One of the most sad and pitiable true-life stories of the 20th Century is that of Tsar Nicholas II and the fall of the Romanov monarchy in Russia. People may have thought that the days of such violence were over, mobs storming palaces, atheism trampling down religion and the murder of royal personalities sounds like something that happened centuries ago in France, but it happened again in 1917 in the Russian Empire. Few would have thought that such a man as Nicholas II would be at the center of such political turmoil. The young Romanov was by all accounts an upstanding man of great personal integrity, ardent in his belief in Orthodox Christianity and extremely devoted to his family and the Russian Empire.
Nicholas was the son of the powerful and quite imposing Tsar Alexander III who had ruled Russia in what was considered typical Romanov fashion. However, one of the things most held against Alexander III was the fact that he gave his son no formal role in his government, and when Nicholas II became Tsar of all the Russias in 1894 he had no training for the position and no experience in imperial affairs. Despite this though, hopes were high. Nicholas was an extremely charming man who had nothing but the best of intentions and a heartfelt desire to be the best Tsar he could be for his people. During his reign Russia made great economic and industrial progress. Many people give the Soviets credit for modernizing Russia and making them an industrial nation when in actuality, the record proves that the credit rightly belongs to the Tsar for putting Russia on the road to industrial progress.
Despite great strides in the fields of science, music, literature and transportation, Russia was humiliated in the Far East when Japan inflicted an embarassing defeat on them over control of Manchuria. This was a major reason for many Russian officials to be eager to involve Russia in the problems with Serbia and Austria as a way to regain prestige. Nicholas himself was extremely reluctant to get involved in what became World War I but was also under extreme pressure from the French as well as the Serbians and the aggressive elements in his own country. When the Russian armies met with constant defeat Nicholas himself took command of his armies. Many critisized the Tsar for this, but he felt it was his duty to be with his troops in time of war. Discontent was rising against the Tsar at home, despite the fact that Nicholas had given Russia their first representative assembly in the Duma. His wife proved a liability as well because of her devotion to the vile Rasputin, whom the Tsar also despised.
After the November Revolution the Tsar abdicated in favor of his brother so that he would not be seperated from his ailing son. The Communists took the Imperial Family into captivity and shipped them off to Siberia. However, there were still large segments of the population who were loyal to the Tsar and were unwilling to allow a Bolshevik dictatorship to be established and so the Red-White civil war began. Due to this, the Soviets considered the Romanovs a threat since the Tsar was the symbol of what the loyalists were fighting for. However, not only did they order the murder of the Tsar, but also the systematic massacre of every Romanov in Russia. The Tsar and his wife and all of their children were taken to the basement and shot by the Red Guards. Years ago Tsar Nicholas II was made a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in America and only recently were the remains of the Romanovs given a proper burial by the Russian authorities. |
