Czar Nicholas II

Son of Alexander III, he ruled from the death of his father on November 1, 1894, until his abdication on March 15, 1917, when he resigned in his name and in the name of his heir, passing the throne to his brother, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, who ruled the country for one day. During his reign he saw Russia decline from a world power to an economic and military disaster. He was heavily criticized for the Khodynka Tragedy, Bloody Sunday and the fatal anti-Semitic pogroms that occurred during his reign. As Head of State, he approved the mobilization of August 1914 which marked the first fatal step towards the First World War, the revolution and consequent fall of the Romanov dynasty.

His reign ended with the Russian Revolution of 1917, when, while attempting to return from headquarters to the capital, his train was stopped in Pskov and he was forced to abdicate.[3] From then on, the Tsar and his family were imprisoned, first in the Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo, then in the Governor's House in Tobolsk and finally in the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg. Nicholas II, his wife, his son, his four daughters, the imperial family physician, a personal servant, the empress's maid and the family cook were executed in the basement of the house by the Bolsheviks in the early hours of 16–17 July 1918. It is known that this event was ordered from Moscow by Lenin and fellow Bolshevik leader Yakov Sverdlov.[4] Nicholas and his family were later canonized as New Martyrs by groups linked to the Russian Orthodox Church in exile.

From an early age, Tsar Nicholas displayed a shy temperament and a domestic inclination. He had the manners of a pupil at an elite English school. He danced elegantly, was a good shot, rode horses, and played sports. He spoke French and German, and his English was so good that he could have fooled a professor at Oxford University by passing himself off as an Englishman. He loved history and the pageantry of the army, and the life of a soldier. His father awarded him the rank of commander of a squadron of horse guards, and he went to Krasnoe Selo, the large military camp outside St. Petersburg used by regiments of the Imperial Guard for summer maneuvers. There, Nicholas took full part in the life and conversation of the dining rooms, and his modesty made him popular with his officers. No title meant more to him than that of colonel.[15]

Despite his personal qualities, as an absolute autocrat Nicholas was considered a failure. He found it impossible to reconcile his strict views of what was right and wrong for Russia with the responsibility of a modern monarch to compromise his views for the good of the nation. Nicholas wavered on important decisions. This made him seen by his ministers as weak and contradictory.[16] Many historians assess him as a monarch who lacked political sense.

His benevolence towards his adversaries was lacking. At the beginning of his reign he congratulated the "brave men of the Phanagoritsy regiment" who had shot at the workers. When the governor-general of the Baltic provinces asked for a reprimand against a certain adjutant captain named Richter, who "executed, on his own initiative, without any trial, even people who offered no resistance", the tsar noted in the margin of the report: "Ah! This is a brave young man!"[17]

Some historians consider Nicholas to have had limited intelligence and weak will, defects that he tried to compensate for.