According to materials of the Presidential Library "Nicholas II faced the challenge that was beyond his power"

May 18, 2019 marks the 151st anniversary of Emperor Nicholas II’s birth. The Presidential Library features an extensive collection of materials about the last Russian autocrat, which was included in the collection “The House of Romanov. The Zemsky Sobor of 1613". It reveals the pre-revolutionary situation in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the tragedy of the last of the Romanovs. Rare books that are available on the Presidential Library’s portal include “At the turn of two reigns. Alexander III - Nicholas II” by N. Rusanov (1895), “Tsar Nicholas II, His Entourage and Counselors” by D. Orlov (1905), “The Reign of Emperor Nicholas II. V. 1" by S. Oldenburg (1939), "Nicholas II. Expose" by E. Levin (1914) and others.   

In the prefaces to the majority of the listed editions it is said that the reign of Emperor Nicholas II is one of the darkest pages of Russian history. Begun on the day of the coronation of the Khodynka tragedy, it ended in an unheard of social cataclysm.

“Having been deprived of any deep political education, our cultural society did not understand what Alexander III left to his son…”, - writes V. Chernov in the book “Nikolas Last’s Jubilee” (1904).

According to Prince S. Urusov, a State Duma deputy who emigrated to London in 1906, he wrote in the book “Emperor Nicholas II: Life and Deeds of the Crowned Tsar” (1909), “the education of all the sovereigns in general was bad. Court life surrounds them with a mist of servility and shameless flattery... In Western European constitutional countries, future heads of state, thanks to university visits and more free communication with people, may later look at things somewhat more soberly. But in autocratic Russia this is not allowed”. We have to admit: the homely atmosphere in which Nicholas grew up did not contribute to the development of a strong personality.

During the difficult period, Russia needed a strong leader. Much was expected from the first public imperial speech on January 17, 1895. However, Nicholas said: "Let everyone know that I am devoting all my power to the good of the people, will protect the autocracy as firmly and unswervingly as my unforgettable parent protected it".   

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the state of Russia left much to be desired: the results of the Russo-Japanese war, the economic crisis, the events of January 9, 1905, when the troops and police of St. Petersburg used weapons to disperse a peaceful march of workers sent to the tsar... Public opinion did not forgive the tsar unwillingness to listen to the people, whose demands were reasonable and timely.

“If he came out to the people who rushed to him, if he had said a few words and promised to alleviate people's sufferings even a little, the multimillion masses would have reacted to him with new confidence and would kindle his instinctive love based on prejudice, - makes the assumption D. Orlov in the publication “Tsar Nicholas II, His Entourage and Counselors”. But instead, the tsar destroyed the autocracy, eradicated the people’s faith in himself and caused a revolution”.

An electronic copy of the “Diary of Emperor Nicholas II” (he has been keeping a personal diary since 9, archives contain 50 large notebooks of his notes) for 1890–1906 - fluent records about weather, dinners with people close to the emperor, the behavior of “treasure” (son Alexei) - and almost nothing about the revolutionary storm ripening in the country. “The weather was quiet, sunny, with wonderful hoarfrost on the trees”, - writes, for example, Tsar Nicholas II on January 7, 1905, two days before Bloody Sunday.

Leo Tolstoy repeatedly tried to warn the emperor in his notes against poor decisions and steps. In E. Zabel's book translated from the German “Count Leo Tolstoy” (1903), anyone is available the humanist position of the writer.

“We have two tsars: Nicholas II and Leo Tolstoy. Which one is stronger? Nicholas II can do nothing with Tolstoy, he cannot shake his throne, while Tolstoy shakes the throne of Nicholas and his dynasty... ”- wrote the famous publisher of that time A. S. Suvorin.

S. Urusov in the above-mentioned book "Emperor Nicholas II: Life and Deeds of the Crowned Tsar" renders its verdict: "Nicholas II will be marked in history as a logical necessity... in order to accelerate the fall of the age-old chains of autocratic bacchanalia". “The challenge that faced to his lot was too hard, it was beyond his power”, - the mentor of the Tsarevich Alexei Pierre Gilliard noted.

The civil unrest of Leo Tolstoy, who was trying to warn Nicholas against wrong actions, came true.

In February 1917, Petrograd was in disturbance. On March 2, the sovereign abdicated the throne. After five months of detention, he and his family were sent to Tobolsk, and then to Yekaterinburg, where on July 17, 1918, Nicholas II, his wife and five children were shot dead in the basement of the Ipatiev house. In August 2000, the last Russian emperor and his family were canonized.

More information about the fate of Nicholas II is available in the electronic collection of the Presidential Library, which is dedicated to the 400th anniversary of the House of Romanov celebrated in 2013. It includes about a thousand digitized documents, most of which were previously unknown to a wide audience.