my report of Nicholas II and the fall of the Romanovs - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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The First World War (1914-1918).
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#880008
this was a report for school. it must be the only intelligent thing I can post. :eek: Mr. P - in case you see this I am addressing you here because this is not plagarism. Wink. Wink. ;)

The Life and Times of Nicholas II: the Last Tsar of Russia
Early Life
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov (later crowned Nicholas II, His Royal Imperial Majesty Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russians) was born on May 6th, 1868 in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia. Myth has it that anyone born on that day would face bad luck. He was the oldest son of Tsar Alexander III. His childhood was a happy one. He grew up in a loving and faithful family.
His only family tensions were with his brother, Alexander. He was bullied and publicly humiliated by his younger sibling. Observers noticed that he never stuck up for himself. After years of derision, the young lad grew sullen and asocial.
The environment that he grew up in was fiercely obedient and prudent. His school taught the right way to do things. His favorite subject was history.
He loved his mother very much. When he became Tsar, he sent her a gorgeous Faberge egg sparkling with 3,000 diamonds as a symbol of his love. Today it is worth 9.2 million dollars.
His father, Alexander III, was a bold and determined man but also narrow minded. It is perhaps this narrow mindedness that caused his son’s lack of will power. Alexander III thought the Tsarviche was too soft and weak-minded. He didn’t have faith in him and thusly did not prepare him properly for the throne.
His mostly happy childhood ended at the age of twelve, when he saw his beloved Grandfather be gunned down by terrorists. The boy watched his old “pappy” bleed to death in front of his eyes. This had permanent effects on Nikolai and he never forgot the event.
Nicholas’s reign was indeed a chronological mistake. His Uncle Nicholas Alexandrovich, rather than his father was supposed to become Tsar of Russia. Unfortunately, Nicholas Alexandrovich died at 21 from an illness. Alexander, who had no special education or training, took the throne and was crowned Alexander III.
Nicholas went into uniform and imputed his military duties for the first time in June of 1887. The service was intended as a form of education. He was to become familiar with the four branches of the Russian army. All previous emperors had seen the service as part of their learning experience.
He loved the military, and years later he would long to return to his years as a young officer. Perhaps as Lyons (1974) says it was because “those years were filled with physical activity, good fellowship, to the possibility of obtaining immediate and visible results upon issuing a command and freedom from great responsibilities.”
Even though he was a commanding officer, Nikolai preferred a rather passive role following the commands of others. This was peculiar for the future Tsar, for it bent the idea of “divine right” hierarchy.
Nikolai and his brother George in the late 1890s boarded the Pamiat Azoua, a Russian warship, for a trip to the Far East. They visited Greece, Egypt, India, Siam, Singapore and lastly Japan.
In Siam, the Romanovs were good friends with the Siamese Royal Family. Some Princes of that family were educated in Russia’s Corps of Pages.
In Japan, a policeman attacked Nikolai with his sword. He suffered severe headaches for the rest of his life.
His deeply religious family praised God that he wasn’t killed. His family, including “my beloved brother Georgie” loved him very much.
Nikolai married the love of his life from Germany, Princess Alix of Hesse in 1894 despite the protests of his father. She was Queen Victoria’s favorite grandchild. Their marriage was a loving and devoted one.
Disposition
He was a charming young man with a noble amount of friendliness – an unusual character for that of an autocrat. Nicholas was shy and gentle in disposition. A truly docile and humble man, his friends and relatives often called him “Nicky”. Nicholas was an introvert and wanted to live a normal life with a happy family.
However, he lacked self-esteem and often didn’t trust himself. He knew he didn’t have his father’s bold disposition, which was necessary for the next Tsar.
But, most assuredly he wished the best for Russia. He loved his country dearly; he held deep patriotism for the many cultures in Russia. However his charm and kindness would do little to help him rule Russia. Mistake and propaganda often concealed his true traits.
Becoming “His Imperial Majesty”
Also in 1894 Alexander III’s health declined and he died on October 20th at the age of forty-five. A priest was summoned. “We embraced and cried together. He Emperor now, and the weight of this terrifying fact crushed him,” recalled his brother in law.
On that afternoon at 2:15 PM Nikolai became emperor over all of Russia. It would not be until his coronation a few weeks later, that he would be officially called Nicholas II. He had a panic and mental breakdown at the very thought of his new responsibilities.
A Tsar was an autocrat, or one who rules with absolute authority. Alexander III produced a strong aura of autocracy. He was a tall, bearded man with a muscular figure and a bold and determined disposition. This, however, did not help the stability of the autocratic system.
The Romanov family had ruled for almost 300 years. They were a dynasty (a very powerful family) with German origins. By the time Nicolas II came to power, centuries of respect and fear for the imperial family had deprecated dramatically.
In 1885, Tsar Alexander II freed the serfs. He gave them more rights and allowed them to go to school. Now that the citizens had some liberties, they wanted more. Alexander II refused and many Russians pondered the idea of Revolution. Alexander II was assassinated.
His successor (and Nicholas’s father) Tsar Alexander III restricted the rights of the peasants believing that these given freedoms were a threat to the autocracy and caused feelings of Revolution. The Romanovs were growing unpopular.
In 1895, the young writer Merezhouskii wrote “In the House of the Romanovs.” This article revealed the crime and corruption of the imperial family. It reads -"In the house of the Romanovs, as in that of the Atrides, a mysterious curse descends from generation to generation. Murders and adultery, blood and mud…Peter I kills his son; Alexander I kills his father; Catherine II kills her husband…Ivan Antonovitch, suffocated like mice in dark corners, in the cells of the Schlusselburg. The block, the rope, and poison-these are the true emblems of Russian autocracy. God's unction on the brows of the Tsars has become the brand and curse of Cain." This article is an excellent example of the growing spirit of rebellion by the common citizens and public view of the imperial family.
Russia needed a new strong leader to guide them through the upcoming years of turmoil. Mostly his friends influenced his few political views. He had poor reasoned judgement. He relied mostly on instincts and emotion.
Nicholas II’s coronation was in the capital, St. Petersburg. His father had set the capital there, because of its beauty instead of in Moscow where most of the trade and action took place. On the date of his coronation a thousand people were crushed to death by a swarm of crowds trying to see the Emperor. Already there was a public distaste for the Tsar and Tsarina because they danced instead of visiting the victims in the hospitals.
Even though he was well educated, no education could fully prepare a Tsar for what was to come at the turn of the century.

His Russia
At the time when the “The House of the Romanovs” was published Russia was in a state of chaos. It was early in Nicholas’s reign. 140 million Russians were uneducated peasants - condemned to a life of disease, starvation and crime. Only a few privileged aristocrats lived a splendid life. Most of them lived in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Less than 5% of the population owned everything. Workers in Russia often exceeded 18 hours in their workdays. The working conditioned was poor. Child labor was all too common and the peasants were sent to hellish, cramped and diseased filled tenements.
Food supply was low for the poor. They were given meager portions of poor quality food. Starving to death was not uncommon.
Husbandman labored all day in the fields using old style farming methods. Farmers were hit hard with financial devastation…yep…they were dirt poor.
Nicholas II did neither understand nor comprehended this urgent need for reform throughout his empire. He did not sense either that his family’s autocratic system was rotting away.
Being in high conceit of his “divine right” he wanted to maintain the illusion that only he was in control. Perhaps Nicholas II imagined himself in a world that didn’t exist. Scared by personal catastrophes, he enveloped himself in a fantasy world where everyone and everything was perfectly happy and loyal to their government. He believed this fantasy to be true.
Another way to soothe him was through religion. He believed in a Russian notion called subdue. Subdue is the belief that misfortune is inevitable and is preconceived by God. He said “if you find me so little troubled it is because I have a firm and absolute faith that the destiny of Russia, my own fate and that of my family are in the hands of Almighty God, who has placed me where I am. Whatever may happen, I shall bow to his will.”
Nicholas II kept secrets from the government and neglected to communicate between branches.
His relationship with the Duma was not very good. The Duma is an assembly of Russian government officials much like the British Parliament. From the moment crowned, Nicholas II immediately had conflict with the Duma. Nicholas distrusted the leader, Sergei Witte. Also Nicholas II wanted to increase his power as an autocrat. He dissolved this assembly which presided over the economy, helped reforms and did countless other things like manage agriculture and trade.
Sergei Witte started a second Duma, but it was again dissolved. After the destruction of the first Duma, no Duma played any significant role in the reformation, economy or history of Russia. The Duma would be entirely destroyed after the Russian Revolution.
According to King and Wilson (1974) “Nicholas II was the chief architect of the empire’s doom.” Russia was headed for chaos!
The Road to Revolution
The air was ripe for revolution. While the Royal family enjoyed cruised on their private yacht and holidays in their private resort, many Russians suffered in the streets dying of starvation.
The common citizens of Russia imagined the Tsar as a tyrant, cruel and hungry for murder. A secret revolutionary poster was distributed underground with a picture of a starving man saying “Bread please, we are starving! Brothers help! Bread-winners help!” Another poster said, “father is there a such thing as people who eat meat every-day?” Another poster depicted the Tsar eating away Russia.
The Russo-Japanese war was caused by the Tsar’s corrupted foreign policy. Many historians believed it was partly caused by the Emperor’s personal prejudices about Japanese people after he had been attacked so brutally by a Japanese man. The Russians knew the war could have been easily prevented. It left 500,000 casualties, the loss of Korea and an embarrassing defeat for Russia.
On January 22nd, 1905 a group of peaceful and unarmed workers gathered on the streets by the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Women and children accompanied them. They marched down the streets, singing patriotic and religious songs and holding pictures of the Tsar. The purpose was to ask for working laws and improved conditions.
Then, palace troops opened fire on the crowd and then attacked them with machetes. A canon fired along the streets trying to kill those who escaped. This event became known as the Bloody Sunday massacre.
Recent assassinations like that of his grandfather Alexander II had pushed Nicholas II further into madness. When the incident was reported to him by a soldier he replied, “Are you sure that you’ve killed enough people? Only by killing enough of them could you keep the murderers and assassins off of the streets.” These people were not murderers or assassins though; they were unarmed husbands with women and children!
The Tsar became known as “the murderer.” The Bloody Sunday massacre triggered the start of the 1905 Revolution. Up until this time, serious disturbances had been rare in Russia. During this more than 600 factories went on strike in St. Petersburg. Large groups of peasants attacked nobles and looted and burned their estates. There were many groups protesting. Some fought one another. These groups were the peasants, the liberals, the intelligentsia, and minority groups.
The 1905 Revolution would lay the grounds for radical political parties and groups such as the St. Petersburg Soviet of Worker’s Delegates with members like Leon Tolstoy. Leon Trotsky established the SPS. Within weeks, 50 SPS stations were founded throughout Russia.
Rasputin
Leon Tolstoy, a famous Russian author and revolutionary, describes Rasputin like this, “and to the palace the very steps of the imperial thrown came an illiterate peasant with insane eyes and a tremendous male vigor. Jeering and scoffing he began to play his infamous tracks with all of Russia as his plaything.”
Alexandra bore four daughters before they had their son, Alexei. He was the sole heir to Russia’s throne. Alexei was his mother’s pride and joy. Alexei, also known in some history books as Alesha, Alix or Alexis was an intelligent, charming lad with extremely high endeavors. This handsome young gent’s character, though, was shadowed by his most unfortunate illness. He inherited the hemophilia gene from his grandmother Queen Victoria.
Hemophilia is a disease where the blood does not clot and almost always leads to death. The blood caused pressure on his nerves and some days he could not walk or even move. Hemophilia caused the small child horrendous pain. The autocracy was very fragile and (not wanting to cause any further aversion to the government) they kept his illness a secret.
Each night, Alexandra would go to her private chapel to pray for a cure for her little boy. She believed her prayers were answered, when a man named Gregory Rasputin came into her life.
When Alexei was fishing one day, he fell from a rowboat. Emergency care brought him back to the palace. Arthur Hailey (1969) describes it as “day and night the boy’s screams pierced the walls. Many in the household stuffed their ears with cotton in order to continue their work…his face was bloodless, his body contorted…the eyes rolled back in the head.”
As Russia went into a national day of prayer for the boy, a telegram from a well-known holy man in Siberia named Rasputin. It read: GOD HAS ANSWERED YOUR PRAYERS. DO NOT GRIEVE. THE LITTLE ONE WILL NOT DIE. DO NOT ALLOW DOCTORS TO BOTHER HIM TOO MUCH.
Immediately after the telegram was received, the boy started recovering miraculously! Rasputin came to live with the Romanovs. He helped the Tsarviche battle hemophilia through hypnotism and faith healing. One time, when bees Rasputin shouted “sting him and you will die” the bees that were attacking Alexei stopped miraculously! Alexandra believed Rasputin was sent from God and that her son’s life depended solely on him.
Rasputin not only became a good friend with the Tsarita but also with Alexei. He was known to go into his room and pray. Curiously, the boy’s pains would subside! Then he would tell the boy fairy tales, fables, and stories, as Alexei would listen excitedly.
The Tsar and the Tsarina considered him a religious prophet, and believed God spoke through him. However, today many history books know him as “the Holy Devil.” She did not know this man could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Rasputin demanded to be included in politics and deliberately caused corruption.
Gregory Rasputin was born in 1872 in Siberia, a large region of Eastern Russia. He was often asocial as a child and loved his family’s horses. When he was little he saw his sister drown to death in a stream. He was traumatized and quickly stopped eating. His personality diverted which caused his parents great anxiety.
He was a dirty man. His beard was greasy and uncombed. He dressed in rags and tatters. From him emanated an unpleasant odor because of the fact that he never bathed. He often was drunk to a stupor. Yeah, the man was repulsive but that made no difference in respect he received from the nobles. They thought Rasputin’s appearance was typical like that of a holy man. However, he repelled the citizens of Russia.
Rasputin was a khlyst. Khlysts had two beliefs. The first belief that God was spoken through the embodiment of certain people. The second belief was they could communicate with God through sexual indulgence. He was really somewhat of a trollop. Rasputin never was deficit of girls to share his bed. He cut hair from virgin girl’s scalps and planted it in the royal garden. He would convince women to go to church by having mass orgies with him! You can probably think what a disgusting debauchee he was!
Rasputin tried to introduce khlystism the Russian Orthodox Church. One way he did this was by appointing his friends into high positions. The Romanovs would do what ever he said because of his healing powers toward the Tsarviche. You have to remember, Rasputin was secretly a revolutionary…and besides that, had no knowledge of politics. He was also only semi-literate.
One day Bishop Hermogen, who realized the possible consequences of Rasputin’s presence in court summoned the man to tell him “never to set foot in the Tsar’s court again.” Rasputin was angry and tried to tell the bishop that God had cursed him. When the Bishop refused to believe him, Rasputin tried to kill him. Luckily, the imperial guards stopped him.
Nobles thought Rasputin’s attempted murder of the bishop was one of the first attempts of subversion against the Russian Holy Orthodox Church. V. Purishkevic, a priest wrote, “now to crown our sorrows they are attacking Holy Russia’s last hope, the church…The worst aspect of the matter to be descending on us from the height of the imperial throne….A vile impostor, a khlyst, an illiterate muzhik, dares to mock our bishops….I should like to sacrifice myself in order to kill this scoundrel.”
Rasputin’s vile influence would continue when World War I started.
Anti-sentimentalism
Russian Jews were forced to live in the Pale of Settlement. The Pale of Settlement was a housing facility enacted in 1791 for Catherine the Great’s most undesirable subjects.
Thousands of Jews were killed in genocide indirectly by the Romanovs including Nicholas II himself. Nicholas helped a friend arrange the Easter Massacre at Kishinev (1903) in which 50 Jews were dragged from their homes and murdered in the streets. Police beat 600 others. More and more Jewish human being were carnaged like chickens!
In 1911 a thirteen-year-old Jewish boy was found murdered in Kiev. He was stabbed 47 times. During the trial, Nicholas II gave the judge gold and promotions for a case to be fabricated (in other words for a random innocent Yiddish person to be blamed instead of the real culprit.) The real culprit was the imperial police. Much to Nicholas’s terror the random Jew so selected, Mendel Beilis, was found innocent. The Tsar was blamed for the crime and there were many uprisings and riots!
The Tsar’s Secretary of Finance and long time friend, Sergei Witte, was removed from office on charges of this conspiracy.
The Great War
The war continued in Russia until 1918. That was because while fighting international war (WWI), Russia was also fighting a civil war. However, the Great War or World War I was a major cause of revolution in Russia.
In 1914, half of all workers in Russia took part in Strikes. Industrial unrest was prominent and the Tsar seemed to only be making it worse.
In 1914 Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary formed the Triple Alliance. The Triple Alliance was a union promising all three countries to work together if a member of the Triple Entente attacked one of their countries. The Triple Entente was composed of France, Russia and Britain. As you can see, these countries were very leery of each other.
Russia had the largest army and airforce in the world. The RAAS (Russian Army Air Service) had 360 aircraft and 16 airship (steam engine balloons). However, poor roads made it hard to deploy soldiers and transport weapons across Russia.
In 1914, when Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo - Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Russia was immediate to side with Serbia. Germany, Bulgaria and later Turkey sided with Austria-Hungary (they were called the Central Powers). France, Belgium and Great Britain joined Serbia along with Russia (they were called the Allied Powers).
One mistake the Tsar made (with many other leaders) is he thought the war would be short and victorious. They were hoping it would increase the power of the Tsar again.
Late in 1914 General Paul Von Rennenkampf and Alexander Samsanov prepared for the invasion of East Prussia. Their attempt led to a devastating loss. Almost all of the troops were killed. Russia lost a quarter of a million men. Germany lost 20,000. 92,000 Russian soldiers were taken prisoner.
During World War I, Russia ceded several territories including Scandinavia, Poland and parts of Bulgaria.
By 1915, Russia lost over 2,000,000 men! This was partly due to the fact that there were more troops than rifles. Angered at this a Russian man named Vladmir Lenin arranged for the distribution of propaganda urging the troops to star a socialist revolution by turning against their officers.
Socialism is a society that has government or collective ownership or administration of producing and distributing goods (trading). There is also no private property.
Lenin was a Bolshevik they were followers of Marxism (a type of communism) and had extreme socialist and internationalist views. They also were strong atheists (meaning they opposed all religion). They also wanted guaranteed work for every citizen.
Lenin believed he was fighting a war on imperialism. He wanted to turn “imperial war into civil war.” He hated the Tsar and imperialism. Especially after the imperial police wrongly hung his brother in 1887. Lenin said his life goal was to overthrow the Tsarist government.
Rasputin accused of being a spy for the German government – that rat was really sneaky! He wanted to go to the frontlines to bless the troops for the war. When the Commander in Chief Archduke Nikolai refused, Rasputin became filled with a bitter ire! Rasputin went to the Tsar and told him that he had a vision that the troops were not going to well unless the Tsar replaced the Commander in Chief.
Now, the war was not going so hot and the Tsar believed everything Rasputin said and so he did. Then, Rasputin (which we will now entitle “Ratpootin’” [why? Because I feel like it and I don’t like him! ]) took over most of the Tsar’s duties at home! Eeek! Oh no! Ratpootin’ deliberately caused even more corruption! He also added to the anti-Tsar propaganda by his dissolute character.
The German Army defeated Russia in another battle. This time, Russia lost over 1,000,000 men. The failure of Russia to succeed was now blamed solely based on the Tsar. His popularity plunged down the drain quite quickly. There it goes! Slush, slush, and slush! Boom! This was a big whoopsy for the Tsar and the autocracy.
Abdication and the February Revolution
When Nicholas II became commander in chief, authority over the Russian government was ruined. The illiterate Ratpootin’ now took care of almost all government affairs. Riots and angry mobs subverted St. Petersburg.
Crying, “we want bread (-Daite khleb and Khleba, khleba),” a large progression of women marched through the streets of St. Petersburg. They broke into bakeries and looted all of the bread. The Russian Police did nothing. In fact, they assured they wouldn’t shoot. The riot lasted for several days and turned more violent as each day progressed. They smashed store windows, blew up cars and torched houses. Other mobs also entered the city with the rallying cry “Down with German woman! Down with the war! Down with the autocracy!”
The Tsarina and her children were ill with measles. They stood in constant danger of being attacked. Alexandra though remained calm and said “All my heart is bound to this country.” The Duma took the family into custody in order to protect them. Bolsheviks executed several of Russia’s major army generals. Rasputin was murdered by a group of rebellious nobles.
The Tsar had a mental breakdown. He looked so bad, that one of his friends screamed because they thought he was a ghost!
The February Revolution of 1916, was a bloodless one. Liberals and socialists united, seeking the end of the Tsar. When the Tsar returned to his home in Tsarkoe Selo, he ordered troops to put down the rebellion in St. Petersburg. Instead, most of the troops deserted their positions and joined the rebels. Nicholas II traveled to St. Petersburg to put down the rebellion, but on the train his cabinet was imprisoned and the route was diverted by disloyal troops. The Army Chiefs and remaining ministers suggested that Tsar Nicholas II abdicate. At 10:00 of February 15th, 1916 Nicholas II fully abdicated his throne for himself and Tsarviche Alexei. Before he did so, he said to the Tsarita, “I’d rather cut off my right hand.”
Some people believe that there is still a Tsar today because he signed a contract that his brother Michael Alexandrovich would succeed him as the Tsar. Although bound through this paper, his brother possibly fled the country and never returned. Most historians, however, agree that the he declined the contract and abdicated himself.
Henceforth, (Lenin along with other conflicting groups) would rule the government.

Death
The temporary emergency government (headed by the Duma) placed them at the Alexander Palace. This palace had once been their favorite place of residence. Now, it was their prison. Their prison guards were not very nice. They were often drunkards and harsh criminals. They offered insults and beatings to their captives. They were fed only on carbohydrates. The girls were often insulted while in the lavatory. Clothes were rags and tatters.
Nicholas was haunted, petrified…that he, himself had done such wrong to his country. Alexandra still loved Russia in spite of what it had done to her. She maintained an eternal spirit of motherly nationalism. She wrote, “The others are all brave and uncomplaining, though Alexei’s socks are in holes, Father’s trousers torn and darned, and the girls under-linen in rags. I make everything now…But God is in all, and nature never changes. I see all around me churches, and hills; the lovely world. I feel old, oh, so old, but I am still the mother of this country, and I love it in spite of all its sins and horrors. God have mercy and save Russia.”
During the winter, inside the house was 30 degrees. It was really cold.
Alexis made a golden chain with the Ten Commandments on it. A guard tried to take away the chain. A servant named Nagorny stopped him. For his efforts to guard the chain, he was imprisoned and executed without trial.
After the October Revolution, the Red Army (a strong anti-Tsar military force) moved them to Yekatrinburg in Siberia. On the night of July 16th, 1918 The Tsar and his family were executed in the basement of the Ipatiev House. Today, the Ipatiev House is the sight of Russia’s most famous church – the Church of Blood.
Even though imprisoned, they remained at the utmost royal dignity. Many guards were disarmed emotionally by their beautiful eminence of spirit. Some of them left.
They were ordered to be executed by the Bolshevik jailers when units of the Czech Legion (the White Army) were making their way toward Yekatrinburg. Jacob Sverdlov (for whom the town was named afterwards) sent the telegram giving the order to execute the former imperial family.
“Your relations have tried to save you. They have failed and we must shoot you now.” That is what Yurovsky, a revolutionary and coordinator of the attacks said when he entered the room where the family was to be executed. A sleepy Alexei lie in his father’s arms. Anastasia clutched her Spaniel, Jimmy. They were all made to sit in chairs. He sat in a chair next to his wife.
Nicholas became furious and dodged in front of his wife and son trying to save them. He was shot in the head and killed first. Alexandra was killed second, she had time to make the sign of the cross before she was killed.
Cleverly, Alexandra tied jewels to her children’s clothes to keep them from being shot. When it was discovered that they couldn’t die from being shot, the guards went after the girls with bayonets.
Alexei didn’t die, the bullets bounced off of him because of jewels tied to his coat. He was crying, holding and talking to his father who lie on the floor with blood streaming from his head. One of the guards kicked him in the head. Another guard went up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and put a pistol in the boy’s ear. He blew it 3 times. Then he was still. The death of the young children was kept a secret for years as to not cause any riots. It was not until 1919, when evidence was found…was there information released. And the White Army released it.
Each body was hacked into pieces with a saw. This was a slow process, since there are many thick bones. Then each body piece was submerged in gasoline and thrown into a bon-fire. The Bolsheviks had a great bonfire party. They disposed of the residue in a mineshaft. In 1991 the Russian government found and buried what was left of them.
In 1981 the Russian Orthodox Church entitled Nicholas and his family as Passion Bearers, a position close to being a martyr. Each year to mark his death, hundreds of Christian pilgrims go to the Church of Blood to pay tribute to Nicholas II, who is now officially titled Tsar-Martyr Nicholas II. Archbishop John Maximovitch describes it as, “They became sufferers for righteousness (I Peter 3:14); being conformed to the innocent suffering of Christ, they became true Passion-Bearers…The battle against Tsar Nicholas II was clearly bound up with the battle against God and faith . . . He became a Martyr, having remained faithful to the Ruler of those who rule, and accepted death in the same way as the martyrs accepted it.”
The Bolsheviks and the Red Army murdered every single member of the Romanov family – today there are no existing Romanov descendants.
Personal Reflections
Did you know he has a type of tea named after him? I would like to have Heather Dunlap tea like they had Tsar Nicholas II tea!
I do believe this man was kind and caring, a recognizably rare character that is both fashionable and meritorious in today’s society. However, I believe he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.
He was not fit for the role of Tsar, rather, for the role of husband and loving father. He was very private and retiring. Nikolai loved his children very much and I know he would do everything in his power to prevent crushingly hideous and terrifying death of his loved ones.
In this man, I see many reflections of myself. I too live in a fantasy world where everything is right. Like him, I never look towards the future. This is a lesson for me to always look at the realness of things. If I constantly live in my fantasy world – I am likely to overlook the obstacles I must overcome and have them hit me right where it hurts.
I am very hindsighted aswell. I never think before I act. Nikolai was hindsighted in someways, which really turned the media against him.
Also this is a lesson in taking responsibility. Nikolai had many, but didn’t take them seriously. Some responsibilities come without our approval, as did Nikolai’s. But you must take them as they come, and endeavor to do your best no matter how much you don’t like them. Otherwise, you are destined for a cruel fate…not only for yourself…but also for your loved ones. Perhaps we can all learn a lesson from this tragic tale.
I do in a religious aspect, also look at him as a very faithful man and I do not think he deserved to die like that. God be with his family.
Those stinky Bolsheviks!!! I don’t like Lenin either! Lenin should be called…Pigpenin. He was really mea because he killed all the authors that supported the Tsar in their books. He said “this revolution doesn’t need historians!” What a jerk! Yuck! What a disgusting man…ewww….gross.

Bibliography

Robert, Massie K. Nicholas and Alexandra: An Intimate Account of the Last of the
Romanovs and the fall of Imperial Russia. Pleasantville, NY: Reader's
Digest Association, 1967.

Marvin, Lyons. Nicholas II: the Last Tsar. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974.
Pares, Bernard Sir. The Fall of the Russian Monarchy. New York City: Alfred A.
Knopf and Random House, 1961.
King, and Wilson. The Fate of the Romanovs. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons,
2003.
"War and Revolution in Russia." BBC Online. 2 Nov. 1998. BBC News. 3 Mar. 2006
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1998/10/98/world_war_i/
204095.stm>.
"Russia and the First World War." Spartacus. 2 Mar. 2006. Spartacus. 3 Mar. 2006
<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSfww.htm>.
"Nicholas II of Russia." Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia. 3 Mar. 2006.
Wikipedia Foundation Incorpriated. 3 Mar. 2006 <http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Nicholas_II_of_Russia>.
User avatar
By Maxim Litvinov
#880056
Hmm. It's interesting to read about the tsars. Perhaps this should be in History, jaakko?

As I enjoy criticising essays, I'll do my best on this one:

[1] "... Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russians..." - his title was much longer than this. Quoting this bit seems excessive, but if you are to use his full title then use his FULL title and stick it in the footnotes.
[2] *section on his childhood* - needs referencing. Also, this section has a lot of short 'factual' sentences which never really develop into much aside from 'Did you know?' points about Nicholas.
[3] "when he saw his beloved Grandfather be gunned down by terrorists. The boy watched his old “pappy” bleed" - (a) Unless Nikolai used the name 'pappy', this term is out of place (b) the tsar was assassinated by improvised grenades and not gunshots was he not? (c) do you have a source putting Nikolai II at the scene - can this be referenced?
[4] "and imputed his military duties for" - looks like you want another verb here.
[5] "Pamiat Azoua" - This should be Pamiat Azova (memory of Azov)
[6] "In Japan, a policeman attacked Nikolai with his sword. He suffered severe headaches for the rest of his life." - if this was in greater detail it would be clearer.
[7] "He was a charming young man with a noble amount of friendliness" - you have to be careful to remain 'unattached' to your subject. 'Charming', 'noble' and 'humble' sound like you getting too willing to be his moral judge. Better to talk about what others said about him and source these claims: eg "Prince X wrote of him that ... and he made a generally favourable impression on Y".
[8] "In 1885, Tsar Alexander II freed the serfs." - the date of the emancipation decree was February 19, 1861 and this did not 'free' the serfs in anything more than a technical sense. I'm not sure about the 'allowed them to go to school' bit - this must be clearer.
[9] "Nicholas II did neither understand nor comprehended" - NII neither understood nor comprehended.
[10] "...relationship with the Duma" - you can't just spring the Duma on us. You need to talk about what the Duma was and how it came about, about the different Dumas and the role of the 1905 Revolution in their re-establishment etc. You make the Duma sound like a 'self-made parliament' as opposed to a constitutional device organised by the tsar himself.
[11] "Up until this time, serious disturbances had been rare in Russia." - well, strikes had actually been very common occurences since the 1890s.
[12] "established the SPS..." - I've never seen this acronym 'SPS' - do you just mean the Soviet?
[13] "Leon Tolstoy" - actually, Lev or Leo Tolstoy. Don't confuse him with Trotsky.
[14] "also known in some history books as Alesha, Alix or Alexis" - probably unnecessary. Russians all have a host of 'nicknames' for people. Alexei was his 'proper name', whereas the others are just nicknames, AFAIK.
[15] "Anti-sentimentalism" - you mean anti-Semitism.
[16] "The war continued in Russia until 1918" - you need to introduce the war and perhaps talk about why NII decided to go to war in the first place. The 1918 cut off also only refers to the Brest-Litovsk treaty - you need to point out that Civil War went on into the 1920s.
[17] "Angered at this a Russian man named Vladmir Lenin arranged ..." - Well, Lenin had actually been a Marxist revolutionary for over 25 years by then and didn't call for revolution simply because of the war. He rather used the war to help promote revolution.
[18] "Especially after the imperial police wrongly hung his brother in 1887." - why wrongly?
[19] "that rat was really sneaky!" - you can do without such statements.
[20] "Now, the war was not going so hot and the Tsar believed everything Rasputin said and so he did. " - careful of descending into colloqualisms.
[21] "which we will now entitle “Ratpootin’”" - now just silly. Not to mention that 'Rasputin' actually isn't a nice name in Russian in the first place.
[21] "Ratpootin’ deliberately caused even more corruption!" - people don't simply 'cause corruption': you need to be clear here.
[21] "The February Revolution of 1916" - 1917
[22] "The girls were often insulted while in the lavatory." - ?
[23] "moved them to Yekatrinburg in Siberia" - Yekaterinburg is not really in Siberia, but in the far east of European Russia, just to the West of the Urals.
[24] " Today, the Ipatiev House is the sight of Russia’s most famous church – the Church of Blood." - I've never even heard of the church. It is certainly not Russia's most famous - St Basil's or the Church of the Savior or the Church of the Spilt Blood are Russia's most famous churches/cathedrals.
[25] "In 1981 the Russian Orthodox Church entitled Nicholas and his family as Passion Bearers" - you sure this is '81 and not '91?
By Stipe
#880171
[1] "... Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russians..." - his title was much longer than this. Quoting this bit seems excessive, but if you are to use his full title then use his FULL title and stick it in the footnotes.


Also, it's a mistranslation. (Imperator i Samoderzhets Vserossiyskiy)

The better translation is simply "Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia".

Vserossiyskiy basically means something like All/Pan-Russian.

Anyway, I haven't read the whole thing myself since unlike Maxim I hate editing stuff, but Maxim knows his shit so listen to him. ;)
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By Truthseeker
#880180
Alexander III thought the Tsarviche was too soft and weak-minded. He didn’t have faith in him and thusly did not prepare him properly for the throne.


That makes no sense, you're speculating that the Czar thought his son would make a bad emperor so he didn't try to prepare him!?

His instruction in political matters was delayed until the age of 35 out of paranoia, he apparantly had no contingency for a succession prior to then, which actually occurred.

The Russians knew the war could have been easily prevented.


A huge exaggeration, huge and humiliating concessions would have been required, especially after the Japanese ultimatum

On January 22nd, 1905 a group of peaceful and unarmed workers gathered on the streets by the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.


Him not being there at the time

When the incident was reported to him by a soldier


who almost certainly misrepresented the incident to portray the guide in a positive light.

Late in 1914 General Paul Von Rennenkampf and Alexander Samsanov prepared for the invasion of East Prussia. Their attempt led to a devastating loss.


The purpose was to be diversionary, simultaneously an even greater victory was won over the Austrians from which they never recovered.
User avatar
By HoniSoit
#881271
[12] "established the SPS..." - I've never seen this acronym 'SPS' - do you just mean the Soviet?

SRs?Or South Russian Workers' Union?

Leon Trotsky established the SPS. Within weeks, 50 SPS stations were founded throughout Russia...Leon Tolstoy, a famous Russian author and revolutionary

Max pointed out the same (possible) confusion in this part.

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