Nicholas: The Last Tsar
Uploaded by weiler16 on Feb 28, 2000
In his book, The Last Tsar, Edvard Radzinsky describes a very interesting viewpoint of the life and death of Nicholas Alexandrovich, the last Russian Tsar. Radzinsky's illustration of this ill-fated monarch follows the diaries of Nicholas from their beginning on March 1, 1881, to the final entry on July 16, 1918.1 Radzinsky mainly goes over pre-marital relationship between Nicholas and Alexandra, the medical condition of Nicholas' son, Alexei, and the imprisonment and execution of Nicholas and his family.
The relationship between Nicholas II and Alexandra began in 1884. Alexandra, the daughter of Louis IV, the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, a tiny state in Germany, was born in 1872.2 Her grandmother was Queen Victoria of England, her oldest sister married an English prince, her second sister married a Russian Grand Duke and her third sister married a German prince. Nicholas and Alexandra met during the wedding of her second sister, Ella, to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. Alexandra was only twelve and Nicholas was only sixteen, but he stated in his diary that he fell in love with her a first sight. Nicholas' father, Tsar Alexander III, did not approve of Alexandra, because of the fact that she was the granddaughter of the English Queen. Instead, he suggested that Nicholas marry a princess from the House of Orleans. His decision was basely mainly on politics, as he was striving for an alliance between Russia and France. Alexander's suggestion did not have any effect on Nicholas, as he seemed certain to marry his childhood sweetheart, Alexandra. That day came in 1894, when Alexander was on his deathbed, suffering from a kidney disease that he had contracted in a train wreck six years earlier. On April 8, 1894, at the wedding of Alexandra's brother, her and Nicholas were engaged.3 On November 14, 1894, a month after the death of his father Nicholas married Alexandra and officially became the tsar of Russia.
Alexei Nikolaevich, the first son of Nicholas and Alexandra was born on July 30, 1904, following the births of four daughters. The problem of who would rule Russia in case of an accident to Nicholas was solved. However, there was a new problem, as Alexei was diagnosed with hemophilia. Hemophilia is a disease that weakened the walls of the arteries so that "any blow or intense pressure can cause the blood vessels to burst and can mean the end."4 Rumours of a holy man,...