Tsar Nicholas II, one of the most disastrous rulers in modern history, ascended the throne on 1 November 1894.
Grand Duke Nicholas was born in May 1868 to the Tsarevitch, Alexander Alexandrovitch, and the Tsesarevna, Maria Feodorovna. During his childhood, he would develop a lifelong friendship with his cousin, the future King George V of the United Kingdom.
Nicholas was not…
While there are many missing tiaras, necklaces, and rings, there is one missing piece of royal history that literally looms larger. The Amber Room from Catherine Palace went missing during the Second World War, and it has not been located to this day.
The Amber Room…
The Romanov family had one of the most impressive jewel collections in Europe. However, during the Russian Revolution, the new government claimed the collection and several pieces mysteriously went missing.Â
Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate on 15 March 1917.
Catherine the Great is back on screen: a new season of The Great premieres
22nd November 2021
The second season of The Great from Hulu has premiered in the United States and Canada and will be premiering in the United Kingdom on 5 December. The popular period drama is a fictional take on Catherine the Great’s early reign.Â
The Great was written by Tony McNamara, an Australian playwright and author, who also wrote the screenplay for the 2018 film The Favourite. The Favourite featured…
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…
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…
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 Sunday and an estimated 3.3 million Russians die during World War I. The relatives of Nicholas’s extended family tree insisted…
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…
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, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexei had lived most of their lives in imperial splendour.
They had been born to Nicholas II, Tsar…
