One hundred years ago, in the early hours of July 17, 1918, the abdicated Czar Nicholas II and his immediate family, along with four retainers, were murdered, and buried in haste under cover of night.
Sergei Witte, the brilliant diplomat and reformer who engineered Russia's first constitution, warned Nicholas in 1905 that "Russia has outgrown its existing governmental forms.... You must give the people their constitution; otherwise, they will wrest one away."
Nicholas dithered, while also imploring his cousin Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich to become dictator.
From the outset of his reign, Nicholas was as detached from authority as he was captivated by the weight and romance of its history.
His own mother told Witte, years before the premature death of her husband, Czar Alexander III, that Nicholas was incapable of ruling and lacked the character and will to become emperor.
Inspired by the ideal of the mystical union of the "People and the czar," Nicholas possessed the political worldview of an early-modern absolutist, along the lines of King James I of England.
Nicholas was possibly the most uxorious of all world leaders.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/setting-bloody-century-motion-16030.html
Sergei Witte, the brilliant diplomat and reformer who engineered Russia's first constitution, warned Nicholas in 1905 that "Russia has outgrown its existing governmental forms.... You must give the people their constitution; otherwise, they will wrest one away."
Nicholas dithered, while also imploring his cousin Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich to become dictator.
From the outset of his reign, Nicholas was as detached from authority as he was captivated by the weight and romance of its history.
His own mother told Witte, years before the premature death of her husband, Czar Alexander III, that Nicholas was incapable of ruling and lacked the character and will to become emperor.
Inspired by the ideal of the mystical union of the "People and the czar," Nicholas possessed the political worldview of an early-modern absolutist, along the lines of King James I of England.
Nicholas was possibly the most uxorious of all world leaders.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/setting-bloody-century-motion-16030.html
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