Article about Nicholas 2 in the Russian media. Nicholas II Alexandrovich

Instruction

Nicholas II led to the abdication whole line events and upheavals that occurred during his reign. His abdication in 1917 is one of the key events that led the country to the February Revolution in 1917 and to the transformation of Russia as a whole. We should consider the mistakes of Nicholas II, which in their totality led him to his own abdication.

The first mistake. Currently, the abdication of Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov from the throne is perceived by everyone in different ways. There is an opinion that the beginning of the so-called "royal persecution" was laid during the festive festivities on the occasion of the coronation of the new emperor. Then one of the most terrible and cruel crushes in the history of Russia occurred on the Khodynka field, in which more than 1.5 thousand civilians were killed and injured. The decision of the newly-made emperor to continue the festivities and give an evening ball on the same day, despite what had happened, was recognized as cynical. It was this event that made many people speak of Nicholas II as a cynical and heartless person.

Second error. Nicholas II understood that something had to be changed in the management of the “sick” state, but he chose the wrong methods for this. The fact is that the emperor went the wrong way, declaring a hasty war on Japan. It happened in 1904. Historians recall that Nicholas II seriously hoped to quickly and with minimal losses deal with the enemy, thereby awakening patriotism in the Russians. But this was his fatal mistake: Russia then suffered a shameful defeat, lost South and Far Sakhalin and the fortress of Port Arthur.

Error three. The major defeat in the Russo-Japanese War did not go unnoticed by Russian society. Protests, unrest and rallies swept across the country. This was enough to hate the ruling elite. People all over Russia demanded not only the abdication of Nicholas II from the throne, but also the complete overthrow of the entire monarchy. The dissatisfaction grew every day. On the famous "Bloody Sunday" on January 9, 1905, the people came to the walls of the Winter Palace with complaints about unbearable life. The emperor was not in the palace at that time - he and his family were resting in the homeland of the poet Pushkin - in Tsarskoye Selo. This was his next mistake.

It was a “convenient” combination of circumstances (the tsar was not in the palace) that allowed the provocation, which had been prepared in advance by this popular procession - the priest Georgy Gapon, to prevail. Without the emperor and, moreover, without his order, fire was opened on civilians. On that Sunday, women, and old people, and even children died. This forever killed the faith of the people in the king and in the fatherland. Then more than 130 people were shot, and several hundred were wounded. The emperor, having learned about this, was seriously shocked and depressed by the tragedy. He understood that the anti-Romanov mechanism had already been launched, and there was no turning back. But the king's mistakes did not end there.

Mistake four. In such a difficult time for the country, Nicholas II decided to get involved in the First World War. Then, in 1914, a military conflict began between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, and Russia decided to defend the small Slavic state. This led her to a "duel" with Germany, which declared war on Russia. Since then, the Nikolaev country was fading before his eyes. The emperor did not yet know that he would pay for all this not only with his abdication, but also with the death of his entire family. The war dragged on for many years, the army and the entire state were extremely dissatisfied with such a foul tsarist regime. Imperial power has actually lost its power.

Then a Provisional Government was created in Petrograd, consisting of the enemies of the tsar - Milyukov, Kerensky and Guchkov. They put pressure on Nicholas II, opening his eyes to the true state of affairs both in the country itself and on the world stage. Nikolai Aleksandrovich could no longer bear such a burden of responsibility. He made the decision to abdicate. When the king did this, his entire family was arrested, and after a while they were shot along with former emperor. That was the night of June 16-17, 1918. Of course, no one can say with certainty that if the emperor had revised his views on foreign policy, then he would not have brought the country to the handle. What happened, happened. Historians can only speculate.

Nicholas II and his family

“They died martyrs for humanity. Their true greatness did not stem from their royal dignity, but from that amazing moral height to which they gradually rose. They have become the perfect force. And in their very humiliation, they were a striking manifestation of that amazing clarity of the soul, against which all violence and all rage are powerless, and which triumphs in death itself ”(Tsarevich Alexei’s teacher Pierre Gilliard).

NicholasII Aleksandrovich Romanov

Nicholas II

Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov (Nicholas II) was born on May 6 (18), 1868 in Tsarskoye Selo. He was the eldest son of the Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna. Got strict, almost harsh upbringing under the guidance of his father. "I need normal healthy Russian children," - such a requirement was put forward by Emperor Alexander III to the educators of his children.

The future emperor Nicholas II received a good education at home: he knew several languages, studied Russian and world history, was deeply versed in military affairs, and was a widely erudite person.

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna

Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich and Princess Alice

Princess Alice Victoria Helena Louise Beatrice was born on May 25 (June 7), 1872 in Darmstadt, the capital of a small German duchy, already forcibly included by that time in the German Empire. Alice's father was Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, and her mother was Princess Alice of England, the third daughter of Queen Victoria. As a child, Princess Alice (Alyx, as her family called her) was a cheerful, lively child, for which she was nicknamed "Sunny" (Sunny). There were seven children in the family, all of them were brought up in patriarchal traditions. Mother set strict rules for them: not a single minute of idleness! The clothes and food of the children were very simple. The girls themselves cleaned their rooms, performed some household chores. But her mother died of diphtheria at the age of thirty-five. After the tragedy she experienced (and she was only 6 years old), little Alix became withdrawn, aloof, and began to shun strangers; she calmed down only in the family circle. After the death of her daughter, Queen Victoria transferred her love to her children, especially to the youngest, Alix. Her upbringing and education were under the control of her grandmother.

marriage

The first meeting of the sixteen-year-old heir to Tsesarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich and the very young Princess Alice took place in 1884, and in 1889, having reached the age of majority, Nikolai turned to his parents with a request to bless him for marriage with Princess Alice, but his father refused, citing his youth as the reason for the refusal. I had to come to terms with my father's will. But usually soft and even timid in dealing with his father, Nicholas showed perseverance and determination - Alexander III gives his blessing to the marriage. But the joy of mutual love was overshadowed by a sharp deterioration in the health of Emperor Alexander III, who died on October 20, 1894 in the Crimea. The next day, in the palace church of the Livadia Palace, Princess Alice was converted to Orthodoxy, was anointed, receiving the name of Alexandra Feodorovna.

Despite the mourning for the father, they decided not to postpone the marriage, but to hold it in the most modest atmosphere on November 14, 1894. So for Nicholas II, family life and the management of the Russian Empire began at the same time, he was 26 years old.

He had a lively mind - he always quickly grasped the essence of the issues reported to him, an excellent memory, especially for faces, the nobility of the way of thinking. But Nikolai Alexandrovich, with his gentleness, tact in handling, and modest manners, impressed many people as a man who did not inherit the strong will of his father, who left him the following political testament: “ I bequeath to you to love everything that serves the good, honor and dignity of Russia. Protect autocracy, remembering that you are responsible for the fate of your subjects before the Throne of the Most High. Faith in God and the holiness of your royal duty be the foundation of your life for you. Be firm and courageous, never show weakness. Listen to everyone, there is nothing shameful in this, but listen to yourself and your conscience.

Beginning of the reign

From the very beginning of his reign, Emperor Nicholas II treated the duties of the monarch as a sacred duty. He deeply believed that even for the 100-million Russian people, tsarist power was and remains sacred.

Coronation of Nicholas II

1896 is the year of coronation celebrations in Moscow. The sacrament of chrismation was performed over the royal couple - as a sign that, just as there is no higher, there is no harder on earth royal power, there is no burden heavier than royal service. But the coronation celebrations in Moscow were overshadowed by the disaster at the Khodynka field: in the waiting royal gifts there was a crush on the crowd, in which many people died. According to official figures, 1389 people died and 1300 were seriously injured, according to unofficial data - 4000. But the events on the occasion of the coronation were not canceled in connection with this tragedy, but continued according to the program: in the evening of the same day, a ball was held at the French ambassador. The sovereign was present at all planned events, including the ball, which was perceived ambiguously in society. The tragedy at Khodynka was perceived by many as a gloomy omen for the reign of Nicholas II, and when the question of his canonization arose in 2000, it was cited as an argument against it.

Family

On November 3, 1895, the first daughter was born in the family of Emperor Nicholas II - Olga; she was born Tatyana(May 29, 1897), Maria(June 14, 1899) and Anastasia(June 5, 1901). But the family was waiting for the heir.

Olga

Olga

From childhood, she grew up very kind and sympathetic, deeply worried about other people's misfortunes and always tried to help. She was the only one of the four sisters who could openly object to her father and mother and was very reluctant to submit to her parents' will if circumstances required it.

Olga loved to read more than other sisters, later she began to write poetry. Teacher French and a friend of the imperial family, Pierre Gilliard, noted that Olga learned the material of the lessons better and faster than the sisters. It was easy for her, that's why she was sometimes lazy. " Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna was a typical good Russian girl with big soul. She made an impression on those around her with her tenderness, her charming sweet treatment of everyone. She behaved with everyone evenly, calmly and amazingly simply and naturally. She did not like housekeeping, but she loved solitude and books. She was developed and very well-read; She had an aptitude for the arts: she played the piano, sang, and studied singing in Petrograd, drawing well. She was very modest and did not like luxury.”(From the memoirs of M. Dieterikhs).

There was an unfulfilled plan for Olga's marriage to a Romanian prince (future Carol II). Olga Nikolaevna categorically refused to leave her homeland, to live in a foreign country, she said that she was Russian and wanted to remain so.

Tatyana

As a child, her favorite activities were: serso (playing hoop), riding a pony and a bulky bicycle - tandem - paired with Olga, leisurely picking flowers and berries. From quiet home entertainment, she preferred drawing, picture books, confused children's embroidery - knitting and a "doll's house".

Of the Grand Duchesses, she was the closest to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, she always tried to surround her mother with care and peace, to listen and understand her. Many considered her the most beautiful of all the sisters. P. Gilliard recalled: “ Tatyana Nikolaevna was by nature rather restrained, had a will, but was less frank and direct than her older sister. She was also less gifted, but atoned for this shortcoming by great consistency and evenness of character. She was very beautiful, although she did not have the charms of Olga Nikolaevna. If only the Empress made a difference between the Daughters, then Tatyana Nikolaevna was Her favorite. Not that Her sisters loved Mother less than Her, but Tatyana Nikolaevna knew how to surround Her with constant care and never allowed herself to show that She was out of sorts. With her beauty and natural ability to keep herself in society, She overshadowed her sister, who was less concerned with Her special and somehow faded into the background. Nevertheless, these two sisters dearly loved each other, there was only a year and a half difference between them, which, naturally, brought them closer. They were called "big", while Maria Nikolaevna and Anastasia Nikolaevna continued to be called "small".

Maria

Contemporaries describe Maria as a lively, cheerful girl, too large for her age, with light blond hair and large dark blue eyes, which the family affectionately called "Masha's Saucers".

Her French teacher, Pierre Gilliard, said that Maria was tall, with a good physique and rosy cheeks.

General M. Dieterikhs recalled: “Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna was the most beautiful, typically Russian, good-natured, cheerful, even-tempered, friendly girl. She knew how and loved to talk with everyone, especially with common man. During walks in the park, she always used to start conversations with the soldiers of the guard, questioned them and remembered perfectly well who had what to call his wife, how many children, how much land, etc. She always had a lot common themes to talk to them. For her simplicity, she received the nickname "Mashka" in the family; that was the name of her sisters and Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich.

Maria had a talent for drawing, she made sketches well, using left hand but she had no interest in schoolwork. Many noticed that this young girl was 170 cm tall and by force went to her grandfather, Emperor Alexander III. General M. K. Diterichs recalled that when the sick Tsarevich Alexei needed to get somewhere, and he himself was unable to walk, he called: “Masha, carry me!”

They remember that little Mary was especially attached to her father. As soon as she started walking, she constantly tried to sneak out of the nursery with a cry of “I want to go to daddy!” The nanny had to almost lock her up so that the baby would not interrupt the next reception or work with the ministers.

Like the rest of the sisters, Maria loved animals, she had a Siamese kitten, then she was given a white mouse, which settled comfortably in the sisters' room.

According to the recollections of the surviving close associates, the Red Army soldiers guarding the Ipatiev house sometimes showed tactlessness and rudeness towards the prisoners. However, here, too, Maria managed to inspire respect for the guards; so, there are stories about the case when the guards, in the presence of two sisters, allowed themselves to let off a couple of greasy jokes, after which Tatyana “white as death” jumped out, Maria scolded the soldiers in a stern voice, stating that in this way they could only arouse hostility relation. Here, in the Ipatiev house, Maria celebrated her 19th birthday.

Anastasia

Anastasia

Like other children of the emperor, Anastasia was educated at home. Education began at the age of eight, the program included French, English and German, history, geography, the Law of God, natural Sciences, drawing, grammar, arithmetic, as well as dance and music. Anastasia did not differ in diligence in her studies, she could not stand grammar, she wrote with terrifying mistakes, and called arithmetic with childish immediacy "swinishness". English teacher Sydney Gibbs recalled that once she tried to bribe him with a bouquet of flowers to increase her grade, and after he refused, she gave these flowers to a Russian teacher, Pyotr Vasilyevich Petrov.

During the war, the empress gave many of the palace rooms for hospital premises. The older sisters Olga and Tatyana, together with their mother, became sisters of mercy; Maria and Anastasia, being too young for such hard work, became patronesses of the hospital. Both sisters gave their own money to buy medicines, read aloud to the wounded, knitted things for them, played cards and checkers, wrote letters home under their dictation and entertained them with telephone conversations in the evenings, sewed linen, prepared bandages and lint.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Anastasia was small and dense, with blond hair with a reddish tint, with large blue eyes inherited from her father.

The figure of Anastasia was quite dense, like her sister Maria. She inherited wide hips, a slender waist and a good bust from her mother. Anastasia was short, strongly built, but at the same time seemed somewhat airy. Her face and physique were rustic, yielding to the stately Olga and the fragile Tatyana. Anastasia was the only one who inherited the shape of her face from her father - slightly elongated, with protruding cheekbones and broad forehead. She was very much like her father. Large facial features - big eyes, a large nose, soft lips made Anastasia look like a young Maria Fedorovna - her grandmother.

The girl was distinguished by a light and cheerful character, she loved to play bast shoes, forfeits, in serso, she could tirelessly rush around the palace for hours, playing hide and seek. She easily climbed trees and often, out of sheer mischief, refused to descend to the ground. She was inexhaustible in inventions. With her light hand it became fashionable to weave flowers and ribbons into her hair, which little Anastasia was very proud of. She was inseparable from her older sister Maria, adored her brother and could entertain him for hours when another illness put Alexei to bed. Anna Vyrubova recalled that "Anastasia was as if made of mercury, and not of flesh and blood."

Alexei

On July 30 (August 12), 1904, the fifth child and the only, long-awaited son, Tsarevich Alexei Nikolayevich, appeared in Peterhof. The royal couple attended the glorification of Seraphim of Sarov on July 18, 1903 in Sarov, where the emperor and empress prayed for the granting of an heir. Named at birth Alexey- in honor of St. Alexis of Moscow. On the mother's side, Alexei inherited hemophilia, which was carried by some of the daughters and granddaughters of the English Queen Victoria. The disease became apparent in the Tsarevich already in the autumn of 1904, when a two-month-old baby began to bleed heavily. In 1912, while resting in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, the Tsarevich unsuccessfully jumped into a boat and severely injured his thigh: the hematoma that arose did not resolve for a long time, the child’s health was very difficult, and bulletins were officially published about him. Was real threat of death.

The appearance of Alexei combined the best features of his father and mother. According to the memoirs of contemporaries, Alexei was a handsome boy, with a clean, open face.

His character was complaisant, he adored his parents and sisters, and those souls doted on the young Tsarevich, especially the Grand Duchess Maria. Aleksey was capable in studies, like the sisters, he made progress in learning languages. From the memoirs of N.A. Sokolov, author of the book "The Murder of the Royal Family: “The heir to Tsarevich Alexei Nikolayevich was a boy of 14 years old, smart, observant, receptive, affectionate, cheerful. He was lazy and did not particularly like books. He combined the features of his father and mother: he inherited the simplicity of his father, was alien to arrogance, arrogance, but had his own will and obeyed only his father. His mother wanted to, but could not be strict with him. His teacher Bitner says of him: "He had a great will and would never submit to any woman." He was very disciplined, withdrawn and very patient. Undoubtedly, the disease left its mark on him and developed these traits in him. He did not like court etiquette, he liked to be with the soldiers and learned their language, using in his diary purely folk expressions he had overheard. His stinginess reminded him of his mother: he did not like to spend his money and collected various abandoned things: nails, lead paper, ropes, etc. ”

The Tsarevich loved his army very much and was in awe of the Russian warrior, respect for whom was passed on to him from his father and from all his sovereign ancestors, who always taught him to love a simple soldier. The prince's favorite food was "shchi and porridge and black bread, which all my soldiers eat," as he always said. Every day they brought him samples of cabbage soup and porridge from the soldiers' kitchen of the Free Regiment; Alexey ate everything and licked the spoon, saying: “This is delicious, not like our lunch.”

During the First World War, Alexei, who was the chief of several regiments and chieftain of all Cossack troops, visited the active army with his father, awarded distinguished fighters. He was awarded the silver St. George medal of the 4th degree.

Raising children in the royal family

The life of the family was not luxurious for the purpose of education - the parents were afraid that wealth and bliss would spoil the character of the children. The imperial daughters lived two by two in a room - on one side of the corridor there was a "big couple" (eldest daughters Olga and Tatiana), on the other - a "small" couple (younger daughters Maria and Anastasia).

Family of Nicholas II

In the younger sisters' room, the walls were painted in grey colour, the ceiling is painted with butterflies, the furniture is designed in white and green tones, simple and artless. The girls slept on folding army beds, each labeled with the owner's name, under thick monogrammed blue blankets. This tradition came from the time of Catherine the Great (she introduced such an order for the first time for her grandson Alexander). The beds could easily be moved to be closer to the warmth in winter, or even in my brother's room, next to the Christmas tree, and closer to the open windows in summer. Here, everyone had a small bedside table and sofas with small embroidered little thoughts. The walls were decorated with icons and photographs; the girls loved to take pictures themselves - a huge number of pictures have still been preserved, taken mainly in the Livadia Palace - a favorite vacation spot for the family. Parents tried to keep the children constantly busy with something useful, girls were taught to needlework.

As in simple poor families, the younger ones often had to wear out the things that the older ones grew out of. They also relied on pocket money, which could be used to buy each other small gifts.

The education of children usually began when they reached the age of 8. The first subjects were reading, calligraphy, arithmetic, the Law of God. Later, languages ​​\u200b\u200bare added to this - Russian, English, French, and even later - German. The imperial daughters were also taught dancing, playing the piano, good manners, natural sciences and grammar.

Imperial daughters were ordered to get up at 8 o'clock in the morning, take a cold bath. Breakfast at 9 o'clock, second breakfast - at one or half past one on Sundays. At 5 pm - tea, at 8 - common dinner.

Everyone who knew the family life of the emperor noted the amazing simplicity, mutual love and the consent of all family members. Aleksey Nikolayevich was its center; all attachments, all hopes were concentrated on him. In relation to the mother, the children were full of respect and courtesy. When the empress was unwell, the daughters arranged alternate duty with their mother, and the one who was on duty that day remained hopelessly with her. The relationship of the children with the sovereign was touching - for them he was at the same time king, father and comrade; their feelings for their father went from almost religious worship to complete gullibility and the most cordial friendship. A very important memory of the spiritual state of the royal family was left by the priest Afanasy Belyaev, who confessed the children before their departure to Tobolsk: “The impression from the confession turned out like this: grant, Lord, that all the children are morally as high as the children of the former king. Such kindness, humility, obedience to parental will, unconditional devotion to the will of God, purity in thoughts and complete ignorance of earthly dirt - passionate and sinful - led me to amazement, and I was decidedly perplexed: should I, as a confessor, be reminded of sins, maybe they unknown, and how to dispose to repentance for the sins known to me.

Rasputin

A circumstance that constantly darkened the life of the imperial family was the incurable illness of the heir. Frequent attacks of hemophilia, during which the child experienced severe suffering, made everyone suffer, especially the mother. But the nature of the disease was a state secret, and parents often had to hide their feelings by participating in the usual routine. palace life. The Empress was well aware that medicine was powerless here. But, being a deep believer, she indulged in fervent prayer in anticipation of a miraculous healing. She was ready to believe anyone who was able to help her grief, somehow alleviate the suffering of her son: the illness of the Tsarevich opened the doors to the palace for those people who were recommended to the royal family as healers and prayer books. Among them, the peasant Grigory Rasputin appears in the palace, who was destined to play his role in the life of the royal family and in the fate of the whole country - but he had no right to claim this role.

Rasputin was presented as a kind holy old man helping Alexei. Under the influence of their mother, all four girls had complete confidence in him and shared all their simple secrets. Rasputin's friendship with the imperial children was evident from their correspondence. Those who sincerely loved the royal family tried to somehow limit the influence of Rasputin, but the empress resisted this very much, since the “holy old man” somehow knew how to alleviate the plight of Tsarevich Alexei.

World War I

Russia was at that time at the pinnacle of glory and power: industry developed at an unprecedented pace, the army and navy became more and more powerful, and agrarian reform was successfully implemented. It seemed that all internal problems would be safely resolved in the near future.

But this was not destined to come true: the First World War was brewing. Using as a pretext the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne by a terrorist, Austria attacked Serbia. Emperor Nicholas II considered it his Christian duty to stand up for the Orthodox Serbian brothers...

On July 19 (August 1), 1914, Germany declared war on Russia, which soon became a pan-European one. In August 1914, Russia launched a hasty offensive in East Prussia to help its ally France, which led to a heavy defeat. By autumn, it became clear that the near end of the war was not in sight. But with the outbreak of war, internal disagreements subsided in the country. Even the most difficult questions became solvable - it was possible to implement a ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages for the entire duration of the war. The sovereign regularly travels to Headquarters, visits the army, dressing stations, military hospitals, rear factories. The Empress, having taken courses as sisters of mercy, along with her eldest daughters Olga and Tatyana, looked after the wounded in her Tsarskoye Selo infirmary for several hours a day.

On August 22, 1915, Nicholas II left for Mogilev to take command of all the armed forces of Russia and from that day on he was constantly at Headquarters, often with him was the heir. About once a month he came to Tsarskoye Selo for a few days. All responsible decisions were made by him, but at the same time he instructed the empress to maintain relations with the ministers and keep him informed of what was happening in the capital. She was the closest person to him, whom he could always rely on. Every day she sent detailed letters-reports to Headquarters, which was well known to the ministers.

The tsar spent January and February 1917 in Tsarskoye Selo. He felt that the political situation was becoming more and more tense, but he continued to hope that the feeling of patriotism would still prevail, he maintained faith in the army, whose situation had improved significantly. This raised hopes for the success of the great spring offensive, which would deal a decisive blow to Germany. But this was well understood by the forces hostile to him.

Nicholas II and Tsarevich Alexei

On February 22, Emperor Nicholas left for Headquarters - at that moment the opposition managed to sow panic in the capital because of the impending famine. The next day, unrest began in Petrograd caused by interruptions in the delivery of grain, they soon developed into a strike under political slogans"Down with war", "Down with autocracy". Attempts to disperse the demonstrators were unsuccessful. In the meantime, there were debates in the Duma with sharp criticism of the government - but first of all, these were attacks against the emperor. On February 25, a message was received at Headquarters about unrest in the capital. Having learned about the state of affairs, Nicholas II sends troops to Petrograd to maintain order, and then he himself goes to Tsarskoye Selo. His decision was obviously also due to the desire to be at the center of events for adoption if necessary. quick decisions and concern for the family. This departure from Headquarters turned out to be fatal.. For 150 miles from Petrograd, the royal train was stopped - the next station, Lyuban, was in the hands of the rebels. I had to follow through the Dno station, but even here the path was closed. On the evening of March 1, the emperor arrived in Pskov, at the headquarters of the commander northern front General N. V. Ruzsky.

In the capital came complete anarchy. But Nicholas II and the army command believed that the Duma was in control of the situation; in telephone conversations with the chairman of the State Duma, M. V. Rodzianko, the emperor agreed to all concessions if the Duma could restore order in the country. The answer was: it's too late. Was it really so? After all, only Petrograd and its environs were embraced by the revolution, and the tsar's authority among the people and in the army was still great. The answer of the Duma confronted him with a choice: renunciation or an attempt to march on Petrograd with troops loyal to him - the latter meant a civil war, while the external enemy was within Russian borders.

Everyone around the king also convinced him that renunciation - the only way out. This was especially insisted on by the commanders of the fronts, whose demands were supported by the chief General Staff M. V. Alekseev. And after long and painful reflections, the emperor made a hard-won decision: to abdicate both for himself and for the heir, in view of his incurable illness, in favor of his brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich. On March 8, the commissars of the Provisional Government, having arrived in Mogilev, announced through General Alekseev that the emperor had been arrested and that he had to proceed to Tsarskoye Selo. For the last time, he turned to his troops, calling on them to be loyal to the Provisional Government, the very one that arrested him, to fulfill their duty to the Motherland until complete victory. The farewell order to the troops, which expressed the nobility of the emperor's soul, his love for the army, faith in it, was hidden from the people by the Provisional Government, which banned its publication.

According to the memoirs of contemporaries, following their mother, all the sisters sobbed bitterly on the day the First World War was declared. During the war, the empress gave many of the palace rooms for hospital premises. The older sisters Olga and Tatyana, together with their mother, became sisters of mercy; Maria and Anastasia became patronesses of the hospital and helped the wounded: they read to them, wrote letters to their relatives, gave their personal money to buy medicines, gave concerts to the wounded and did their best to distract them from their heavy thoughts. They spent their days in the hospital, reluctantly breaking away from work for the sake of lessons.

On the abdication of NicholasII

In the life of Emperor Nicholas II there were two periods of unequal duration and spiritual significance - the time of his reign and the time of his imprisonment.

Nicholas II after abdication

From the moment of renunciation, the inner spiritual state emperor. It seemed to him that he made the only right decision, but, nevertheless, he experienced severe mental anguish. “If I am an obstacle to the happiness of Russia and all the social forces now at the head of it ask me to leave the throne and pass it on to my son and brother, then I am ready to do this, I am ready not only to give my kingdom, but also to give my life for the Motherland. I think no one doubts this from those who know me,- he said to General D.N. Dubensky.

On the very day of his abdication, March 2, the same general recorded the words of the Minister of the Imperial Court, Count V. B. Frederiks: “ The sovereign is deeply sad that he is considered an obstacle to the happiness of Russia, that they found it necessary to ask him to leave the throne. He was worried about the thought of a family that remained alone in Tsarskoye Selo, the children were sick. The sovereign suffers terribly, but he is such a person who will never show his grief in public. Restrained Nicholas and personal diary. Only at the very end of the entry for that day does his inner feeling break through: “You need my renunciation. The bottom line is that in the name of saving Russia and keeping the army at the front in peace, you need to decide on this step. I agreed. A draft Manifesto was sent from Headquarters. In the evening, Guchkov and Shulgin arrived from Petrograd, with whom I spoke and handed them the signed and revised Manifesto. At one o'clock in the morning I left Pskov with a heavy feeling of what I had experienced. Around treason and cowardice and deceit!

The Provisional Government announced the arrest of Emperor Nicholas II and his wife and their detention in Tsarskoe Selo. Their arrest did not have the slightest legal basis or reason.

House arrest

According to the memoirs of Yulia Alexandrovna von Den, a close friend of Alexandra Feodorovna, in February 1917, at the very height of the revolution, the children fell ill with measles one by one. Anastasia was the last to fall ill, when the Tsarskoye Selo palace was already surrounded by the insurgent troops. The tsar was at that time at the headquarters of the commander-in-chief in Mogilev, only the empress with her children remained in the palace.

At 9 o'clock on March 2, 1917, they learned about the abdication of the king. On March 8, Count Pave Benckendorff announced that the Provisional Government had decided to subject the imperial family to house arrest in Tsarskoye Selo. It was proposed to draw up a list of people wishing to stay with them. And on March 9, the children were informed about the father's abdication.

Nicholas returned a few days later. Life under house arrest began.

Despite everything, the education of children continued. The whole process was led by Gilliard, a teacher of French; Nicholas himself taught the children geography and history; Baroness Buxhoeveden taught English and music lessons; Mademoiselle Schneider taught arithmetic; Countess Gendrikova - drawing; Dr. Evgeny Sergeevich Botkin - Russian; Alexandra Feodorovna - The Law of God. The eldest, Olga, despite the fact that her education was completed, often attended classes and read a lot, improving in what had already been learned.

At this time, there was still hope for the family of Nicholas II to go abroad; but George V decided not to risk it and preferred to sacrifice the royal family. The provisional government appointed a commission to investigate the activities of the emperor, but, despite all efforts to find at least something discrediting the king, nothing was found. When his innocence was proved and it became obvious that there was no crime behind him, the Provisional Government, instead of releasing the sovereign and his wife, decided to remove the prisoners from Tsarskoye Selo: send the family of the former tsar to Tobolsk. On the last day before departure, they had time to say goodbye to the servants, to visit their favorite places in the park, ponds, islands for the last time. On August 1, 1917, a train flying the flag of the Japanese Red Cross mission departed in the strictest confidence from the siding.

In Tobolsk

Nikolai Romanov with his daughters Olga, Anastasia and Tatyana in Tobolsk in the winter of 1917

On August 26, 1917, the imperial family arrived in Tobolsk on the ship "Rus". The house was not yet completely ready for them, so they spent the first eight days on the ship. Then, under escort, the imperial family was taken to the two-story governor's mansion, where they were to live from now on. The girls were given a corner bedroom on the second floor, where they were placed on the same army bunks brought from home.

But life went on at a measured pace and strictly subject to the discipline of the family: from 9.00 to 11.00 - lessons. Then an hour break for a walk with his father. Again lessons from 12.00 to 13.00. Dinner. From 14.00 to 16.00 walks and simple entertainment like home performances or skiing from a slide built by oneself. Anastasia enthusiastically harvested firewood and sewed. Further on the schedule followed the evening service and going to bed.

In September, they were allowed to go out to the nearest church for the morning service: the soldiers formed a living corridor right up to the very church doors. The attitude of local residents to the royal family was benevolent. The emperor followed with alarm the events taking place in Russia. He understood that the country was rapidly heading towards destruction. Kornilov invited Kerensky to send troops to Petrograd in order to put an end to the Bolshevik agitation, which was becoming more and more threatening from day to day, but the Provisional Government also rejected this last attempt to save the Motherland. The king was well aware that this was the only way to avoid imminent disaster. He repents of his renunciation. “After all, he made this decision only in the hope that those who wanted him removed would still be able to continue the war with honor and not ruin the cause of saving Russia. He was then afraid that his refusal to sign the renunciation would lead to civil war in the sight of the enemy. The tsar did not want even a drop of Russian blood to be shed because of him ... It was painful for the emperor to now see the futility of his sacrifice and realize that, having in mind then only the good of the motherland, he harmed her by his renunciation, ”- recalls P. Gilliard, a teacher of children.

Yekaterinburg

Nicholas II

In March, it became known that a separate peace was concluded with Germany in Brest. . "This is such a shame for Russia and it is" tantamount to suicide”, - the emperor gave such an assessment of this event. When a rumor spread that the Germans were demanding that the Bolsheviks hand over the royal family to them, the empress said: “I would rather die in Russia than be saved by the Germans”. The first Bolshevik detachment arrived in Tobolsk on Tuesday 22 April. Commissar Yakovlev inspects the house, gets acquainted with the prisoners. A few days later, he announces that he must take the emperor away, assuring him that nothing bad will happen to him. Assuming that they wanted to send him to Moscow to sign a separate peace with Germany, the emperor, who under no circumstances left his high spiritual nobility, firmly said: I'd rather have my hand cut off than sign this shameful treaty."

The heir at that time was sick, and it was impossible to take him. Despite fear for her sick son, the empress decides to follow her husband; Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna also went with them. Only on May 7, family members who remained in Tobolsk received news from Yekaterinburg: the emperor, empress and Maria Nikolaevna were imprisoned in the Ipatiev house. When the prince's health improved, the rest of the family from Tobolsk were also taken to Yekaterinburg and imprisoned in the same house, but most of the people close to the family were not allowed to see them.

There is little evidence of the Yekaterinburg period of imprisonment of the royal family. Almost no letters. Basically, this period is known only from brief entries in the diary of the emperor and the testimony of witnesses in the case of the murder of the royal family.

Living conditions in the "special purpose house" were much more difficult than in Tobolsk. The guard consisted of 12 soldiers who lived here and ate with them at the same table. Commissar Avdeev, an inveterate drunkard, daily humiliated the royal family. I had to put up with hardships, endure bullying and obey. The royal couple and daughters slept on the floor, without beds. At dinner, a family of seven was given only five spoons; the guards sitting at the same table smoked, blowing smoke into the faces of the prisoners ...

A walk in the garden was allowed once a day, at first for 15-20 minutes, and then no more than five. Only doctor Evgeny Botkin remained near the royal family, who surrounded the prisoners with care and acted as an intermediary between them and the commissars, protecting them from the rudeness of the guards. A few faithful servants remained: Anna Demidova, I. S. Kharitonov, A. E. Trupp and the boy Lenya Sednev.

All the prisoners understood the possibility of an early end. Once, Tsarevich Alexei said: “If they kill, if only they don’t torture ...” Almost in complete isolation, they showed nobility and fortitude. In one of her letters, Olga Nikolaevna says: The father asks to convey to all those who remained devoted to him, and to those on whom they can have influence, so that they do not avenge him, since he has forgiven everyone and prays for everyone, and that they do not avenge themselves, and that they remember that the evil that is now in the world will be even stronger, but that it is not evil that will overcome evil, but only love.

Even the rude guards gradually softened - they were surprised by the simplicity of all members of the royal family, their dignity, even Commissar Avdeev softened. Therefore, he was replaced by Yurovsky, and the guards were replaced by Austro-German prisoners and selected people from among the executioners of the "emergency". The life of the inhabitants of the Ipatiev House turned into a continuous martyrdom. But preparations for the execution were made in secret from the prisoners.

Murder

On the night of July 16-17, around the beginning of the third, Yurovsky woke up the royal family and spoke of the need to move to a safe place. When everyone was dressed and gathered, Yurovsky led them to a basement room with one barred window. All were outwardly calm. The sovereign carried Alexei Nikolaevich in his arms, the rest had pillows and other small things in their hands. In the room where they were brought, the empress and Alexei Nikolaevich sat on chairs. The sovereign stood in the center next to the prince. The rest of the family and servants were in different parts of the room, and at this time the killers were waiting for a signal. Yurovsky approached the emperor and said: "Nikolai Alexandrovich, by order of the Ural Regional Council, you and your family will be shot." These words were unexpected for the king, he turned towards the family, stretched out his hands to them and said: “What? What?" The empress and Olga Nikolaevna wanted to cross themselves, but at that moment Yurovsky shot the tsar from a revolver almost point-blank several times, and he immediately fell. Almost simultaneously, everyone else began to shoot - everyone knew their victim in advance.

Those already lying on the floor were finished off with shots and bayonets. When it was all over, Alexei Nikolaevich suddenly groaned weakly - they shot at him several more times. Eleven bodies lay on the floor in streams of blood. After making sure that their victims were dead, the killers began to remove jewelry from them. Then the dead were carried out into the yard, where a truck was already standing ready - the noise of its engine was supposed to drown out the shots in the basement. Even before sunrise, the bodies were taken to the forest in the vicinity of the village of Koptyaki. For three days, the killers tried to hide their atrocity...

Together with the imperial family, their servants who followed them into exile were also shot: Dr. E. S. Botkin, Empress A. S. Demidov’s room girl, court cook I. M. Kharitonov and lackey A. E. Trupp. In addition, they were killed in various places and in different months 1918 Adjutant General I. L. Tatishchev, Marshal Prince V. A. Dolgorukov, "uncle" of the heir K. G. Nagorny, children's lackey I. D. Sednev, maid of honor of the Empress A. V. Gendrikov and goflectress E. A. Schneider.

Temple-on-the-Blood in Yekaterinburg - built on the site of the house of engineer Ipatiev, where Nicholas II and his family were shot on July 17, 1918

Nicholas II was born in 1868 and went down in history as the last emperor of the Russian Empire. The father of Nicholas II was Alexander III, and his mother was Maria Feodorovna.

Nicholas II had three brothers and two sisters. He was the eldest, so after the death of Alexander III in 1894, it was he who took the throne. Contemporaries of Nicholas II note that he was a fairly simple person to communicate with.

The reign of Nicholas II was marked by quite rapid development economy of the Russian Empire. However, at the same time, social and political contradictions and revolutionary movements were growing in Russia.

For more than twenty years of reign, Nicholas II did a lot for the Russian Empire.

First of all, it is worth noting that during his reign, the population of the Russian Empire increased by almost 50,000,000 people, that is, by 40%. BUT natural increase The population has grown to 3,000,000 people a year. At the same time, the overall standard of living increased significantly.

Thanks to the active development of agriculture, as well as more thoughtful communication routes, the so-called "hungry years" at the beginning of the twentieth century were quickly eliminated. Crop failure now did not mean that there would be famine, since a poor harvest in some areas was offset by a good harvest in others. Under Nicholas II, the harvest of cereals increased significantly.

Coal production has increased significantly. During the reign of Nicholas II, it increased almost four times.

Also, under the reign of Nicholas II, the metallurgical industry increased very significantly. For example, iron smelting has increased almost four times, and copper mining five times. Thanks to this, a rather rapid growth in the field of mechanical engineering began. Consequently, the number of workers also increased from 2,000,000 to 5,000,000.

The length of railways and telegraph poles has increased significantly. It is also worth noting that under Nicholas II the army of the Russian Empire increased significantly. Nicholas II managed to create the most powerful river fleet in the world.

Under Nicholas II, the level of education of the population increased significantly. The production of books also increased.

Finally, it is worth saying that during the entire reign of Nicholas II, the treasury of the Russian Empire increased significantly. At the beginning of his reign, it was 1,200,000,000 rubles, and at the end - 3,500,000,000 rubles.

All this indicates that Nicholas II was a very talented ruler. According to his contemporaries, if everything had continued like this, then by the 1950s the Russian Empire would have become the most developed country in all of Europe.

Let's take a closer look at his rule:

When they talk about Nicholas II, two polar points of view are immediately identified: Orthodox-patriotic and liberal-democratic. For the first, Nicholas II and his family are the ideal of morality, the image of martyrdom; his reign is the highest point of Russia's economic development in its entire history. For others, Nicholas II is a weak personality, a weak-willed person who failed to save the country from revolutionary madness who was entirely under the influence of his wife and Rasputin; Russia during his reign is seen as economically backward.

The attitude towards the personality of the last Russian emperor is so ambiguous that there simply cannot be a consensus on the results of his reign.

When they talk about Nicholas II, two polar points of view are immediately identified: Orthodox-patriotic and liberal-democratic. For the first, Nicholas II and his family are the ideal of morality, the image of martyrdom; his reign is the highest point of Russia's economic development in its entire history. For others, Nicholas II is a weak personality, a weak-willed person who failed to save the country from revolutionary madness, who was completely under the influence of his wife and Rasputin; Russia during his reign is seen as economically backward

Let's look at both points of view and draw our own conclusions.

Orthodox-patriotic point of view

In the 1950s, a report by the Russian writer Brazol Boris Lvovich (1885-1963) appeared in the Russian diaspora. During the First World War, he worked in Russian military intelligence.

Brazol's report is titled "The reign of Emperor Nicholas II in figures and facts. Answer to slanderers, dismemberers and Russophobes.

At the beginning of this report, Edmond Teri, a well-known economist of the time, quotes: “If the affairs of the European nations continue from 1912 to 1950 as they did from 1900 to 1912, Russia by the middle of this century will dominate Europe both politically and politically. both economically and financially. (The Economist Europeen, 1913).

Here are some data from this report.

On the eve of the First World War, the population of the Russian Empire was 182 million people, and during the reign of Emperor Nicholas II it increased by 60 million.

Imperial Russia built its budgetary and financial policy not only on deficit-free budgets, but also on the principle of a significant accumulation of gold reserves.

In the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, by law of 1896, a gold currency was introduced in Russia. The stability of monetary circulation was such that even during the Russo-Japanese War, which was accompanied by widespread revolutionary unrest within the country, the exchange of credit notes for gold was not suspended.

Before the First World War, taxes in Russia were the lowest in the whole world. The burden of direct taxes in Russia was almost 4 times less than in France, more than 4 times less than in Germany and 8.5 times less than in England. The burden of indirect taxes in Russia was on average half that in Austria, France, Germany and England.

Between 1890 and 1913 Russian industry quadrupled its productivity. Moreover, it should be noted that the growth in the number of new enterprises was achieved not due to the emergence of one-day firms, as in modern Russia, but due to actually working factories and factories that produced products and created jobs.

In 1914, the State Savings Bank had deposits worth 2,236,000,000 rubles, i.e. 1.9 times more than in 1908.

These indicators are extremely important for understanding that the population of Russia was by no means poor and saved a significant part of its income.

On the eve of the revolution, Russian agriculture was in full bloom. In 1913, in Russia, the harvest of the main cereals was 1/3 higher than that of Argentina, Canada, and the United States of America combined. In particular, the harvest of rye in 1894 yielded 2 billion poods, and in 1913 - 4 billion poods.

During the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, Russia was the main breadwinner Western Europe. At the same time, the phenomenal growth in the export of agricultural products from Russia to England (grain and flour) attracts special attention. In 1908, 858.3 million pounds were exported, and in 1910, 2.8 million pounds, i.e. 3.3 times.

Russia supplied 50% of world egg imports. In 1908, 2.6 billion pieces worth 54.9 million rubles were exported from Russia, and in 1909 - 2.8 million pieces. worth 62.2 million rubles. The export of rye in 1894 amounted to 2 billion poods, in 1913: 4 billion poods. Sugar consumption in the same period of time increased from 4 to 9 kg per year per person (then sugar was a very expensive product).

On the eve of the First World War, Russia produced 80% of the world's flax production.

In 1916, that is, at the very height of the war, more than 2,000 miles of railways were built, which connected the Arctic Ocean (the port of Romanovsk) with the center of Russia. The Great Siberian Way (8.536 km) was the longest in the world.

It should be added that the Russians railways, compared to others, for passengers were the cheapest and most comfortable in the world.

During the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, public education reached an extraordinary development. Primary education was free by law, and from 1908 it became compulsory. Since this year, about 10,000 schools have been opened annually. In 1913 their number exceeded 130,000. In terms of the number of women studying in higher educational institutions, Russia at the beginning of the 20th century ranked first in Europe, if not in the whole world.

During the reign of Sovereign Nicholas II, the government of Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin carried out one of the most significant and most brilliant reforms in Russia - the agrarian reform. This reform is connected with the transition of the form of ownership of land and land production from communal to private land. On November 9, 1906, the so-called "Stolypin Law" was issued, which allowed the peasant to leave the Community and become the individual and hereditary owner of the land he cultivated. This law was a huge success. Immediately, 2.5 million petitions were filed for access to cuts from family peasants. Thus, on the eve of the revolution, Russia was already ready to turn into a country of owners.

For the period 1886-1913. Russia's exports amounted to 23.5 billion rubles, imports - 17.7 billion rubles.

Foreign investments in the period from 1887 to 1913 increased from 177 million rubles. up to 1.9 billion rubles, i.e. increased by 10.7 times. Moreover, these investments were directed to capital-intensive production and created new jobs. However, what is very important, Russian industry was not dependent on foreigners. Enterprises with foreign investment accounted for only 14% of the total capital of Russian enterprises.

The abdication of Nicholas II from the throne was the greatest tragedy in the thousand-year history of Russia.

By the decision of the Council of Bishops of March 31 - April 4, 1992, the Synodal Commission for the canonization of saints was instructed "when studying the exploits of the new martyrs of Russia, to begin researching materials related to the martyrdom of the Royal Family."

Extracts from "GROUNDS FOR THE CANONIZATION OF THE ROYAL FAMILY

FROM THE REPORT OF METROPOLITAN KRUTITSKY AND KOLOMENSKOY YUVENALY,

CHAIRMAN OF THE SYNODAL COMMISSION FOR THE CANONIZATION OF SAINTS.

“As a politician and statesman, the Sovereign acted on the basis of his religious and moral principles. One of the most common arguments against the canonization of Emperor Nicholas II is the events of January 9, 1905 in St. Petersburg. In the historical information of the Commission on this issue, we indicate: having become acquainted on the evening of January 8 with the contents of the Gapon petition, which had the character of a revolutionary ultimatum, which did not allow to enter into constructive negotiations with representatives of the workers, the Sovereign ignored this document, illegal in form and undermining the prestige of the already fluctuating conditions wars state power. Throughout January 9, 1905, the Sovereign did not take a single decision that determined the actions of the authorities in St. Petersburg to suppress mass demonstrations of workers. The order to the troops to open fire was given not by the Emperor, but by the Commander of the St. Petersburg Military District. Historical data do not allow us to detect in the actions of the Sovereign in the January days of 1905 a conscious evil will directed against the people and embodied in specific sinful decisions and actions.

With the outbreak of the First World War, the Sovereign regularly travels to Headquarters, visits military units of the army in the field, dressing stations, military hospitals, rear factories, in a word, everything that played a role in the conduct of this war.

From the very beginning of the war, the Empress devoted herself to the wounded. Having completed the courses of sisters of mercy, together with her eldest daughters, the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatyana, she nursed the wounded in the Tsarskoye Selo infirmary for several hours a day.

The emperor considered his tenure as the Supreme Commander-in-Chief as the fulfillment of a moral and state duty to God and the people, however, always presenting the leading military specialists with a broad initiative in resolving the entire set of military-strategic and operational-tactical issues.

The Commission expresses the opinion that the very fact of the abdication of the Throne of Emperor Nicholas II, which is directly related to his personal qualities, is on the whole an expression of the then historical situation in Russia.

He made this decision only in the hope that those who wanted him removed would still be able to continue the war with honor and not ruin the cause of saving Russia. He was then afraid that his refusal to sign the renunciation would lead to civil war in the sight of the enemy. The tsar did not want even a drop of Russian blood to be shed because of him.

Spiritual motives for which the last Russian Sovereign, who did not want to shed the blood of his subjects, decided to abdicate the Throne in the name of inner world in Russia, gives his act a truly moral character. It is no coincidence that during the discussion in July 1918 at the Council of the Local Council of the issue of the funeral commemoration of the murdered Sovereign, His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon decided on the universal service of memorial services with the commemoration of Nicholas II as Emperor.

Behind the many sufferings endured by the Royal Family over the last 17 months of their lives, which ended with execution in the basement of the Yekaterinburg Ipatiev House on the night of July 17, 1918, we see people who sincerely sought to embody the commandments of the Gospel in their lives. In the suffering endured by the Royal Family in captivity with meekness, patience and humility, in their martyrdom, the light of Christ's faith conquering evil was revealed, just as it shone in the life and death of millions of Orthodox Christians who suffered persecution for Christ in the 20th century.

It is in understanding this feat of the Royal Family that the Commission, in complete unanimity and with the approval of the Holy Synod, finds it possible to glorify in the Cathedral of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia in the face of the Passion-Bearers Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, Tsarevich Alexy, Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatyana, Maria and Anastasia.

Liberal democratic point of view

When Nicholas II came to power, he had no program, except for the firm intention not to cede his autocratic power, which his father had passed on to him. He always made decisions alone: ​​“How can I do this if it is against my conscience?” This was the basis on which he accepted his political decisions or rejected the options offered to him. He continued to pursue the controversial policies of his father: on the one hand, he tried to achieve social and political stabilization from above by preserving the old estate-state structures, on the other hand, the industrialization policy pursued by the Minister of Finance led to enormous social dynamics. The Russian nobility launched a massive offensive against the economic policy of industrialization pursued by the state. Having removed Witte, the tsar did not know where to go. Despite some reformist steps (for example, the abolition of corporal punishment of peasants), the tsar, under the influence of the new Minister of the Interior Plehve, decided in favor of a policy of preserving the social structure of the peasantry in every possible way (preserving the community), although it was easier for the kulak elements, that is, the richer peasants, to leave peasant community. The tsar and the ministers did not consider reforms necessary in other areas either: only a few minor concessions were made on the labor issue; instead of guaranteeing the right to strike, the government continued its repression. With a policy of stagnation and repression, which at the same time continued the economic policy he had begun in a cautious manner, the tsar could not satisfy anyone.

At a meeting of zemstvo representatives on November 20, 1904, the majority demanded a constitutional regime. The forces of the progressive local nobility, rural intelligentsia, urban self-government and wide circles of the urban intelligentsia, united in opposition, began to demand the introduction of a parliament in the state. They were joined by the St. Petersburg workers, who were allowed to form an independent association, headed by the priest Gapon, they wanted to submit a petition to the tsar. The lack of general leadership, with the minister of the interior already effectively dismissed and the tsar, who, like most ministers, did not understand the gravity of the situation, led to the disaster of Bloody Sunday on January 9, 1905. army officers, who were supposed to hold back the crowd, in a panic ordered to shoot at civilians. 100 people were killed and more than 1,000 are believed to have been injured. The workers and intelligentsia reacted with strikes and protest demonstrations. Although the workers for the most part put forward purely economic demands and the revolutionary parties could not play an important role either in the movement led by Gapon or in the strikes that followed Bloody Sunday, a revolution began in Russia.

When the revolutionary and opposition movement in October 1905 reached highest point- the general strike, which practically paralyzed the country, the tsar was forced to turn again to his former minister of the interior, who, thanks to the very favorable peace treaty for Russia, concluded by him with the Japanese in Portsmouth (USA), gained universal respect. Witte explained to the tsar that he must either appoint a dictator who would fight the revolution fiercely, or must guarantee bourgeois freedoms and an elected legislature. Nicholas did not want to drown the revolution in blood. Thus, the fundamental problem of constitutional monarchies - the creation of a balance of power - has become aggravated as a result of the actions of the prime minister. The October Manifesto (October 17, 1905) promised bourgeois freedoms, an elected assembly with legislative powers, an expansion of the electoral right and, indirectly, equality of religions and nationalities, but did not bring the country the appeasement that the tsar expected. Rather, it caused serious riots that broke out as a result of clashes between loyal to the tsar and revolutionary forces, and led to pogroms in many regions of the country, directed not only against the Jewish population, but also against members of the intelligentsia. The development of events since 1905 has become irreversible.

However, in other areas there were positive changes that were not blocked at the political macro level. The pace of economic growth has again almost reached the level of the 1990s. In the village of Stolypin agrarian reforms, which had the goal of creating private ownership, began to develop independently, despite the resistance from the peasants. The state, through a whole package of measures, sought a large-scale modernization in agriculture. Science, literature and art have reached a new flowering.

But the scandalous figure of Rasputin decisively contributed to the loss of the prestige of the monarch. The First World War ruthlessly exposed the shortcomings of the system of late tsarism. These were primarily political weaknesses. In the military field, by the summer of 1915, they even managed to seize the situation at the front and arrange supplies. In 1916, thanks to the offensive of Brusilov, the Russian army even owned most of the territorial gains of the allies before the collapse of Germany. Nevertheless, in February 1917 tsarism was approaching its doom. The tsar himself was fully to blame for this development of events. Since he increasingly wanted to be his own prime minister, but did not fit this role, during the war no one could coordinate the actions of the various institutions of the state, primarily civilian with the military.

The provisional government, which replaced the monarchy, immediately placed Nicholas and his family under house arrest, but wanted to allow him to leave for England. However, the British government was in no hurry to respond, and the Provisional Government was no longer strong enough to resist the will of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. In August 1917 the family was moved to Tobolsk. In April 1918, the local Bolsheviks secured their transfer to Yekaterinburg. The king endured this time of humiliation with great calmness and hope in God, which, in the face of death, gave him undeniable dignity, but which, even in the best of times, sometimes prevented him from acting rationally and decisively. On the night of July 16-17, 1918, the imperial family was shot. The liberal historian Yuri Gautier spoke with cold precision upon learning of the assassination of the tsar: "This is the denouement of another of the innumerable secondary knots of our troubled times, and the monarchical principle can only benefit from it."

The paradoxes of the personality and reign of Nicholas II can be explained by the objectively existing contradictions of Russian reality at the beginning of the 20th century, when the world was entering a new phase of its development, and the tsar did not have the will and determination to master the situation. Trying to defend the "autocratic principle", he maneuvered: either he made small concessions, or he refused them. As a result, the regime rotted, pushing the country to the abyss. Rejecting and hindering the reforms, the last king contributed to the beginning of the social revolution. This should be recognized both with absolute sympathy for the fate of the king, and with his categorical rejection. At the critical moment of the February coup, the generals changed their oath and forced the tsar to abdicate.

Nicholas II himself knocked the ground out from under his feet. He stubbornly defended his positions, did not make serious compromises, and thus created the conditions for a revolutionary explosion. He did not support the liberals, who sought to prevent the revolution in the hope of concessions from the tsar. And the revolution happened. 1917 became a fatal milestone in the history of Russia.

From myself, I can say that I am more an adherent of the Orthodox-patriotic point of view.

Not a single Russian tsar has created as many myths as about the last, Nicholas II. What really happened? Was the sovereign a sluggish and weak-willed person? Was he cruel? Could he have won World War I? And how much truth is in the black fabrications about this ruler?..

The candidate of historical sciences Gleb Eliseev tells.

Black legend about Nicholas II

Many years have passed since the canonization of the last emperor and his family, but you are still faced with an amazing paradox - many, even completely Orthodox, people dispute the justice of reckoning Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich to the canon of saints.

No one raises any protests or doubts about the legitimacy of the canonization of the son and daughters of the last Russian emperor. Nor did I hear any objections to the canonization of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Even at the Council of Bishops in 2000, when it came to the canonization of the Royal Martyrs, a special opinion was expressed only regarding the sovereign himself. One of the bishops said that the emperor did not deserve to be glorified, because "he is a traitor ... he, one might say, sanctioned the collapse of the country."

And it is clear that in such a situation, spears are broken not at all about the martyrdom or the Christian life of Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich. Neither one nor the other raises doubts even among the most rabid denier of the monarchy. His feat as a martyr is beyond doubt.

The thing is different - in the latent, subconscious resentment: “Why did the sovereign admit that a revolution had taken place? Why didn't you save Russia? Or, as A. I. Solzhenitsyn pointedly put it in his article “Reflections on the February Revolution”: “Weak tsar, he betrayed us. All of us - for everything that follows.

The myth of a weak king who allegedly surrendered his kingdom voluntarily obscures his martyrdom and obscures the demonic cruelty of his tormentors. But what could the sovereign do under the circumstances, when Russian society, like a herd of Gadarene pigs, was rushing into the abyss for decades?

Studying the history of the Nicholas reign, one is amazed not at the weakness of the sovereign, not at his mistakes, but at how much he managed to do in an atmosphere of fanned hatred, malice and slander.

We must not forget that the sovereign received autocratic power over Russia quite unexpectedly, after the sudden, unforeseen and unimagined death of Alexander III. Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich recalled the state of the heir to the throne immediately after the death of his father: “He could not collect his thoughts. He realized that he had become the Emperor, and this terrible burden of power crushed him. “Sandro, what am I going to do! he exclaimed pathetically. - What will happen to Russia now? I'm not ready to be King yet! I can't run the Empire. I don’t even know how to talk to ministers.”

However, after a brief period of confusion new emperor took a firm hold on the wheel government controlled and kept him for twenty-two years, until he fell victim to an apex conspiracy. Until “treason, and cowardice, and deception” swirled around him in a dense cloud, as he himself noted in his diary on March 2, 1917.

The black mythology directed against the last sovereign was actively dispelled both by emigrant historians and modern Russian ones. And yet, in the minds of many, including those who were completely churched, our fellow citizens stubbornly settled down vicious stories, gossip and anecdotes that were presented as truth in Soviet history textbooks.

The myth about the wine of Nicholas II in the Khodynka tragedy

Any list of accusations is tacitly customary to begin with Khodynka - a terrible stampede that occurred during the coronation celebrations in Moscow on May 18, 1896. You might think that the sovereign ordered to organize this stampede! And if anyone is to be blamed for what happened, then the uncle of the emperor, the Moscow Governor-General Sergei Alexandrovich, who did not foresee the very possibility of such an influx of the public. At the same time, it should be noted that they did not hide what happened, all the newspapers wrote about Khodynka, all of Russia knew about her. The Russian emperor and empress the next day visited all the wounded in hospitals and defended a memorial service for the dead. Nicholas II ordered to pay pensions to the victims. And they received it until 1917, until the politicians, who had been speculating on the Khodynka tragedy for years, made it so that any pensions in Russia ceased to be paid at all.

And the slander, repeated over the years, that the tsar, despite the Khodynka tragedy, went to the ball and had fun there, sounds absolutely vile. The sovereign was indeed forced to go to an official reception at the French embassy, ​​which he could not help attending for diplomatic reasons (an insult to the allies!), He paid his respects to the ambassador and left, having been there only 15 (!) minutes. And from this they created the myth of a heartless despot having fun while his subjects die. From here the absurd nickname “Bloody” created by the radicals and picked up by the educated public crawled.

The myth of the monarch's guilt in unleashing the Russo-Japanese war

They say that the sovereign dragged Russia into the Russo-Japanese war, because the autocracy needed a "small victorious war."

In contrast to the "educated" Russian society, confident in the inevitable victory and contemptuously calling the Japanese "macaques", the emperor was well aware of all the difficulties of the situation in the Far East and tried with all his might to prevent war. And do not forget - it was Japan that attacked Russia in 1904. Treacherously, without declaring war, the Japanese attacked our ships in Port Arthur.

Kuropatkin, Rozhestvensky, Stessel, Linevich, Nebogatov, and any of the generals and admirals, but not the sovereign, who was thousands of miles from the theater of operations and nevertheless did everything for victory. For example, the fact that by the end of the war, 20, and not 4 military echelons per day (as at the beginning) went along the unfinished Trans-Siberian Railway - the merit of Nicholas II himself.

And on the Japanese side, our revolutionary society “fought”, which needed not victory, but defeat, which its representatives themselves honestly admitted. For example, representatives of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party clearly wrote in an appeal to Russian officers: “Every victory of yours threatens Russia with a disaster of strengthening order, every defeat brings the hour of deliverance closer. Is it any wonder if the Russians rejoice at the success of your adversary? Revolutionaries and liberals diligently fanned the turmoil in the rear of the warring country, doing this, including with Japanese money. This is now well known.

The myth of Bloody Sunday

For decades, the tsar’s duty accusation was “ Bloody Sunday"- the shooting of an allegedly peaceful demonstration on January 9, 1905. Why, they say, did he not leave the Winter Palace and fraternize with the people devoted to him?

Let's start from the very simple fact- the sovereign was not in Zimny, he was in his country residence, in Tsarskoye Selo. He was not going to come to the city, since both the mayor I. A. Fullon and the police authorities assured the emperor that they had "everything under control." By the way, they did not deceive Nicholas II too much. In a normal situation, the troops brought out into the street would have been sufficient to prevent riots. No one foresaw the scale of the demonstration on January 9, as well as the activities of provocateurs. When Socialist-Revolutionary fighters began to shoot at the soldiers from the crowd of allegedly “peaceful demonstrators”, it was not difficult to foresee response actions. From the very beginning, the organizers of the demonstration planned a clash with the authorities, and not a peaceful procession. They did not need political reforms, they needed "great upheavals".

But what about the emperor himself? During the entire revolution of 1905-1907, he sought to find contact with Russian society, went for specific and sometimes even overly bold reforms (like the provision by which the first State Dumas were elected). And what did he get in return? Spitting and hatred, calls "Down with the autocracy!" and encouraging bloody riots.

However, the revolution was not "crushed". The rebellious society was pacified by the sovereign, who skillfully combined the use of force and new, more thoughtful reforms (the electoral law of June 3, 1907, according to which Russia finally received a normally functioning parliament).

The myth of how the tsar "surrendered" Stolypin

They reproach the sovereign for allegedly insufficient support for the "Stolypin reforms." But who made Pyotr Arkadyevich prime minister, if not Nicholas II himself? Contrary, by the way, to the opinion of the court and the immediate environment. And, if there were moments of misunderstanding between the sovereign and the head of the cabinet, then they are inevitable in any hard and difficult work. The supposedly planned resignation of Stolypin did not mean a rejection of his reforms.

The myth of Rasputin's omnipotence

Tales about the last sovereign cannot do without constant stories about the “dirty peasant” Rasputin, who enslaved the “weak-willed

king." Now, after many objective investigations of the “Rasputin legend”, among which A. N. Bokhanov’s “The Truth about Grigory Rasputin” stands out as fundamental, it is clear that the influence of the Siberian elder on the emperor was negligible. And the fact that the sovereign "did not remove Rasputin from the throne"? How could he remove it? From the bed of a sick son, whom Rasputin saved, when all the doctors had already abandoned Tsarevich Alexei Nikolayevich? Let everyone think for himself: is he ready to sacrifice the life of a child for the sake of stopping public gossip and hysterical newspaper chatter?

The myth of the fault of the sovereign in the "wrong conduct" of the First World War

Emperor Nicholas II is also reproached for not preparing Russia for the First World War. On the efforts of the sovereign to prepare the Russian army for a possible war and on the sabotage of his efforts by " educated society» most vividly wrote public figure I. L. Solonevich: “The 'Thought of People's Wrath', as well as its subsequent reincarnation, rejects military credits: we are democrats and we don't want a militarism. Nicholas II arming the army by violating the spirit of the Fundamental Laws: in accordance with Article 86. This article provides for the government's right to exceptional cases and during parliamentary recesses, to pass provisional laws without parliament, so that they would be introduced retroactively at the first parliamentary session. The Duma was dissolved (holidays), loans for machine guns went through even without the Duma. And when the session began, nothing could be done.”

And again, unlike ministers or military leaders (like Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich), the sovereign did not want war, he tried to delay it with all his might, knowing about the insufficient preparedness of the Russian army. For example, he directly spoke about this to the Russian ambassador to Bulgaria, Neklyudov: “Now, Neklyudov, listen to me carefully. Never for a moment forget the fact that we cannot fight. I don't want war. I have made it my absolute rule to do everything to preserve for my people all the advantages of a peaceful life. In that historical moment anything that could lead to war must be avoided. There is no doubt that we cannot go to war - at least not for the next five or six years - before 1917. Although, if the vital interests and honor of Russia are at stake, we can, if it is absolutely necessary, accept the challenge, but not before 1915. But remember - not one minute earlier, no matter what the circumstances or reasons are, and no matter what position we are in.

Of course, much in the First World War did not go as planned by its participants. But why should the sovereign be blamed for these troubles and surprises, who at the beginning of it was not even the commander-in-chief? Could he personally prevent the "Samsonian catastrophe"? Or the breakthrough of the German cruisers "Goeben" and "Breslau" into the Black Sea, after which the plans for coordinating the actions of the allies in the Entente went to waste?

When the will of the emperor could improve the situation, the sovereign did not hesitate, despite the objections of ministers and advisers. In 1915, the threat of such a complete defeat hung over the Russian army that its Commander-in-Chief - Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich - in the truest sense of the word, sobbed from despair. It was then that Nicholas II took the most decisive step - not only stood at the head of the Russian army, but also stopped the retreat, which threatened to turn into a stampede.

The sovereign did not consider himself a great commander, he knew how to listen to the opinion of military advisers and choose the best solutions for the Russian troops. According to his instructions, the work of the rear was established, according to his instructions, a new and even latest technology(like Sikorsky bombers or Fedorov assault rifles). And if in 1914 the Russian military industry produced 104,900 shells, then in 1916 - 30,974,678! So much military equipment was prepared that it was enough for five years civil war, and into service with the Red Army in the first half of the twenties.

In 1917, Russia, under the military leadership of its emperor, was ready for victory. Many wrote about this, even W. Churchill, who was always skeptical and cautious about Russia: “Fate has not been so cruel to any country as to Russia. Her ship sank when the harbor was in sight. She had already weathered the storm when everything collapsed. All the sacrifices have already been made, all the work is done. Despair and treason seized power when the task was already completed. The long retreats are over; shell hunger is defeated; weapons flowed in a wide stream; a stronger, more numerous, better equipped army guarded a vast front; rear assembly points were crowded with people... In the government of states, when great events are taking place, the leader of the nation, whoever he may be, is condemned for failures and glorified for successes. It's not about who did the work, who drew up the plan of struggle; censure or praise for the outcome prevails on him on whom the authority of supreme responsibility. Why deny Nicholas II this ordeal?.. His efforts are downplayed; His actions are condemned; His memory is being denigrated... Stop and say: who else turned out to be suitable? There was no shortage of talented and courageous people, ambitious and proud in spirit, brave and powerful people. But no one was able to answer those few simple questions on which the life and glory of Russia depended. Holding the victory already in her hands, she fell to the ground alive, like Herod of old, devoured by worms.

At the beginning of 1917, the sovereign really failed to cope with the combined conspiracy of the top of the military and the leaders of the opposition political forces.

And who could? It was beyond human strength.

The myth of renunciation

And yet, the main thing that even many monarchists accuse Nicholas II of is precisely renunciation, “moral desertion”, “flight from office”. In the fact that, according to the poet A. A. Blok, he "renounced, as if he had surrendered the squadron."

Now, again, after the meticulous work of modern researchers, it becomes clear that the sovereign did not abdicate the throne. Instead, a real coup d'état took place. Or, as the historian and publicist M. V. Nazarov aptly noted, it was not a “renunciation”, but a “rejection” that took place.

Even in the most remote Soviet times, they did not deny that the events of February 23 - March 2, 1917 at the tsarist Headquarters and at the headquarters of the commander of the Northern Front were an apex coup, “fortunately”, coinciding with the beginning of the “February bourgeois revolution”, started (of course same!) by the forces of the St. Petersburg proletariat.

With the riots fanned by the Bolshevik underground in St. Petersburg, everything is now clear. The conspirators only took advantage of this circumstance, inflating its significance unreasonably, in order to lure the sovereign out of the Headquarters, depriving him of contact with any loyal units and the government. And when the royal train with great difficulty reached Pskov, where the headquarters of General N.V. Ruzsky, the commander of the Northern Front and one of the active conspirators, was located, the emperor was completely blocked and deprived of communication with the outside world.

In fact, General Ruzsky arrested the royal train and the emperor himself. And the cruelty began psychological pressure on the sovereign. Nicholas II was begged to give up power, which he never aspired to. Moreover, not only the Duma deputies Guchkov and Shulgin did this, but also the commanders of all (!) Fronts and almost all fleets (with the exception of Admiral A. V. Kolchak). The emperor was told that his decisive step would be able to prevent confusion, bloodshed, that this would immediately stop the Petersburg unrest ...

Now we know very well that the sovereign was basely deceived. What could he think then? At the forgotten Dno station or on the sidings in Pskov, cut off from the rest of Russia? Didn't he consider that it is better for a Christian to humbly yield to royal power than to shed the blood of his subjects?

But even under pressure from the conspirators, the emperor did not dare to go against the law and conscience. The manifesto he compiled clearly did not suit the envoys of the State Duma, and as a result, a fake was concocted, in which even the signature of the sovereign, as A. B. Razumov proved in the article "Signature of the Emperor: Several Remarks on the Manifesto on the Abdication of Nicholas II" by A. B. Razumov, was copied from the order on the assumption by Nicholas II of the supreme command in 1915. The signature of the Minister of the Court, Count V. B. Fredericks, was also forged, allegedly confirming the abdication. Which, by the way, the count himself clearly spoke about later, during interrogation: “But for me to write such a thing, I can swear that I would not do it.”

And already in St. Petersburg, the deceived and confused Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich did what he had no right to do in principle - he transferred power to the Provisional Government. As AI Solzhenitsyn noted: “The end of the monarchy was the abdication of Mikhail. He is worse than abdicated: he blocked the way for all other possible heirs to the throne, he transferred power to an amorphous oligarchy. It was his abdication that turned the change of monarch into a revolution."

Usually, after statements about the illegal overthrow of the sovereign from the throne, both in scientific discussions and on the Web, shouts immediately begin: “Why didn’t Tsar Nicholas protest later? Why didn't he denounce the conspirators? Why didn’t he raise loyal troops and lead them against the rebels?

That is - why did not start a civil war?

Yes, because the sovereign did not want her. Because he hoped that by his departure he would calm down a new turmoil, believing that the whole point was the possible hostility of society towards him personally. After all, he, too, could not help but succumb to the hypnosis of anti-state, anti-monarchist hatred that Russia had been subjected to for years. As A. I. Solzhenitsyn rightly wrote about the “liberal-radical Field” that engulfed the empire: “For many years (decades) this Field flowed unhindered, its lines of force thickened - and pierced, and subjugated all the brains in the country, at least somewhat touched enlightenment, even the beginnings of it. It almost completely owned the intelligentsia. More rare, but its power lines were penetrated by state and official circles, and the military, and even the priesthood, the episcopate (the whole Church as a whole is already ... powerless against this Field), - and even those who most fought against the Field: the most right-wing circles and the throne itself.

And did these troops loyal to the emperor really exist? After all, even the Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich on March 1, 1917 (that is, before the formal abdication of the sovereign) transferred the subordinate to him Guards crew into the jurisdiction of the Duma conspirators and appealed to other military units "to join the new government"!

The attempt of Sovereign Nikolai Alexandrovich to prevent bloodshed with the help of renunciation of power, with the help of voluntary self-sacrifice, stumbled upon the evil will of tens of thousands of those who did not want the pacification and victory of Russia, but blood, madness and the creation of a "paradise on earth" for the "new man", free from faith and conscience.

And for such “guardians of humanity”, even a defeated Christian sovereign was like a sharp knife in the throat. It was unbearable, impossible.

They couldn't help but kill him.

The myth of how the king was shot so as not to give it to the “whites”

Since the removal of Nicholas II from power, all his future fate becomes crystal clear - this is really the fate of a martyr, around whom lies, anger and hatred accumulate.

The more or less vegetarian, toothless early Provisional Government limited itself to the arrest of the emperor and his family; the socialist clique of Kerensky succeeded in exiling the sovereign, his wife and children to Tobolsk. And for whole months, until the very Bolshevik coup, one can see how the worthy, purely Christian behavior of the emperor in exile and the vicious fuss of the politicians of the “new Russia”, who sought “for a start” to bring the sovereign into “political oblivion”, contrast with each other.

And then an openly God-fighting Bolshevik gang came to power, which decided to turn this non-existence from “political” into “physical”. Indeed, back in April 1917, Lenin declared: “We consider Wilhelm II to be the same crowned robber, worthy of execution, like Nicholas II.”

Only one thing is not clear - why did they hesitate? Why didn't they try to destroy Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich immediately after the October Revolution?

Probably because they were afraid of popular indignation, they were afraid of a public reaction under their still fragile power. Apparently, the unpredictable behavior of the “abroad” was also frightening. In any case, the British Ambassador D. Buchanan warned the Provisional Government: "Any insult inflicted on the Emperor and His Family will destroy the sympathy caused by March and the course of the revolution, and will humiliate the new government in the eyes of the world." True, in the end it turned out that these were only “words, words, nothing but words.”

And yet there is a feeling that, in addition to rational motives, there was some inexplicable, almost mystical fear of what the fanatics planned to commit.

Indeed, for some reason, years after the Yekaterinburg murder, rumors spread that only one sovereign was shot. Then they announced (even at a completely official level) that the killers of the king were severely condemned for abuse of power. And later, almost all Soviet period, the version about the “arbitrariness of the Yekaterinburg Soviet”, allegedly frightened by the white units approaching the city, was officially adopted. They say that the sovereign was not released and did not become the "banner of the counter-revolution", and he had to be destroyed. Although the imperial family and their entourage were shot on July 17, 1918, and the first White troops entered Yekaterinburg only on July 25 ...

The fog of fornication hid the secret, and the essence of the secret was a planned and clearly conceived savage murder.

Its exact details and background have not yet been clarified, the testimony of eyewitnesses is amazingly confused, and even the discovered remains of the Royal Martyrs still raise doubts about their authenticity.

Now only a few unambiguous facts are clear.

On April 30, 1918, Sovereign Nikolai Alexandrovich, his wife Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and their daughter Maria were taken under escort from Tobolsk, where they had been in exile since August 1917, to Yekaterinburg. They were taken into custody in former home engineer N. N. Ipatiev, located on the corner of Voznesensky Prospekt. The remaining children of the emperor and empress - daughters Olga, Tatyana, Anastasia and son Alexei were reunited with their parents only on May 23.

Judging by indirect data, in early July 1918, the top leadership of the Bolshevik Party (primarily Lenin and Sverdlov) decided to "liquidate the royal family." At midnight on July 17, 1918, the emperor, his wife, children and servants were awakened, taken to the basement and brutally murdered. Here in the fact that they were killed brutally and cruelly, in an amazing way, all the testimonies of eyewitnesses, which differ so much in the rest, coincide.

The bodies were secretly taken outside Yekaterinburg and somehow tried to destroy them. Everything that remained after the desecration of the bodies was buried just as discreetly.

The cruel, extrajudicial murder was one of the first in a series of countless executions that soon fell upon the Russian people, and Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich and his family were only the first in the host of numerous new martyrs who sealed their loyalty to Orthodoxy with their blood.

The Yekaterinburg victims had a premonition of their fate, and it was not for nothing that Grand Duchess Tatyana Nikolaevna, during her imprisonment in Yekaterinburg, crossed out the lines in one of the books: “Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ went to their death as if on a holiday, facing inevitable death, retaining the same wondrous peace of mind that never left them for a minute. They walked calmly towards death because they hoped to enter into a different, spiritual life, opening up for a person beyond the grave.

P.S. Sometimes they notice that "here, de Tsar Nicholas II atoned for all his sins before Russia with his death." In my opinion, this statement reveals some kind of blasphemous, immoral quirk of public consciousness. All the victims of the Yekaterinburg Golgotha ​​were "guilty" only of stubborn confession of the faith of Christ until their very death and fell a martyr's death.

And the first of them was the sovereign-passion-bearer Nikolai Alexandrovich.

We are approaching the centenary of the February Revolution, which dramatically changed the course of the entire history of our country. What happened to the government on the eve of the February events: was the abdication of Nikolai Romanov inevitable? And did he face a conspiracy against the Russian State, or did he become a victim of the inexorable course of historical events?

According to diaries NicholasII, the king lived in some kind of his own world, far from reality. Due to problems with the supply of bread, the number of dissatisfied people in the capital is growing, but the autocrat does not attach any importance to this and writes:

“After breakfast, I sat upstairs for an hour and a half by the tooth. doctor Kostritsky, who came from Yalta. Walked with my daughters. Frost was decent. January 3, 1917 Tuesday" (NikolaiII).

On a walk

Beginning of the 17th year. In the midst of the First World War. Unsuccessful attempt the next offensive of Russian troops led to the death of more than 23,000 soldiers.

There is not a word about this in the emperor's diary either.

“After breakfast, I sat by the tooth again. doctor and took a walk with Tatyana and Maria. Before tea, I received General Schilder, director of the Lyceum. Before dinner I received Gurko, the cat. Arrived from Mogilev for 3-4 days. Worked for a short time. January 5, 1917 Thursday"(NikolaiII).

Most NicholasII worries about the health of children and the weather. Well, almost nothing is said about the impending storm of revolution in his diary. No strikes or strikes. Only a happy and carefree life: reading books, walking, playing snowballs and dominoes.

Meanwhile, a conspiracy among representatives of the liberal wing is brewing against the tsar. The political elite is trying to turn the people and the army against the head of state.

Nicholas II stood in the way of the aspirations of the liberal bourgeoisie, and the aspirations consisted in one thing: parliamentary government of the country (so that the State Duma would appoint ministers and sanction all management decisions). And the role of the monarch would be more representative, so that it would be, for example, like in England, where the monarch rules, but does not govern.

Nicholas II knows about the impending conspiracy, but does nothing against the opposition, deciding to trust, in his words, God's will.

Rodzianko:“Your Majesty, save yourself. We are on the eve of great events, the outcome of which cannot be foreseen. What your government and you yourself are doing irritates the population to such an extent that anything is possible. Every rogue commands everyone. If a crook can, why can't I, a decent person? Here is the public opinion. From the public it will pass into the army, and complete anarchy will result. You sometimes deigned to obey me, and it turned out well..

Nicholas II: « I will do what God puts on my soul.”

(Fragment from Alexander Blok's book " Last days imperial power).

According to Nicholas II only autocratic power will save Russia, but this idea was not shared by the majority of liberal-minded deputies. Opposition politicians tried to play on the mood of the residents, who could hardly endure the hardships of wartime.

Rasputin and royal family

The press now and then published articles about the favorite of the royal family - the scandalous Grigory Rasputin. The news that the famous Siberian man was killed was received with joy in the country, but for the royal family it was a real shock.

The killers were found right there, so what?

And nothing.

The chief murderer of the prince Yusupov sent to his estate to sit out. Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, who participated in the murder, was sent to our contingent in Iran (in Persia, at that time).

No one was punished, that is, the people who hatched the plans for a coup saw that you can do whatever you want, and nothing will happen.

Eliminating Rasputin, the conspirators hoped to reconcile Nicholas and the Russian elite of that time. But the murder of the elder only led to a political crisis. After the emperor condemned the murderers, the whole house Romanovs rebelled against him.

After death Rasputin, after his funeral, there was a complete alienation of him from the royal family, from these one hundred and ten, with more than, relatives who, in fact, acted on the side Dmitry Pavlovich, that is, the one who took part in the murder. In fact, the royal family, the royal family was in opposition Nicholas II.

Russia's main ally in the First World War, Great Britain, knew about the impending conspiracy in the capital. However, she decided to support, including financially, the liberal opposition, which in London was considered absolutely manageable.

In addition, the generals participating in the conspiracy hid from the king the true state of affairs in the country. And although most of the army commanders expressed their readiness to suppress the outbreak of the uprising, Nicholas II knew nothing about it.

Nicholas I I and the government, all together, as power, if we consider them as what we understand by power, made a mistake and allowed the most cruel defeat. This defeat is informational. They lost the information war, to say the least. modern language, outright lost.

Information technologies owned by the State Duma, public organizations (paid for by the Moscow merchants), they turned out to be so effective that the royal family itself was completely discredited in the eyes of the broad masses.

In February 1917, the emperor is going to go to headquarters. A decisive offensive was being prepared. It was supposed to turn the tide in the war and thereby strengthen the autocracy, but this did not suit the opposition in any way. The liberal establishment decided to take advantage of the absence of the king and overthrow the government.

On February 22, the imperial train left for Mogilev, and the very next day riots broke out in Petrograd. It is still not clear what it was: an uncontrollable element or a well-prepared operation.

It is clear that there were conspiracies, because there are always conspiracies. And Nicholas II, indeed, knew about the conspiracies being prepared against him.

In the autumn of 1916, he was informed about this by the palace commandant Voeikov, in December - Black Hundreds Tikhanovich-Savitsky, and in January 1917 - Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Prince Golitsyn and adjutant wing Mordvinov.

Nicholas II he was afraid during the war to act openly against the liberal opposition and completely entrusted his life and the life of the empress to the "will of God."

But in addition to conspiracies, nevertheless, there were also objective reasons for the historical process. The contradictions that the Russian Empire faced were insurmountable. And they could not lead to anything else but to a revolution.

At the same time, Russia Nicholas II achieved outstanding success: first place in the world in terms of economic growth, including industrial growth, all this was, but in a situation where the management system does not work, Nicholas II could not take any very drastic measures to tip the scales of history by his actions. He was unable to do this.

Moreover, the subordinates did not want to upset the emperor. Only in Mogilev did he learn about the events that had taken place in the capital, but for a long time he refused to believe in them.

Officially, the revolution began with unrest among Petrograd housewives, forced to stand long hours in long lines for bread. Many of them became workers in weaving factories during the war years.

By February 23, about 100,000 workers from fifty enterprises were already on strike in the capital. The demonstrators demanded not only bread and an end to the war, but also the overthrow of the autocracy.

But the unrest in Petrograd is quickly forgotten.

In rate Nicholas II puzzled by new problems. The children who remained in Tsarskoye Selo became infected with measles. This is his thoughts now. This is now his thoughts, and not about how to suppress the uprising in the capital.

“My angel, my love! Well, Olga and Alexei have measles. Olga has a rash all over her face and her eyes hurt. February 23, 1917" (Alexandra Fedorovna).

“The weather was bad – a blizzard. I took a short walk in the garden. I read and wrote. Yesterday Olga and Alexei got measles, and today Tatyana followed suit. February 24, 1917 Friday" (Nicholas II).

According to historians, Nicholas II learned about the beginning of the revolution only on February 25 at about 18:00 from two sources: from General Khabalova and from the minister Protopopov.

In his own diary Nicholas first wrote about revolutionary events only February 27 (on the fourth day): “Unrest broke out in Petrograd a few days ago; unfortunately, the troops began to take part in them. It's a disgusting feeling to be so far away and receive fragmentary bad news!

On February 27, a mass transition of soldiers to the side of the people began: in the morning, 10,000 soldiers rebelled. By the evening of the next day, there were already 127,000 rebel soldiers.

And by March 1, almost the entire Petrograd garrison had gone over to the side of the striking workers. Government troops melted every minute. And this is not surprising, because the soldiers were yesterday's peasant recruits, not ready to raise bayonets against their brothers. Therefore, it is more fair to consider this rebellion not of soldiers, but of peasants.

On February 28, the rebels arrested the general Khabalova and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Following Petrograd, Moscow also went on strike.

On February 27, it was declared under a state of siege, and all rallies were prohibited. But the unrest could not be prevented.

By March 2, the railway stations, arsenals and the Kremlin were already captured. Power in their hands was taken by representatives of the Committee created during the revolution public organizations Moscow and the Moscow Soviet of Workers' Deputies...

The seemingly invincible Russian Empire disappeared without resistance. Throughout the revolutionary days Nicholas reading a book about military successes Julius Caesar. About this last Russian emperor wrote in his diary.

Apparently, at that moment the fate of the Roman commander worried him much more than the fate of the country and his own life.

Viktor Kolmogorov

Nicholas II in the train car window. Immediately after abdication