Nicholas: The Last Tsar

Nicholas: The Last Tsar

NCMW

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 ...

Nicholas: The Last Tsar

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