Tsar Nicholas II of Russia
The reign of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (1894-1918) was doomed from the start. To begin with, “Nicky” never wanted to succeed his father as tsar. So when his 49-year-old father, Tsar Alexander III, died suddenly in November 1894, thrusting him onto the throne, Nicky was ill-disposed to rule. Instead of grabbing the reins of power, Nicky, 26, was consumed by grief. He wrote of his late father:
“It was the death of a saint! Lord, help us in these terrible days!”
Shown here with his wife Marie, Tsar Alexander III of Russia was built like a peasant. Tall and hulking, his huge body swayed when he walked. Within the palace walls, he privately dressed like a lowly laborer, wearing baggy trousers, soft blousy shirts, and a sheepskin jacket. He wore his clothes until the seams ripped only to turn around and have them patched by his royal valet. He possessed the strength of Hercules, able to bend a solid silver ruble using only his thumb.
Nicky could not collect his thoughts and act – and action was desperately needed. His first actions as tsar would set the tone of his reign. The Russian people – some of whom had been dangerously agitating for the abolition of the monarchy – needed to be told of the passing of the tsar. A funeral needed to be planned. Ministers needed to be consulted, meetings held.
Pressing as these matters were, Nicholas attended to none of them. Swallowed up in self-pity, he openly bemoaned his fate as the new tsar, pathetically begging others to help him. So lost was he in his own personal fugue that he consoled neither his mother nor his sisters. Sinking under the crushing weight of his weakness, he hid in the comfort of his fiance, Princess Alix of Hesse, and did nothing.
The German princess Alix of Hesse, engaged to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. She was his rock.
Meanwhile, Mother Nature was on the move. The tsar’s corpse, still in the Livadia Palace on the Black Sea, stank horribly and had to be carried by Nicky and his uncles out of the house and into “a little corner” where it could be embalmed. Strangely,
the face of the dead tsar, which was turning black with corruption, appeared to be smiling, as if it were about to laugh”
at his firstborn son’s idiocy. Tsar Alexander had wanted to pass on the crown to his second son, Michael, whom he considered the only one of the three imperial sons to possess the self-confidence of one born to rule. The old tsar knew that his son Nicky was soft and easily swayed by others.
Alas, Nicky’s weaknesses would be his – and his family’s – downfall.
Source: Erickson, Carolly. Alexandra: The Last Tsarina. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001
Readers: For more on Nicholas and Alexandra on this blog, click here.
Lisa's History Room 
Thank you for the interesting posts about Nicholas and Alexandra. In fact thank you for the entire blog.Very interesting.
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Sandra, thank you so much. Please tell others about Lisa’s History Room.
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I guess my first question would be, how many days did the body of the tsar lay in Livadia Palace for decomposition to begin setting in? Nicholas never wanted to be tsar and should not have been. When his father died, he stated his brother-in-law, Sandro, ‘I don’t want to be tsar. What will become of me, what will become of Russia? From all that I have read about him, he loved his wife and children; its quite evident from the family pictures. But he was not a leader, he was more of a follower. He would have been quite content living on an estate somewhere with his family and visiting his extended family in Europe. An otherwise good man who should never have become tsar of what was then the vast empire known as Russia.
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Geri, Nicky was happy living the domestic life – but he was slated to be tsar. I don’t know how long the body of his father lay in state. Anyone?
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Accdg. to Robert K. Massie in Nicholas and Alexandra, the body of Tsar Alexander III was forced to wait a week in Livadia “while telegrams flew between the Crimea and St. Petersburg.”
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Hi Lisa, being a history- buff myself, I’ve been following your posts very intently.I’ve even recommended the same to my friends. However, I wish to know:
1) What was The Old Tsar’s second son Michael doing when Nicholas II & his family were brutally murdered?
2) Did he ever try to help them?
3)How did he & his family spend their last days & where? ….
4)Did he ever try to stake claim to the Throne post-1918?
THANKS IN ADVANCE…
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Hey, Reena, here is what wikipedia has to say about Michael Romanov:
“When Nicholas abdicated on 15 March [O.S. 2 March] 1917, Michael was named as his successor instead of Alexis. Michael, however, deferred acceptance of the throne until ratification by an elected assembly. He was never confirmed as Emperor, and following the Russian Revolution of 1917, he was imprisoned and murdered.
Given that he never reigned, his brother Nicholas II is regarded as the last actual, or de facto Tsar of Russia, and Michael is relegated to a largely forgotten footnote of history. Nevertheless he is sometimes referred to by historians as Michael II and the last Tsar of Russia.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duke_Michael_Alexandrovich_of_Russia
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Hi, Reena,
Look to future posts for the answer to question #3. Keep reading and subscribe for updates!
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Hi Reena. During the war, Michael led one of the most renowned regiments in the army and it speaks volumes about him that, during the revolution, this regiment remained loyal the the throne. Michael, however, was sent by the revolutionaries to Perm in Siberia and there, sometime in June – a month or so before the Tsar was murdered – he and his secretary were taken to the woods and shot dead. Their bodies were buried secretly and have never been found.
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I just finished reading about Michael’s assassination in The Last Days of the Romanovs. That author opines that Michael was assassinated to test the public reaction to possibility of future Romanov murders.
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I had never heard that although I have read a great deal and have Russian aristo friends. If indeed the execution was exposed(?) that sounds like the kind of thinking that carried all those days. And look what happened to Lenine, Trotsky and those boys! Not to mention the Soviet experiment. As much as we revere the Queen and her efforts to rebuild confidence in the monarchial system, has the blog touched on Queen Mary’s acquisitive soul and how much of the value of the Dowager Tzarina’s jewels — a huge treasure — actually reached her two heirs? Is this why George V was so incredibly generous and thoughtful of GD Zenia’s affairs? Perhaps the GD Olga would not accept in the same way? Any data on this? Has the connection between the Princes Chavchavadze, alive and dead, in DC and the CIA and before, with General/President Grant’s progeny been explored? Does anyone else ever go to the Russian Ball in NYC? Great, great blog for which many thanks. abbb
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Michael was not Tsar Alexander’s second son, he had a son named George who passed away in his early 20’s from tuberculosis. George was the Tsarina’s favourite child; he and Nicky were extremely close and George’s death consumed Nicky. George had been charismatic, intelligent and would have been a better Tsar-but fate and birth order stepped in the way.
To return to Michael, he wasn’t technically eligible to be Tsar even if there had not been a revolution and Nicky had passed away. Michael was forbidden by Nicky and rules from marrying his wife. He went against all and married into a morganic marriage that took him out of the line of succession. Interesting tidbit, Nicky did have a temper and exiled him from Russia.
Super interesting coincidence/fact the Romanov dynasty began with Michael I at the Ipatiev Monastery, the Romanov dynasty ended with the slaughter of Tsar Nicholas and his family at the Ipatiev House.
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Melissa, thanks for the info. I need to know so much more about the Russian Empire.
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Lol, I am not well read concerning the Rurik Dynasty, Times of Trouble, Boris Gudenov or the USSR.
This is likely of no interest to anyone else but I was lucky enough to study under a member of the Russian Royal family at university.
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What did you study?
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What a fascinating and lovely blog! Thank you for lots of interesting post nd I look forward to reading more!!
Alas, I feel that Nicholas has been greatly wronged!! Carolly Erikson’s book relies heavily on a source which is known to be false and there are many other inaccuracies in her descriptions of members of the Imperial Family. I do not know why Nicholas is so often described as weak. He was physically strong; morally determined; more intelligent than many of his contemporaries (he was a history scholar and fluent in several languages) and he had a readier grasp of the Balkan situation than any other ruler in Europe. The term ‘weak’ seems to have been manufactured by his detractors who obviously, having taken part in his murder, needed to justify their actions.
There is a great deal more to be said in defence of Nicholas:
http://christinacroft.blogspot.com/2010/01/weak-ignorant-tsar.html
Please forgive my vehemence about this but Nicholas has been so badly misrepresented for so long….
Thank you again for a lovely blog!
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Dear Hill, thanks for the pithy comments. The Imperial Family has been maligned in more way than one –
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Tsar Alexander had a son named Alexander who passed away in his first year of life.
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Nicholas is thought weak because he was putty in Alexandra’s hands. The madding thing is Nicholas WAS indeed a capable person… but he could not gainesway his wife , so what did his capabilities matter? Alexandra ruled.
Nicholas also had this fixed idea that everything must be kept as it was during ” Papa’s ” rule. This dove tailed nicely with Alix ‘s determination everything stayed the same for “Baby”, thier son’s rule. So things was impossibly set in stone, creating even more of a social powder keg.
The sad part is, it was so pointless. Revolution or not, their son, Alexis was never going to rule. His health would not allow it. Michael should have been groomed. But Alexandra chose Rasputin over reality and what she said was the law
Alexandra didn’t learn from her mistakes because she didn’t seem to think she was ever mistaken. It seems in her eyes her only failing was not being firm enough in her policies. The polices themselves were not examined. So she became ever more implacable in these obviously mistaken polices.
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There is a school of opinion that perhaps the son, GD Alexis, survived. Whether it is wishful thinking or not, it says that a man, with exquisite manners, and of the Alexander III physical type(as described in this blog) surfaced (and disappeared?) in the Gulag ca. the 1930’s-40’s. One would like to know if more has been discovered. Once Pr Phillip has passed on perhaps the DNA of Mrs Anderson can again be tested. The very old Pr Alexis Romanov died in NYC in recent years — a revered member of the Russian Nobility Association in which Col Pr Obolensky is very active. One wonders what he may have known about any of this..
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