Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei were the last tsar's five children. None of them were to live a full life after revolution came to Russia.
The Last Tsar’s children were to be the future of the Russian crown. Nicholas II and his royal consort, Alexandra Fyodorovna had 5 children – four girls and a boy. Their murder in 1918 answered questions about the Romanovs’ role in the future leadership of Russia. In addition, much speculation has surrounded the Romanov children’s deaths, and one or more of them were said to have escaped their captors or been helped by them.
The Romanov Children - Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna
Olga was the eldest of the five children, born in 1895. Society was preoccupied with Olga’s future marriage prospects. Olga had suitors within the aristocracy, and, when she was a nurse at a hospital during WWI, is said to have had strong feelings for one or more of her patients. Olga was 22 years old when the Bolsheviks murdered her and her family.
The Romanov Children - Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna
Tatiana was born in 1897. The second oldest of the Romanov children, she was close to Olga and also worked as a nurse during WWI. Tatiania had crushes on soldiers prior to her employment at the hospital, but she managed to have at least one romantic relationship with a former patient that lasted some time.
The Romanov Children - Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna
The third daughter of Nicholas and Alexandra, Maria was born in 1899. Maria visited soldiers with her younger sister, Anastasia, during WWI instead of nursing, due to her young age. Maria was less serious than her older sisters, and tried to make the best of her time in captivity before the royal family’s execution.
The Romanov Children - Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna
Anastasia was born in 1901. The most has been made of Anastasia’s apparent escape from death at the hands of the Bolsheviks in 1918. Anna Anderson was her most famous impersonator, but there are those who still believe that Anna Anderson was indeed a surviving member of the Romanov family. Whatever the truth, Anastasia’s story – or the events that make up her supposed story – have been romanticized in film, books, and other outlets for decades.
The Romanov Children - Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich
Born in 1904, Alexei was Nicholas and Alexandra’s final attempt at providing a male heir to the throne. Unfortunately, Alexei had been born with hemophilia, a disease inherited from his mother’s side of the family which prevented his blood from clotting in the event of an injury. This disease made the youngest of the Romanov children a constant focus of attention and worry for his mother and sisters. While there have been Alexei pretenders since the announcement of missing bodies in the Romanovs’ gravesite, Alexei’s hemophilia would have spelled certain death for the heir to the Russian Empire upon the execution of the Romanovs, even if he had been only slightly wounded.
The Romanov children might have had the strength of will to address Russia’s growing social, economic, and bureaucratic problems had they been allowed to grow into their positions as leaders of the Russian Empire. However, with the fervor of revolution nipping at the heels of Nicholas II and the demand for an end to tsarist rule, the Romanov children were seen as threats to Russia’s movements towards a different kind of government that left no room for royalty or their sympathizers.
