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The Last Tsar
by Robert Servais
Yilin Publishing House 2021
Nicholas II ruled Russia for twenty-three years, and how much did his conservative rule have to do with the fall of Tsarist Russia? From his abdication to the death of his family in Yekaterinburg, what was his life and thoughts in the sixteen months after his death? The years after Nicholas II* were an important period of succession, shining with the afterglow of Tsarist Russia, and also opening the February and October Revolutions in full swing, and the lever of history* finally fell to Soviet power. Based on a wealth of original material, combined with the Tsar's diaries, transcripts of conversations, records of official investigations, and his own new research, the author reviews the magnificent and exciting history and outlines the true image of the last Tsar.
For more than a hundred years, the fate of the family of the last Tsar Nicholas II has been foggy, it has aroused the interest of many people, and many scholars and writers have told many versions, but this book has its own unique features. The author, Servis, has an in-depth study and understanding of Soviet history, and he can refer to a large number of materials that were not accessible to previous generations, including the Tsar's diaries, the records of conversations, and the records of official investigations. By studying these materials with anatomical care and meticulousness, Servis made new discoveries and understandings of nicholas II's crisis-ridden reign and tried to break through the fog surrounding the plight of the last Tsar's family. In this book, the author presents the results of this superb research and an unprecedented depth of understanding of Nicholas II and his family. In addition, the book presents the social, economic, and political situation in Russia between the February Revolution that overthrew the Tsarist rule and the October Revolution, when the Bolsheviks came to power.
Preface to The Last Tsar
Text | Robert Servis
A well-known British historian, he is now a researcher at St. Anthony's College in Oxford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, specializing in the history of the October Revolution until Stalin's death. He has published many heavyweight works such as "Lenin's Biography", "Stalin's Biography", "Trotsky's Biography" and so on.
Tsar Nicholas II was a highly controversial figure in the history of the 20th century. His admirers firmly believed that he was a thoughtful husband and loving father, doing everything in his power to protect Russia from the tide of revolution. His rule was overthrown by the revolutionaries during the February Revolution of 1917, and he and his family were killed a year later. His opponents have a completely different view. In their eyes, Nicholas II was a stubborn and reactionary tyrant who destabilized Russia, which had the opportunity to avoid the catastrophes of the decades that followed, and it was he who destroyed those opportunities. In my opinion, it is wrong to be partial to either side. In fact, both sides correctly describe him as a complex and contradictory man and ruler.
In this book, I set out to explore Nikolai's experiences in the sixteen months after his overthrow. During that time, he was imprisoned in the village of Tsar, tobolsk, and finally in Yekaterinburg, with little possibility of release. He rarely confided his heart to the ministers, and he always had a notoriety of saying one thing and doing another. However, after his abdication, he had little need to continue to deceive others except when trying to comfort his wife and children who were also imprisoned. This history has been widely circulated, and it is usually natural to highlight the horrific scenes of the last Tsar's family being executed in the basement of the Urals in July 1918, as well as the less certain mention of one or two members who escaped from the scene of the massacre. I can't help but think that some people in the English-language literary world would believe that a heavily armed, disciplined execution team could do such an astonishing negligent act in a closed basement, and that they would almost have antisocial tendencies. However, we should still examine the historical evidence carefully, much of which has been available for a long time and which I would like to try to try in this book.
In 1917, many were debating whether Nicholas should be safely exiled to England. Although his cousin George V was not opposed to the idea, how practical was it in the face of political obstacles in Russia at the time? In April 1918, Nikolai moved from Tobolsk to Yekaterinburg, the last of his life' journey, and what happened during this long-standing mystery journey?
We certainly need to refer to old and new literature and take a fresh look at the death of Nikolai and his family on July 17, 1918, but the months before that are equally noteworthy. During his detention, Nikolai had plenty of time to reflect on his rule since 1894. Even so, we were surprised to find that his diaries and recorded conversations rarely involved his thinking. In addition to what he wrote to himself and his conversations with others, there was another source of information that was habitually overlooked: a large number of literary and historical works that he read to pass the time during his imprisonment. Throughout his life, there were often controversies about his political purposes, and his reading list provided us with a window into his inner world. By studying his diaries, speech transcripts, and reading lists for the sixteen months before his death, we gain a unique perspective on whether he ever regretted his decision to be in power. They tell us what kind of ruler he really wants to be, and whether he is really, as people say, a stubborn dictator and a fanatical anti-Semite, making political concessions only under duress.
They also reveal Nikolai's views on the revolutionary situation from 1917 to 1918 and his vision of Russia. He tried to understand the situation, but it was out of his control, and he had to accept unpredictable changes. In addition to his retinue, he exchanged views with three other people. One was Alexander Kerensky, who represented the Provisional Government that ruled Russia between the February and October Revolutions of 1917 and was responsible for the care of Nikolai. The other two had more intimate conversations with the former Tsar, who was about to go down in history. They were Vasily Pankratov and Vasily Yakovlev. Pankratov was a Socialist Revolutionary, while Yakovlev was a Bolshevik who was the successor official in Charge of imprisoning the Romanov family in Tobolsk. Did their conversations with the former Tsar have had an impact on his assumptions?
The book will also focus on the political, economic, and social environment around the places of detention. It's also a topic that doesn't get enough attention in historical literature. The Bolsheviks of Tobolsk and Yekaterinburg had their own views on what to do with the Romanovs, and their relations with the Soviet government were strained. Tobolsk was captured by Red Guards from other regions, who believed that the safe imprisonment of the Romanovs had failed and tried to correct it. Yekaterinburg was led by the Bolsheviks, several of whom hoped that Nicholas should be put to death whether his superiors agreed or disagreed.
The final decision was to execute the former Tsar, who was imprisoned by the Soviets, along with his family members. Since the 1990s, Russian researchers have been expanding the literature to try to figure out who gave the order and why. I would like to compile this information with what I have found in Moscow and California to find out exactly why this execution occurred, when, where, and how it was carried out. Scholars often study the correspondence between Moscow and Yekaterinburg, but this is still not enough to explain what happened. I wish to take a comprehensive look at the military and security situation in Yekaterinburg, a few weeks before the execution, and in Moscow, which is equally important. Relations between Moscow and Berlin are also a matter of concern. These questions are the basis for my writing of this book.
My research on this subject began when I stumbled upon some rare literature about the last months of Nicholas II's life. In the summer of 2013, I borrowed books from the Hoover Institution Archives, a habit I've had for several years. Assistant Archivist Linda Bernard asked me if I would be interested in taking a look at what was in the filing cabinet about the Romanov family. This includes the abdication document of Nicholas II. A year later, Lola Soloka, who was in charge of the Russian archives project, mentioned to me that some of the material that had just recently been included, namely the collection of Agnes M. Titerius, covered from the investigation from 1918 to 1920 to the execution of the Romanov family. At that time, I discovered that Hoover also had a box of materials once called the "Tsarist Documents," on which the claim that several of the Tsar's family members had escaped from Yekaterinburg, a view that had long been unquestioned, was based on this information. In fact, what these sources reveal is exactly the opposite of this statement. These materials formed the main framework of my research, and I also found a large number of new materials about other members of the Romanov family.
After the February Revolution of 1917, Nikolai's ideas and experiences can provide us with a lot of information about what happened in Russia in the early two decades of the 20th century. In the last sixteen months of his life, the humble, stubborn, incompetent former Tsar suffered a personal tragedy in his homeland, and it was he who brought disaster to Russia to a large extent. Nikolai was executed in the first year after the Outbreak of the October Revolution, so he did not know how terrible the great panic that followed had developed. But what he had seen and learned from behind the closed door of the captive mansion was bad enough for him.