The Last Czar

1896 - 1917

Nicholas II

PROBLEMS THAT NICHOLAS II INHERITED:

Russia was the largest country in the world.

Russia had 130 million people and the population was growing with explosive speed.

Most of the population were peasant laborers living in rural villages.

The peasants felt they had not enough land to meet their needs and remained under close government control.

Industrial slums were populated by poor, angry factory workers.

There were probably 100 separate nationalities within the Russian empire.

Many of these peoples deeply resented control of the central government led by ministers of Russian nationality.

It was the Czar’s desire to cling to the past – he felt no loyal Russian would deliberately challenge his authority.

He felt massive peasant revolts were the work of evil-minded agitators.

The population had to carry a heavy burden of state taxes.

The government was into a program of building railroads and steel mills.

Further Problems forCzar Nicholas II:

Nicholas’s wife was Princess Alix of a German principality.She was the granddaughter of England’s Queen Victoria.

When she married the Czar in 1894, she took the name of Alexandra and adopted the Russian Orthodox faith.

The Russian people didn’t accept her because she was German.

Nicholas and Alexandra had five children – four daughters and one son. Alexis was born 1904.

Alexis had a serious medical condition: hemophilia

The Czarina Alexandra was strongly influenced by a self-professed spiritual advisor named Rasputin. He was able to do this because he seemed to be able to stop the bleeding of Alexis and ease his suffering. Actually, he simply calmed Alexis’s fears which helped to control the bleeding.

Many Russians in government and members of the royal court were disgusted that the Czar and his wife could allow such a lecherous and uncouth peasant to have such strong influence.

Rasputin’s power and influence grew. His relationship with the royal family

became so strong many feared he was directing the Czar’s actions and

decisions.

Three men conspired to kill Rasputin with poisoned cakes and wine. However, the poison had no effect. In fact, it seemed to energize him. Desperate and impatient for Rasputin to die, one of the conspirators shot him. Of the three, one was a doctor and declared him dead after taking Rasputin’s pulse. Suddenly, Rasputin opened one eye and then the other. He roared wildly and tried to seize one of the men.

Rasputin ran out of the house yelling that he would tell the Czarina. Again, one of the conspirators fired his gun and hit Rasputin several times. When his body ceased to move, they threw Rasputin’s body into the iced water of the Neva River.

The czar’s wife, Alexandra felt that Rasputin was the only person who could help her son’s condition. She totally trusted Rasputin. She often interfered with, and influenced, the czar’s decisions.

She, of course, was influenced by Rasputin. Because of Rasputin’s growing influence, members of the Duma wanted to get rid of Rasputin.

The egg that was given to Nicholas II on his coronation,

The Tsar named Fabergé imperial provider of jeweled oval eggs. He was to create an egg at each year, symbolic of life and resurrection. Fabergé's worldwide reputation is due chiefly to his incomparable series of imperial Easter Eggs, generally thought to have numbered fifty-six, produced from 1884 to 1916. Eleven of these eggs fall into the reign of Czar Alexander III, from 1884 until 1894, and all were presents from the czar to his wife.

The egg was to always contained a surprise which was held secret until the Easter Day. When the Tsar, curious, asked Fabergé to reveal the secrecy or at least to give him a clue, Fabergé answered irrevocably and each time: "Your majesty will be satisfied!".

Changes in Russia

The early 1900’s • Russia was beginning to

industrialize• There were few workers available to

work in the new factories – most people were farmers.

• Workers were house in sleeping halls and worked long hours. Disease and boredom was followed with drunkenness and despair.

• From this working class, emerged underground political groups.

• The most powerful of the groups was the Social Democrats (Marxists) under Lenin.

Toward the end of March (1917), the provisional government decided to apprehend the deposed Czar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra.

The imperial family was hated among the people. Nicholas II and his wife were referred to as “citizen Romanov and his German wife.”

Alexander Kerenski, the head of the provisional government was responsible for the Czar and his family’s security.

Stalin, Lenin, and Trotsky

In November the Bolsheviks took over the Provisional Government in a coup d’etat. Lenin and Trotsky now headed the government.

Lenin moved the capital of Russia from St. Petersburg to Moscow in order to save the revolution and the Bolsheviks from the

advancing Germans.

The Czar’s family fate was left to the Soviets. With the White Army (those loyal to the

Romanov’s (the Czar) advancing on Moscow. The order was given to get rid of the

Romanovs.

Their bodies were discovered in 1991 and after several DNA tests, the remains were shown to be of the Czar, his wife, their children, the doctor, and other imperial family attendants.

On 17th July 1918 at three o'clock in the morning The Sovereign Emperor Nicholas II,

The Empress Aleksandra Fedorovna,The Tsarevich Aleksei Nikolaivich,

The Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna,The Grand Duchess Tatyana Nikolaevna,

The Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna,The Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna,

The family physician Dr E.S. Botkin,The maid A.S.Demidova,The servant A.E. Trupp

The cook I.M.Kharitonov

were all executed in the basement of the Ipatyev house.

Before burying the bodies, the soldiers discovered rows of diamonds that the four daughters had sewn into their corsets.

In 1920, a young female claimed to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, the Tsar’s daughter. Two relatives of Czar Nicholas and Alexandra

failed to recognize the young woman as their niece. Anna Anderson believed she was Anastasia. However, DNA tests done

revealed that she was not the Grand Duchess Anastasia.

In 1998, the imperial family was buried in St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. 80 yrs. after their murders, they are now considered martyrs by the

Russian Orthodox Church.

The deaths of the Imperial family brought not only an end to the Romanov Family, but an end to

the czars of Russia.