[December 1] Alexander I, emperor of Russia

Local Name: Aleksandr I Pavlovich (Александр I Павлович)
Soubriquet: "The Blessed" (Blagoslovennyi)
Parents: Paul, emperor of Russia, and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg
Date of Birth: 23 December 1777
House: Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
Spouse(s): Louise Elizabeth Alexeievna, daughter of Charles Louis of Baden and Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt
Predecessor: Paul

Reign: 1801 – 1825
Brief: The only European monarch to have defeated Emperor Napoleon I at his own game, Alexander was raised by his autocratic grandmother, Catherine the Great, and by a French enlightenment tutor, Frédéric-César de La Harpe, embracing both philosophies in an unnatural amalgam. When his father was assassinated in March 1801, possibly with his own collusion, Alexander set on a campaign of governmental reform and centralization. He also turned Russia on a course toward constitutional monarchy, establishing an upper chamber of Lords and reforming the Governing Senate into his Supreme  Court. After first recognizing Napoleon as leader of the French Republic, Alexander realized that Napoleon was an autocrat and against basic freedoms. The young emperor rallied together an alliance with his neighbors but found himself along in 1807 when France defeated Austria. The two countries made peace, with plans to divide Europe in half between them, but over the course of the next five years, these plans fell apart and the two countries again prepared for war. Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 and burned Moscow before his army was utterly devastated on its long return to France. From the end of the war until the end of his life, Alexander became increasingly autocratic, abandoning much of his love for enlightenment philosophy and instead embracing the methods of Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, the Austrian prime minister. Emperor Alexander I died in 1825 after catching a cold which developed into typhus. His wife died a few months later. Legends suggest that Alexander actually lived and continued his life as a hermit until 1864, living under the name Feodor Kuzmich, who was sainted by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1984.
Date of Death: 1 December 1825

Successor: Nicholas I

Other Monarchs Who Died Today:

• Henry I, king of England (1135)
• Magnus II, king of Sweden (1377)
• Go-Komatsu, emperor of Japan (1433)
• Leo X, pope of Rome (1521)
• Pius VIII, pope of Rome (1830)

[October 28] Anna, empress of Russia

Local Name: Anna Ioannovna (Анна Иоанновна)
Parents: Ivan V, tsar of Russia, and Praskovia Saltykova
Born: 7 February 1693
House: Romanov
Spouse(s): Frederick William, duke of Courland, son of Frederick Casimir Kettler and Elisabeth Sophie of Brandeburg
Predecessor: Peter II

Reign: 1730 – 1740
Brief: Anna lived a somewhat tragic life. She married the duke of Courland at the age of seventeen only for the man to die three months later on the return trip home. She took over the government of Courland thereafter, remaining unwed the rest of her life. When Emperor Peter II died in 1730, Anna, who was the emperor's niece, was proclaimed his successor. The hoped that by installing her as empress, the nobles could regain some of their lost powers and establish a constitutional monarchy. Anna, in response, indebted herself to the Russian military and lesser nobility and ruled as an autocrat as those before her had. She went power hungry almost immediately, publicly insulting anyone who would mock her or get in her way. She even forced a noble to wed an elderly common woman in a ceremony that involved a zoo's worth of animals and an ice palace, just to insult the man. She replaced many court functionaries with Baltic Germans, and she secured an alliance with Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, committing Russia to the War of the Polish Succession in 1735. Anna also began attacking targets east and south of Russia in a bit to expand the state. She became ill in 1739 and proclaimed her grand-nephew, who was one-year-old at the time, her heir. Soon after Anna died the next year, Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, deposed little Ivan VI and took the throne.

Date of Death: 28 October 1740
Successor: Ivan VI

Other Monarchs Who Died Today:

• Maxentius, emperor of Rome (312)
• Margaret I, queen of Denmark (1412)
• Ashikaga Yoshihide, shogun of Japan (1568)
• Jahangir, emperor of India (1627)

[July 17] St. Nicholas II, emperor of Russia

Full Name: Nikolay II, Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov (Николай II, Николай Александрович Романов)
Surnamed: "The Martyr"
Parents: Alexander III, emperor of Russia, and Dagmar of Denmark

Date of Birth: 18 May 1868
Royal House: Oldenburg-Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
Spouse: Alix, daughter of Louis IV, grand duke of Hesse, and Alice of the United Kingdom

Predecessor: Alexander III
Reign: 1894 — 1917
Summary: To summarize the life and many failures of Czar Nicholas II of Russia is an impossible task. Born to the German family that ruled Russia in the name of Romanov, Nicholas was the eldest son of Czar Alexander III. His cousins included his wife, Alix, Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, and George V of the United Kingdom. He became the tsarevich (crown prince) upon the death of his grandfather, Alexander II, in 1881. He was sent in 1890 to Siberia where he witnessed the opening ceremony for the Trans-Siberian Railway. He then went on a world-tour that included Japan and much of Europe. Nicholas insisted on marrying Alix, the daughter of the Hessian grand duke, in 1894 and, reluctantly, his parents allowed it. But Russian society frowned on the marriage of the first cousins since Alix was German and viewed as an enemy of Russia. She maintained her Lutheran faith to the chagrin of many a Russian, but she never became popular. Alexander III unexpectedly died in late 1894 and Nicholas was thrust into the emperorship. Despite twenty-six years of upbringing, Nicholas was not prepared to lead Russia and, as many would discover, he would never really gain a knack for it.


Nicholas's first major mistake was denouncing thoughts of democracy in Russia. He chose instead to stick to the conservative position of his forefathers. When local assemblies popped up throughout Russia, Nicholas openly objected to him proclaiming his desire to retain the Russian autocracy. For the first decade of his reign, little changed in Russia. The gold standard was re-adopted allowing the national currency to undergo some much-needed reforms. The Trans-Siberian Railway was completed allowing direct trade with the Far East. In diplomacy, the relationship with France was increased and heavily emphasized. Things went sour in 1904 when the Russian fleet was suddenly attacked by Japan. The ensuing Russo-Japanese War cost Russia its Pacific fleet. Only American mediation ended a war that Nicholas refused to admit that he lost. Riots soon followed in 1905 leading to Bloody Sunday on January 9. Protesters marching peacefully through St. Petersburg were attacked by Russian infantry, killing 92 and wounding hundreds. Many fled and protests against Nicholas popped up throughout the Empire for the next thirteen years. After the riots, Nicholas decreed that he would allow basic civil liberties in Russia and allow a popular assembly, though he would retain ultimate oversight. It took three sessions of the assembly before Nicholas would tolerate its oversight, and, even still, he always kept a cautious eye on it. In his personal life, the successive births of four daughters caused Nicholas much worry of the succession. In 1904, his son, Alexei, was finally born, but his case of hemophilia B meant that he would probably never live long enough to produce offspring. His fate in 1918 ended any problems related to his succession. When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914, Nicholas eventually declared a mass mobilization of Russia, setting the course of Europe toward war. When Austria declared war soon after, the European alliances were initiated and Russia joined the Allies against the Central Powers. Throughout the war, Russia would never defeat the Germans in open battle, though successes against Austria and Ottoman Turkey were much more frequent. Though Russia had the largest army in the war, it slowly was whittled away by a triple front of Austria, Germany, and Turkey. Russia would not survive this war of attrition. Nicholas was frequently near the front lines leaving his wife, Alix, and his advisor, Grigori Rasputin, ruling the country. But people did not trust Rasputin and Alix was distrusted for being German. Run-away inflation and impossibly high food prices mixed with severe winters and broken railways caused the entire Russian population to rise in rebellion. Over the course of 1917, the Romanov family was imprisoned by an upstart Provisional Government led by the former Russian assembly and the Soviet. Both demanded the resignation of Nicholas which he finally agreed to on 15 March 1917, passing the throne to his brother, Michael. 


Michael soon after declined the throne and the Bolsheviks took control over Russia. The revolution in Russia gave the United States impetus to join the war, feeling that it was now a part of a democratic alliance. Nicholas attempted to go into exile to the United Kingdom but the Provisional Government decided to keep the family in Russian custody, moving them to the Ural Mountains. When the Bolsheviks took control of the government later that year, the Romanovs could do little. Vladimir Lenin, the new leader of the government, viewed the Romanovs as a threat to their government. In mid-July, the family was taken to the basement of a former governor's mansion and privately executed. Nicholas was shot three times in the chest. His four daughters survived the initial attack but were soon after speared with bayonets then shot in the head. The others in the room were killed indiscriminately in the first round of firing. The remains of all seven family members were only identified in 2008. Czar Nicholas was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church as a martyr in 2000. While he is still considered a weak and poor ruler, he has also been seen as a victim of his times.

Date of Death: 17 July 1918
Successor: Cyril (as pretender)

Other Monarchs Who Died Today:

• Uthman, caliph of Sunni Islam (656)
• Edward (I) the Elder, king of Wessex (924)
• Baldwin VI, count of Flanders (1070)
• Dmitry Shemyaka, grand prince of Moscow (1453)
• Tu Duc, emperor of Vietnam (1883)

[July 12] Michael I, tsar of Russia

True Name: Mikhail I Fyodorovich (Михаил Фёдорович)

Parents: Feodor Nikitich, patriarch of Moscow, and Kseniya Shestova

Date of Birth: 12  July 1596
Royal House: Romanov
Spouse: (1) Maria, daughter of Vladimir Timofeyevich Dolgorukov and Maria Vasilievna Barbashina-Shuiskaya, then (2) Eudoxia, daughter of Lukyan Stephanovich Streshnyov and Anna Konstantinovna Volkonskaya

Predecessor: Vasili IV
Reign: 1613 – 1645
Summary: Michael had little claim to the troubled Russian throne. His aunt, Anastasia, was a wife of Ivan the Terrible thereby linking his family to theirs. Yet in 1600, Michael and his mother were exiles living in Beloozero. Michael's father, Feodor, was accused of treason in 1598 by the new Tsar Boris Godunov, an opportunist ruling in the wake of Ivan. This left the aspiring Romanov family on the run and on the offensive. The Time of Troubles lasted for fifteen years and during that time, one third of Russia died in a terrible famine. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth invaded Russia as well, and rival claimants and pretenders were flocking in droves to Moscow to try and claim the Russian throne. With Poland attempting to install its own monarch in Russia, the aristocracy decided to reassert itself and take control over the government. Michael, being related to the now-extinct Rurik line of Russian monarchs, was chosen as tsar by the Grand National Assembly. It was hoped that his ascension would end disputes and unify Russia, and it did.

It took Michael six years to remove all foreign presence of Russian soil. In the Treaty of Stolbovo in 1617, Sweden was removed, while the Truce of Deulino in 1618 removed Poland. With the second treaty, Michael's father Feodor was able to return to Russia and act as regent and counsellor to the new tsar. A leg injury from earlier in his life slowly grew worse during his reign until Michael reached a point where he could no longer walk. As he aged, he relegated increasing power to his counsellors. While many were trusted and good men, some were not and Michael constantly had to intervene in the government to remove corrupt officials. Michael was largely removed from government and trusted in strong advisors, most unaffiliated with the military. He worked hard to forge an alliance with Denmark in the years preceding his death. His wish was to wed his eldest daughter, Irene, to Valdemar Christian, an illegitimate son of King Christian IV of Denmark. However, when Valdemar arrived in Moscow, the Danish prince refused to convert to the Russian Orthodox faith and Michael had him imprisoned. Irene never married and it is thought that Michael died partially due to the regret over the failure of this alliance. In any case, Michael died in 1945 and was succeeded without contest but his eldest son, Alexis I.

Date of Death: 12 July 1645
Successor: Alexis

Other Monarchs Who Died Today:

• Ashikaga Yoshinori, shogun of Japan (1441)
• Richard Cromwell, lord protector of England (1712)

[May 17] Catherine I, empress of Russia

True Name: Yekaterina I Alekseyevna (Екатерина I Алексеевна)
Parents: Samuel Skowronski and Elisabeth Moritz

Date of Birth: 15 April 1684

House: Skowronski
Spouse: Peter I, emperor of Russia

Predecessor: Peter I

Reign: 1725 – 1727

Summary: Catherine set a good example in Russia for female rule, but like many of the other female rulers, she did so in an extraordinarily bad way. She was born with the name Marta, a Polish peasant girl and Roman Catholic, and raised by a Lutheran pastor in Latvia. She served as a housemaid and she was never taught to read or write. In fear that her beauty would overtake his son, the pastor married her off to a Swedish dragoon, Johan Cruse, but the pair remained together for only a week in 1702. Soon after, the pastor and his family, including Marta, moved to Moscow. She eventually became a part of Prince Alexander Menshikov's household, the best friend of Peter the Great of Russia. Menshikov and Marta formed an alliance and Peter met Marta in 1703. Shortly after, Marta became the emperor's mistress. Marta converted to Russian Orthodoxy in 1705 and took the name Catherine Alexeyevna. She rarely left Peter's side after that. Peter and Catherine married secretly in 1707. Of their twelve children, only two lived to adulthood, Yelizaveta and Anna. The two were very much in love and lived in a small log cabin in St. Petersburg despite the status of the emperor. In 1711, tradition states that Catherine saved Peter and the Russian Empire when she suggested bribing the enemy with her and the other women's jewelry. The ploy worked and Peter lived to fight another day. Peter married Catherine again officially in February 1712. Catherine became the tsarina of Russia and eventually became empress. A strange twist came in 1724 when Peter the Great named Catherine his co-ruler. He died the next year without having named a successor. Catherine, fearing an aristocratic takeover, arranged a coup with Menshikov. She was popularly proclaimed Empress and Autocrat of all the Russias by the Russian military.

Menshikov, Peter Tlstoy, and the Supreme Privy Council did most of the ruling during Catherine's short reign. It is unlikely Catherine planned to rule directly or for a prolonged period of time, but that she wished to act as a transitional monarch while a new monarch, one that would favor the new meritocracy, was found. What happened, though, was that Catherine established a new order in Russia. She was the first female ruler of the empire that was only found a decade earlier. Her successors, including her daughter, Elizabeth, and Catherine II would dominate Russian politics for the eighteenth century. As empress, Catherine downsized the military to cut spending. The resulting tax relief gave her a reputation of just and fair rule. Russia joined the Habsburg league in 1726 to defend her son-in-law, the Duke of Holstein, against incursions by Great Britain. She died only two years after becoming empress. The cause of her death was probably abscess of the lungs, and she was buried in St. Petersburg. She was succeeded by her step-grandson, Peter II, the son of Alexei, the eldest surviving son of Peter the Great by his first wife, Eudoxia.

Date of Death: 17 May 1727

Successor: Peter II

Other Monarch Deaths:

Sima Yan, emperor of China (290)

Go-Fushimi, emperor of Japan (1336)

Louis VI, duke of Bavaria and Elector of Brandenburg (1365)

Charles, raja of Sarawak (1917)

[January 5] Elizabeth, empress of Russia

Parents: Peter I, Emperor of Russia, and Catherine I, Empress of Russia
Date of birth: 29 December 1709
Royal House: Romanov
Spouse: Alexey Razumovsky

Predecessor: Ivan VI

Reign: 1741 - 1762
Summary: Elizabeth was the daughter of two former Russian monarchs who had been important in the Romanov consolidation of the empire. Following a series of monarchs who ruled after her parents, Elizabeth finally took control from her young cousin who remained imprisoned throuout her reign and never ascended to the throne. That child had the senior claim but lacked the backing of any Russian politicians.

Elizabeth led her country through the War of the Austrian Succession (1740 - 1748) and gained possessions in Germany and Austria for Russia and the Romanovs. She also entered the Seven Years' War (1756 - 1763), though she died before it ended. Her wise political leadership strengthened Russia in this era and brought it in to the modern age. Childless, she chose her nephew from the House of Holstein-Gottorp to be her heir, thereby transferring leadership of Russia to the House of Oldenburg.
Date of Death: 5 January 1762
Successor: Peter III

Other Monarchs Who Died Today:

• Al-Mu'tasim, Abbasid caliph of Sunni Islam (842)
• Edward the Confessor, king of England (1066)
• Peter IV, king of Aragón (1387)
• Christopher, duke of Bavaria (1448)
• Charles, duke of Burgundy (1477)

Two Romanovs for the Price of One (Oldenburg, Part 2)

Some people may find it strange that the best-known dynasty in Russian history was partially (predominantly) German. I mean, it didn't start that way. The original Romanov family was from Russia, but the Danish-German Oldenburg family eventually inherited the throne through a female line and, much like the Habsburgs, kept the name of the older family for tradition's sake. But Russia's sullied past has many similar moments and the story of the House of Romanov, both Russian and German, is a rather interesting one.

Michael and Alexis, Tsars of Russia

The story of the original Romanovs begins with Ivan IV, first Tsar of Russia. His wife, Anastasia, was the daughter of an increasingly prominent politician named Roman and when she was murdered, Ivan IV became Ivan the Terrible as he spread a wave of angry destruction across Russia. Anastasia's son, Feodor, was a sickly and bad king who rivaled with his brother-in-law and various factions of the Romanov family for power. His death in 1605 ended the 700-year-old House of Rurik and prompted an era of civil war in Russia. After an almost complete loss of political power through the first decade of the 17th century, the Russian magnates gave the throne to Michael Romanov who hesitantly took power, using his in-law relationship to Ivan IV as a propaganda tool. It was a successful gambit and the early Romanov rulers were almost university acclaimed by the populace.

Peter I the Great, Tsar of Russia

Yet the old Romanov family was never one to succeed for long. Michael was succeeded by Alexis, who was a wise tsar able spread the borders of Russia far into the east. His one major mistake, however, was being too prolific. Four sons survived him as well as an ambitious daughter. When Alexis died, the five of them struggled and fought over the throne, throwing Russia back into dynastic mayhem. Feodor III came first. His progressive reforms such as removing noble privilege for a meritocracy stagnated Russian politics for centuries. His somewhat expected death in 1682 led to a rare joint-rule by his two brothers, Peter I and Ivan V. Ivan was the legitimate heir but was disfigured and mentally ill, and so Peter ruled with him. Peter I is better known now as Peter the Great, for it is he who expanded Russia's borders to the far east and modernized the state to nearly western European norms. In 1721, Peter declared himself Emperor of All Russia, a title which remained with the family until 1917. Upon Peter's death in 1725, his wife Catherine I ruled since no immediate heir was present to succeed. Catherine's rule maintained Peter's bureaucracy and established the precedent of female rule.

Elizabeth, Tsarina of Russia

Russia's history only gets more muddled after this. In normal succession practice, wives never succeed husbands, yet in Russia this happened twice. Catherine I was succeeded by Peter II, a grandson of Peter the Great by his first wife. In 1727 he succeeded to the throne but he died three years later on the day of his marriage, having accomplished nothing. His distant relative, Anna, daughter of Ivan V, came next. Anna was an intelligent ruler who worked against noble control of the government. But she was bitter and attempted to quiet the happy memory of Peter I by setting up her grandnephew, Ivan VI, to succeed her. Upon Anna's death, though, Ivan was locked up by the legitimized daughter of Peter I, Elizabeth, and died twenty years later in prison. Elizabeth inherited the throne, the last of the original Romanovs. Elizabeth is fondly remembered in Russian history as the one Romanov ruler not to surround herself with German courtiers. Rather ironically, therefore, it was Elizabeth who ensured that the dynasty continued through the line of her German nephew, Peter.

Catherine II the Great, Empress of Russia

Peter III was the first and shortest reigning emperor of the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov, which was a cadet branch of the House of Oldenburg. He was an unstable and immature ruler who was very pro-Prussian in his political views. In 1745, he married his German cousin, Sophia, who was converted to the Russian Orthodox faith and renamed Catherine. The couple only produced one son, Paul, whom Catherine would later claim was a bastard. At the time of Peter's death six months after his accession, he had succeeded in moving Russia toward a more capitalistic society. Unfortunately, Peter was arrested and murdered under orders of his wife, and Catherine II ascended the throne. Catherine the Great was a non-dynastic ruler who took the Russian Empire and made it into a Great Power in the age of absolutism. From 1762 until 1796 she ruled Russia with the authority of an autocrat, but she also spread the bureaucracy across the whole of Russia, dividing the country up into districts, townships, etc.

 With her death, the Romanov family began its slow decline as a force to be reckoned with. Peter III and Catherine II's son, Paul I, succeeded to the throne finally but his primary goal was to pass legislation to establish succession law. He downsized the military and bureaucracy and, because of that, was assassinated in 1801. Alexander I, his son, succeeded and the Napoleonic Wars came soon after. Although Alexander began his reign by being a reformist, he ended it repealing the majority of those reforms. He mysteriously died in 1825 and was succeeded by his brother, Nicholas I. Nicholas began the persecution of non-Russians and non-Orthodox which would continue into the 1910s. He led successful wars against the Ottomans but died during the Crimean War in 1855. Alexander II, his son, came next and Alexander was again a liberal emperor. His great achievement was the emancipation of the serfs (peasants), which somewhat led to the overthrow of the monarchy two generations later. His assassination in 1881 led to his son's short reactionary reign where Alexander III undid much of his father's progressive reforms. His son, Nicholas II, was likewise against reform, preferring to maintain the autocracy that had been a part of Russian politics since time immortal. Entry into World War I sparked the end of the Romanov dynasty as disenchanted peasants and communists rallied against the state-run tyranny of conscription. Nicholas was finally forced to abdicate the throne in 1917 but even in prison, his family was deemed too dangerous. In 1918, all of them—Nicholas, his wife, and his five children—were murdered by their Bolshevik captors. The Bolsheviks then went throughout Russia, hunting down and killing any Romanovs they could find. Most fled to western Europe where they still live in exile today.

Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and his Family

The end of the Romanov dynasty in Russia was a harsh and bitter moment in history. In reality, it paralleled the fate of many Russian monarchs throughout the centuries, but no royal murder has become as well-known. The surviving Romanovs descend from Alexander II or through female lines from Alexander III. Their are two rival lines of pretension: that of Cyril, Grand Duke of Russia, and that of Nicholas, a descendant of Nicholas I. The rivalry is due to different interpretations of succession law regarding unequal marriages (those between royalty and a commoner).