speak non-Russian languages (even those in places like Poland), cracked down on the freedom of the press, and weakened his people’s political institutions.
As a result, Nicholas inherited a restless Russia. A few days after his coronation in 1896, nearly 1,400 of his subjects died during a huge stampede. They had gathered on a large field in Moscow to receive coronation gifts and souvenirs, but the day ended in tragedy. It was a disturbing beginning to Nicholas’ reign, and his bungled response earned him the nickname “Nicholas the Bloody.”
Nicholas’ son, the crown prince, Alexei, was born with hemophilia. But the family kept his disease, which would cause him to bleed to death from a slight cut, a secret. Empress Alexandra, his wife, became increasingly under the thrall of Grigori Rasputin, a mystic whom she believed had saved Alexei’s life. Rasputin’s growing influence within the family caused suspicion among the public, who resented his power.
Then, in 1914, Russia was drawn into World War I but was unprepared for the scale and magnitude of the fighting. Nicholas’ subjects were horrified by the number of casualties the country sustained. Russia had the largest number of deaths in the war—over 1.8 million military deaths, and about 1.5 million civilian deaths.
In November 1917, Bolshevik revolutionaries led by Vladimir Lenin took over the government. Nicholas tried to convince the British and then the French to give him asylum—after all, his wife was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria. But both countries refused, and the Romanovs found themselves in the hands of the newly formed revolutionary government.
The Romanovs' new life was dramatically different from the regal, opulent life they had lived in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Both Nicholas and Empress Alexandra were in denial and refused to give up hope that they’d be saved. Instead, they were shuffled from house to house. Finally, they were imprisoned in a home that the Bolsheviks called “the house of special purpose.”
Finally, late at night on July 17, 1918, the Romanov family was awoken and told to get ready for another move. Still hoping to escape, the women packed up their things and put on clothing into which they had sewn precious jewelry, religious icons and a large amount of money. Then, unexpectedly, their captors turned on them, attacking them first with bullets, then with the butts of guns, bayonets and even their own heels and fists. All seven of the Romanovs—and the last gasp of the Russian monarchy—were dead.
What may have looked like an impromptu murder was in fact a carefully planned act of violence. For days, the Romanovs’ Bolshevik captors had been preparing the house for the murder, including stocking up on benzene with which to burn the corpses and sulfuric acid with which to maim them beyond recognition.
Yakov Yurovsky, who had coordinated and led the killings, was personally recognized by Lenin, the head of the Bolsheviks, for the murders. But while the country was informed of the Czar’s assassination, the public was left in the dark about the rest of the family’s gruesome fate—and the location of their bodies—until the fall of the Soviet Union.
Lenin, Yurovsky, and the revolutionaries all saw Nicholas and the monarchy he stood for as a cancer that made it impossible for the working class to rise. But ironically, the assassinations they orchestrated to murder the monarchy for good had consequences for their cause. News that Nicholas had been assassinated almost completely overshadowed the political victories Lenin and his fellow revolutionaries had achieved, and pushed the Russian Revolution off the front page of newspapers. And, ironically, the deaths of Nicholas, Alexandra and their five children made many Russians yearn for the monarchy.
Motivated by the same imperialist ambitions that had the other European powers ‘scrambling’ for colonies all over Asia and Africa, Czar Nicholas II decided in 1904 to expand Russia’s reach into the Pacific. After all, it boasted the biggest army and the fourth-largest navy in the world.
Mar 29, 2022 · By Elmedin Salihagic. March 29th, 2022. Tsar Nicholas II, 1912. Credit: Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain. Tsar Nicholas II was the last emperor of Russia. He reigned from 1894 until his abdication in 1917. During this time he oversaw some of the most tumultuous times in Russian history.
Feb 19, 2017 · The murders were appalling, but Service’s true subject is Nicholas himself. He concedes that the man was a good father, but finds no happy surprises among his library notes.
Mar 17, 2022 · Nicholas II, the well-intentioned but incompetent czar of Russia, ruled over an empire that had over 134 million people of diverse cultures, including Slavs, Germans, Georgians, Jews, Armenians, Uzbeks, and Tartars. Nicholas II’s incompetency was pretty much obvious right of the bat.
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