As the only son of the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, Tsar Paul I succeeded his mother on her death in 1796. He would rule the Russian Empire for the next five years. Probably, he would had ruled the Russian Empire much longer than that. But Paul was murdered. And his death was planned by his own son – a fact first discovered by accident 50 years later.
Tsar Paul was a pure despot.
As the last Emperor of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II’s twenty-three-year reign came to an abrupt end when he abdicated on 15 March 1917. Those tumultuous years of his reign were defined by the Russo-Japanese War that saw the annihilation of the Russian Baltic Fleet, Bloody…
A Russian imperial residence is to reopen following extensive rehabilitation. This is the Alexander Palace in St Petersburg which over the past three years has been renovated for more than £24 million (or 31 million US dollars or 2 billion Russian rubles). The palace was…
In the British Library five letters from Princess Alix of Hesse, later Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia (1872-1918) are preserved. Initially, I thought there were seven letters of hers at the British Library, but further research has enabled me to establish that these are instead, two postcards in Russian, to her only son, Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich (1904-1918). These letters are…
Caught forever in a moment of time, they are the tragic family whose terrible end in World War One still appals and fascinates today. The children of the last Tsar of Russia died alongside their parents in Yekaterinburg one hundred years ago this summer. And yet Olga…
“For centuries the Tsars of Russia have been waging wars simply for the lust of territory and for the glory of Autocracy. The rulers of Russia have sown the wind and they are now beginning to reap the whirlwind.”
-Carl Joubert
The story of Russia’s last Tsar and…
A chance listing on the Public Catalogue Foundation Art UK, for an oil on canvas painting (35.8 x 30.7 cm) said to be of Russia’s last Empress, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, when she was Princess Alix of Hesse (1872-1918) led me to investigate this extraordinary artwork further. Because in the many years I had researched on Princess Alix, I had never seen anything like it. It does not resemble…
Only 37 percent of all young Russians want to restore the monarchy in their country. This emerged from a major survey conducted by Izvestia. More than 1,800 people were asked a series of questions about their attitudes and feelings towards a reintroduction of the monarchy…
On 17 July 1918, after three centuries in power, the Romanov dynasty came to a tragic end with the brutal execution of Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, Empress Alexandra and their five children.
Background
Tsar Nicholas II became Emperor of Russia on 1 November 1894 following the…
Nicolas II of Russia was the last Emperor of Russia, whose reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire. He and his family were brutally executed by the Bolsheviks on 17 July 1918.
He began his reign upon the death of his father, Alexander III, on 1 November 1894. Traditionally, coronations had taken place in the Cathedral of the Dormition, and this would be no exception. The coronation took…
