(Nikolai Aleksandrovich Romanov). Born May 6 (18), 1868, in Tsarskoe Selo, now the city of Pushkin; died on the night of July 16–17, 1918, in Ekaterinburg, now Sverdlovsk. The last Russian emperor [Oct. 21 (Nov. 2), 1894, to Mar. 2(15), 1917]. Oldest son of Alexander III.
Nicholas II studied under private tutors. His studies were based on a broadened Gymnasium curriculum until 1885–90, when he pursued a special program combining the government and economics curricula of a university faculty of law with the course of study of the Academy of the General Staff. The teacher who exerted the greatest influence on Nicholas was K. P. Pobedonostsev, who instilled in his pupil a firm conviction in the unshakable nature of autocracy. In November 1894, Nicholas married the daughter of the grand duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, Alice (Alexandra Fedorovna). The couple had four daughters and a son, Aleksei (born in 1904), the heir to the throne.
Nicholas II did not have sufficient intellectual ability to be a statesman. He had a weak will, which was combined with obstinacy when the resolution of questions involved his personal prestige. Toward the end of his reign, the solution of many issues of state were in the hands of the empress. The tsarina was mystically inclined and psychologically unbalanced. Various adventurists had influence over her, and through her, over Nicholas. The most important of these was G. E. Rasputin.
The beginning of Nicholas’ reign coincided with the rapid development of capitalism in Russia and with the transition in the early 20th century to the imperialist stage of capitalism. In order to preserve and strengthen the power of the dvorianstvo (nobility or gentry), whose interests the regime continued to represent, tsarism was forced to adapt itself to the bourgeois development of the country. This adaptation was manifested in tsarism’s striving for rapprochement with the big bourgeoisie, in its attempt to create a social base of support among the well-to-do peasantry, and in the establishment of the State Duma (1906).
Nicholas reigned during a time of almost uninterrupted growth of the revolutionary movement. His regime made use of the army, the police, the courts, and measures of “police socialism” to combat this movement; to this end it fanned nationalism and chauvinism, encouraged Black Hundreds organizations, such as the Union of Michael the Archangel, and initiated an aggressive foreign policy, which led to the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05). For carrying out repressive measures during the entire course of his reign—”Bloody Sunday,” the punitive expeditions, the courts-martial in 1905–07—Nicholas II entered history as “Nicholas the Bloody.” Forced during the most intense period of the first Russian revolution to issue the Manifesto of October 17, 1905, with its promises of a legislative Duma and bourgeois democratic freedoms, Nicholas II afterward viewed this act as a result of his weakness. Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War and the Revolution of 1905–07 abruptly weakened Russia’s influence in the international arena, and tsarism was compelled to seek allies in order to carry out new plans of aggression. But an attempted rapprochement with Germany (Björkö Treaty), which Nicholas undertook on his own initiative was not in Russia’s national interests, and Nicholas had to renounce the treaty.
A period of very close relations with the countries of the Entente then began, and in 1914 tsarism entered World War I as a member of the Entente. Nicholas II wanted to command the army, but this met with a resolute protest from a number of statesmen; the tsar was thus forced to appoint his uncle Nikolai Nikolaevich the Younger commander in chief. Fearing the popularity of his uncle in the army and in the country, and disregarding public opinion, the tsar took over the post of commander in chief on Aug. 23, 1915. Failures at the front, huge losses, demoralization and collapse in the rear, and the Rasputin scandal all aroused intense dissatisfaction with autocracy in all strata of Russian society.
Overthrown by the bourgeois democratic February Revolution of 1917, Nicholas II abdicated in favor of his brother Mikhail Aleksandrovich on Mar. 2 (15), 1917. Under pressure from the revolutionary forces, Mikhail did not accept the crown. On demand of the workers of Petrograd, Nicholas and his family were arrested in the Alexander Palace (Tsarskoe Selo) on Mar. 8 (21), 1917, and sent to Tobol’sk; after the October Revolution of 1917, they were moved to Ekaterinburg (now Sverdlovsk). In connection with the approach of White Guard forces to Ekaterinburg and by decree of the presidium of the Urals oblast soviet, Nicholas II and the members of his family were shot.
K. F. SHATSILLO