The End of the Romanov Dynasty
The Political Factors Which Led to the Tsar's Assasination
The assassination of the Romanov family has been shrouded in mystery since its occurrence. From riots to revolutions, there were many factors which may have led up to the event.
Nicholas II was a weak ruler who was unprepared to lead the Russian nation. He preferred a quiet, family-oriented life. The Tsarina, his wife, was a German princess and granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Her birth name was Alix and her name was changed to Aleksandra when she joined the Russian Orthodox Church. They had five children who were assassinated with them at Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg: Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia and Alexi, the heir apparent, or in Russian terms, the Tsarevich.
Political Events Leading Up to the Russian Revolution
There were many unfortunate events which occurred during Nicholas’s reign, including two instances in which many people were killed in a mob. The first was when Nicholas assumed the throne. Seven hundred thousand people turned out to join in the celebration and around 2,000 were trampled to death when the crowd got out of hand. The public was of the opinion that the Tsar and Tsarina were not concerned with the tragedy because they attended the previously scheduled ball the following night. Then, nine years after assuming the throne, Nicholas’s soldiers fired upon a group of protesters at the Winter Palace. Hundreds of people were killed or injured in the incident, including children and women.
Nicholas II then attempted to appease the people with the introduction of a Constitution and the Duma, a parliament which would give the people more of a say in government, but it was too little, too late.
Tsarina Aleksandra and Rasputin
The Tsarina Aleksandra garnered negative public opinion during World War I because she was German. In addition, she had for many years been influenced by Grigory Yekfimovich Novykh, also known as Rasputin. He was able to gain the trust of the Tsarina and supposedly heal the Tsarevich, who suffered from hemophilia. Rasputin had a firm hold on the government when Nicholas II was away from Aleksandra because she trusted the so-called holy man to more than just her personal life.
The removal of such a caustic character, via several assassination attempts, from the inner circle of the royal family did not do much to protect them from what came next, the Revolution, which began in February of 1917. The Duma quickly gained power as the provisional government in an effort to control the situation.
The Romanov Family under House Arrest
The royal family was held in house arrest for a time and the provisional government wanted to send them into exile in England, but the government could not prevail against the powerful Bolshevik forces and in the fall of 1917, they had control of major Russian cities and the citizens therein.
The Romanovs were moved around to a few different locations within the country until they made it to Ekaterinburg, named after the wife of Peter the Great, Ekaterina, when he founded the city in 1723.
Nicholas knew that they were doomed when he read the name of the house in which his family was to be imprisoned: Ipatievski dom. He recalled that in 1613, the founder of the Romanov dynasty accepted the crown at the monastery of Ipatievski. It is symbolically significant that the Romanov dynasty began and ended in places bearing this same name.
The gruesome executions of the Romanov family were carried out in the early morning hours of July 17, 1918. The Romanovs were officially buried in a proper funeral setting on July 17, 1998, eighty years to the day of their deaths.
The Russian Royal Family, 1911
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