This new series features links to full-length articles from English media sources. They include contemporary assessments of the lies and myths about Nicholas II, exhibitions, book reviews and more.
“PAINFUL POINTS” OF NICHOLAS II’s REIGN
Truth and Fiction
Yuri Pushchaev spoke with doctor of historical sciences and associate professor in the department of history at Moscow State University Fedor Gaida about the most frequent claims against the last Russian Emperor and how fair and appropriate they are.
A NEW LOOK AT THE LAST TSAR + VIDEO
An exhibition at the State Historical Museum in Moscow presents over 750 photographs of Nicholas II and his family, as well as paintings, objects and memorabilia, and some commentary from people who knew the tsar and his family. Many of the exhibits are rarely shown or have never been shown before.
After the extreme westernization of the eighteenth-century Tsars, Tsar Nicholas began to restore Russia, and the Russian autocracy, to her Byzantine and Orthodox roots.
They were all related but, as Helen Rappaport shows, nationalism prevailed over sentiment.
There is bitter irony in the story Ms Rappaport skilfully tells. Posterity finds something horrifying about the sovereigns of Europe, who virtually formed a single extended family, sending their subjects to slaughter one another. But in the end, nationalism also constrained the family loyalties of the continent’s monarchs, who could or would not save their Russian relatives from murder — the centenary of which was commemorated in Russia in 2018. The rites were solemn, but the massacre was a gruesome mess.
© Paul Gilbert. 23 March 2019