His verdict is unambiguously damning. Since 1905 and the simultaneous Bloody Sunday massacre of peaceful protestors and loss of the war against Japan, Nicholas’s prestige had plummeted.

It’s 1894, the previous Tzar had just died and it’s time for a new one to be crowned. Nicholas II was crowned that year as Tzar of Russia. He was one of the worst leaders of the modern era. He was not ...

Tsar Nicholas II at Tsarkoye Selo after his abdication in 1917. (Bain News Service/Library of Congress) ... Who knows what one’s final thoughts are when faced with certain, murderous death.

It was a tradition for the Russian nobility to travel to foreign countries in one’s youth. In 1890-1891, Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich of Russia, the would-be Nicholas II, went to the East.