The entire royal family of Russia were massacred in 1918, but that was just the final, brutal
act of a heartbreaking story of the Romanovs.
From troubled romances to major health issues, here’s the tragic real-life story of the
last imperial rulers of Russia.
Russian political history has been marked by exceptional violence, but by the 19th century,
things seemed to have stabilized somewhat.
Emperor Alexander II ascended to the throne in 1855 and recognized the need for a change
in a country that was crippled by its aging political structure and outdated economy.
Alexander's greatest move was the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, and he made other moves
in an attempt to modernize his empire.
But some still felt he hadn't gone far enough, fast enough, and in 1866, the first of several
assassination attempts was made on his life.
He reacted by becoming more conservative in his rule, which in turn led to more dissatisfaction
and more assassination attempts.
By 1881, though, he recognized the need for reform, and signed into law a bill that would
have given the people a parliamentary voice in government, something he viewed as the
first step toward a constitution.
Ironically, though, just two hours later, he was assassinated by reform seeking radicals.
His reactionary son, Alexander III, became the new tsar and immediately overturned the
reform bill, instead implementing the most restrictive and harsh authoritarian government
yet.
Nicholas's father, Alexander III, may not have expected to become emperor when he did,
but he had been training his whole life for the task.
Though Alexander III immediately began working to reverse many of his father's more liberal
policies, striking a much more hardline stance, he also stood out as an emperor by not embroiling
Russia in any major conflicts, and he worked to modernize the nation economically, bringing
stability and influence on a global stage.
But in 1894, when he was just 49 years old and Nicholas was just 26, Alexander fell ill
and suddenly passed away.
Rumors had it that he was poisoned, though an autopsy finally performed in 2018 showed
he did in fact die from the official listed cause of kidney failure.
Either way, according to author and historian Michael Paterson, Nicholas was, quote, "caught
completely unprepared."
In fact, it was reported that Alexander had intentionally kept Nicholas innocent of politics
and wasn't intending to teach him how to be a ruler until Nicholas turned 30.
Though Nicholas put his faith in God, he never shook a feeling of inadequacy and the disastrous
nature of his reign would prove him right in the most tragic of ways.
Although Nicholas officially became emperor upon the death of his father in 1894, his
actual coronation didn't occur until 1896.
It was one of the most elaborate Russian coronations ever organized and one of the most disastrous.
After the ceremony, Nicholas and the rest of the royal entourage went on a traditional
procession around the city, where it was also a tradition to distribute gifts to the masses
of well wishers who had gathered to see their new emperor crowned.
But a rumor swept the crowd that there weren't enough gifts to go around.
People began pushing forward to make sure they got their gift; the surge started a panic
that turned into a stampede.
People rushed forward, trampling their neighbors underfoot; when the dust cleared, 1,389 people
were dead, with as many as 20,000 injured.
Not exactly the way anyone wanted Nicholas to begin his reign.
Nicholas and Alexandra had four children by 1901, and they were all girls, leaving Nicholas
worried about an heir.
When their son, Alexei, was born in 1904, it seemed like an answer to their prayers.
But it quickly became apparent that Alexei suffered from what was sometimes called "the
royal disease," hemophilia.
That meant Alexei's blood couldn't clot properly, making any injury or bruise potentially life-threatening.
It'd been known that Empress Alexandra carried the genetic defect that led to hemophilia;
it was one of Alexander III's objections to the marriage, in fact, but Alexei had initially
appeared healthy and normal.
Instead, just a few months after he was born, Alexei began suffering from the effects of
the disease.
One of the family's servants said,
"It was endless torture for the boy and for each of us...he was screaming from the pain
all the time."
As a result of the danger presented by his disease, Alexei was often confined to bed
and even carried from room to room to ensure he didn't injure himself.
He was isolated and denied any semblance of a normal childhood, with his dog Radnost as
his solitary companion.
Alexei's hemophilia was a constant source of anxiety.
Nicholas and Alexandra turned to religion for comfort and hope.
But sadly, that opened the door to one of the greatest manipulators of all time, Grigori
Rasputin, who would help lead the family to ruin.
Rasputin rose from obscurity when he seemingly healed Alexei during one of the child's serious
health crises, and thus convinced the emperor and empress that he had holy power.
But modern physicians believe he just got lucky: by ordering the doctors to leave Alexei
alone, he stopped them from administering aspirin, which has now been known to make
the symptoms of hemophilia worse.
Rasputin's power in court grew quickly, and when Nicholas left to take personal command
of the Russian army during World War I following a series of military disasters, Rasputin began
exerting dangerous influence over Alexandra.
They proved to be easy scapegoats for the many problems faced by the impoverished nation
and at the same time that Nicholas' military decisions worsened the war effort.
The conditions for revolution were planted, and even Rasputin's brutal murder in 1916
in a desperate attempt to remove his influence proved to be too little, too late.
Nicholas and Alexandra's four daughters were incredibly privileged, but they were also
constrained by traditions and rules that prescribed the path of their lives, especially their
love lives.
The marriage of an imperial princess was as much a political consideration as a romantic
one, and true love matches like Nicholas and Alexandra's were rare, as their eldest daughter,
Olga discovered.
While working at a hospital during World War I, Olga met an injured soldier she called
Mitya.
She fell deeply in love; they exchanged love letters, and he even offered to kill Rasputin
to protect her and her family.
But their romance was doomed by their stations in life.
Olga would never be permitted to marry a common soldier, and her family worked to discourage
the romance.
He was soon sent back to the front, and the two never saw each other again.
In 1917, in the midst of the revolution, Nicholas decided to abdicate as Tsar.
He thought it was the safe choice for both his family and the nation.
He was convinced by his generals and advisers that the mounting revolutionary fervor would
spread to the troops in the field if he didn't make the move, leading to mass mutinies.
He also believed that he and his family would be sent into exile.
So he stepped down as Tsar and named his brother, Grand Duke Michael, as the new Tsar.
It all backfired.
Michael refused to become Tsar, abruptly ending the Romanov dynasty.
The revolution intensified.
And perhaps most tragically of all, Nicholas and Alexandra's extended family abandoned
them to their fate.
Nicholas was the first cousin to King George V of England, in fact, they were close friends
and could almost pass for identical twins and Alexandra was also Goerge's first cousin
as well.
Nicholas was also third cousin of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany.
But though Nicholas and Alexandra pleaded with their family for help, both of those
monarchs refused to allow the Romanovs safe harbor.
Stuck in the middle of World War I, when monarchies were especially unpopular, they feared the
political ramifications, and decided it was better to sacrifice the lives of the Romanovs
in order to save their own positions in society.
It's a bitter, cynical decision that still haunts the few surviving members of the extended
Romanov family.
"George, the Tsar, and my grandmother were great friends!
They played together!"
The idea of being dragged out of bed and shot is horrific enough, but the actual execution
of the Romanovs was even worse than you might think.
The family was being kept prisoner when word came that a counter-revolutionary force was
approaching.
Afraid that the Romanovs would be freed and used as figureheads for the insurgency, the
decision was made to execute them.
The family was dragged from their beds in the middle of the night and taken to the basement,
along with their physicians and faithful servants.
There, an execution squad opened fire.
The Tsar died immediately, but some of the soldiers were hesitant to target the children.
The Romanov daughters also had jewels sewn into their clothes in case they needed to
fund a getaway; when the executioners finally began firing at them, some of the bullets
deflected and ricocheted.
Most of them survived the volley; while they screamed for mercy, they were finally stabbed
to death by the soldiers using bayonets.
It took a long 20 minutes to finish killing everyone.
When the killers were done, the Romanovs, once one of the most powerful families in
the world, were gone.
Their murderers stripped their corpses of valuables and dumped the bodies down a mine
shaft; then, fearing they would still be found, the killers reburied them in unmarked graves.
But even then, their suffering wasn't over.
The missing bodies allowed many imposters to step forward claiming to be one of the
Romanovs, most famously Anna Anderson, who spent seven decades publicly claiming to be
princess Anastasia.
"How are we to believe that you are Anastasia?"
"How shall I tell you who I am?
You can believe it, or you don't believe it, it doesn't matter."
The bodies of Nicholas, Alexandra, Olga, Tatiana, and Anastasia were finally discovered in 1979;
their identities were confirmed by DNA testing, and they were eventually reburied in the family
crypt.
But in 2007, two more bodies eventually confirmed to be Alexei and Maria were discovered.
But the Russian Orthodox Church challenged the identification, taking possession of the
remains and prompting the government to exhume Nicholas and Alexandra and even Nicholas'
father, Alexander III.
The official investigation into their murder was re-opened, and the question of whether
the Romanovs will ever be allowed to be truly at rest remains unanswered.
One of the weirdest, most unnecessary, and sadistic details of the execution of the Romanov
family is the fact that when they were killed, the executioners also murdered all the family
pets as well just for good measure.
But one of them survived: the dog Radnost, Alexei's faithful friend and companion.
When the time came for the execution, Radnost had wandered outside the house to explore.
With the family gone, Radnost wandered the streets, until, in an unlikely turn of events,
he was recognized by a soldier, who rescued him.
That soldier was serving with the British Expeditionary force, and when they returned
to England, Radnost went with them, living out the rest of his life in the town of Windsor.
He was reportedly a sad dog given to spending hours looking out the windows, as if searching
on the horizon for the return of his beloved master.
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