Pod Insights Short History Of... The Romanovs About this episode Throughout their centuries-long dynasty, the Romanovs oversaw the transformation of Russia from a fragmented medieval state, into a vast empire. Despite their power though, the period of the Romanovs was plagued by violence, assassinations, and the heavy hand of autocratic rule. Then, in 1917, the course of Russian history took an irreversible turn, and the fate of the Romanovs was changed forever.
So what do we know of the lives of the Romanov family? Was it possible for monarchs such as Catherine the Great to balance Enlightenment ideals with absolute power? And did any of the family survive the infamous assassination of 1918?
This is a Short History Of The Romanovs.
A Noiser production, written by Nicola Rayner. With thanks to Russell E. Martin, Distinguished Professor of History at Westminster College, Pennsylvania, and author of The Tsar’s Happy Occasion: Ritual and Dynasty in the Weddings of Russia’s Rulers.
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0:34 Speaker 04 It is the dead of night on March 13, 1613. Around 200 miles northeast of Moscow, the little town of Kostroma is sleeping. All is quiet within the walls of the Ipatiev Monastery, a peaceful rural refuge on the banks of the Kostroma River. But the arrival of some unexpected visitors is about to break the tranquility.
1:02 Speaker 04 A 16-year-old boy, Michael Romanov, starts up in bed at a sudden knocking at the door.
1:10 Speaker 04 His mother is up before him, rushing to answer it.
1:15 Speaker 04 In the corridor, a flickering candle lights the anxious face of a monk, who explains that a delegation has arrived from the capital, demanding to speak with them.
1:25 Speaker 04 Michael cowls behind his mother, the tick in his eye triggered by this sudden disturbance.
1:32 Speaker 04 She is fiercely protective of her sickly son, who has already lived through so much. It is a dangerous time to be in line for the throne.
1:43 Speaker 04 Amid never-ending battles over succession, Michael's father is being held in captivity in Poland, and several of his uncles have been murdered.
1:52 Speaker 04 While the pair live in this monastery as fugitives, death squads are hunting for them.
2:04 Speaker 04 At the very least, her son needs sleep. So she dispatches the monk with a message that they will meet with the visitors in the morning.
2:12 Speaker 04 But the following hours bring little rest. At dawn, they rise and dress for the freezing temperatures outside, with Michael in formal, fur-lined robes and a sable-trimmed hat.
2:27 Speaker 04 His legs even more unsteady than usual, they make their way through the candelade corridors of the monastery and out onto the snow-covered courtyard.
2:37 Speaker 04 But waiting for them at the gates is no death squad, but a formal procession.
2:44 Speaker 04 As the group of nobles, known as boyars, and Orthodox bishops reach them, they bow low at Michael's feet.
2:53 Speaker 04 One of them addresses him as "sovereign lord", and explains that an assembly of the land has picked him to be czar and grand prince of all Russia.
3:06 Speaker 04 There is a moment of uncomfortable silence.
3:10 Speaker 04 Michael glances at his mother, who wipes away angry tears, her face pale with fear.
3:18 Speaker 04 She has already seen what the throne of Russia can do to men. In a voice that trembles with fury, she says that her son has no wish to be czar.
3:34 Speaker 04 Before the group of men has time to respond, she takes Michael by the arm, turns on her heels, and marches off to the monastery's church, closing the door firmly behind them.
3:49 Speaker 04 By now, the priests have begun their matins, and Michael and his mother take a moment to pray.
3:56 Speaker 04 In this gloomy refuge, his gaze falls upon the golden glow of the altar's icons. Young though he is, he understands that respite will only be brief.
4:09 Speaker 04 The throne of Russia is not an offer one can refuse.
4:14 Speaker 04 But what he can't know is that when he does accept, he will be the first of eighteen Romanov tsars who will reign over the land for the next three hundred years in a saga of dramatic highs, brutal lows, and ultimately, tragic destruction.
4:38 Speaker 04 In their centuries-long dynasty, the Romanovs oversaw the transformation of Russia from a fragmented medieval state into a vast empire. Though the reign began with a reluctant teenage tsar chosen to end the time of troubles, it reached its zenith under rulers such as Catherine the Great.
4:58 Speaker 04 Theirs was a period plagued by violence, assassinations, and a heavy hand of autocratic rule. And by 1917, the course of Russian history took an irreversible turn, changing the fate of the Romanovs forever.
5:15 Speaker 04 But what do we know of how their lives were lived? And how did they compare with the lives of ordinary Russians under their rule? Was it possible for monarchs such as Catherine the Great to balance Enlightenment ideals with absolute power? And did any of the family survive the assassination in 1918? I'm John Hopkins, and from the Noiser Network, this is A Short History of the Romanovs.
5:50 Speaker 04 The Russia of Mikhail Romanov's ancestors is a society of deep social division. While the Orthodox Church stands as a unifying force deeply woven into the national identity, the country's rigid feudal system keeps the underclass of serfs bound to the land with little personal freedom, leaving the noble families who profit from them to vie for power.
6:17 Speaker 04 In 1584, the death of Ivan the Terrible leaves the country in a state of turmoil and uncertainty.
6:24 Speaker 04 Though his brutal reign expanded the Russian state, his oppressive policies and erratic rule also weakened its stability. And though it will be some time until they emerge as the ruling dynasty, the Romanovs' connection to the crown can be traced to Ivan's wife.
6:43 Speaker 04 Russell E. Martin is distinguished professor of history at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, and author of several books, including "The Tsar's Happy Occasion: Ritual and Dynasty in the Weddings of Russia's Rulers."
6:56 Speaker 03 The Romanovs were a very old, distinguished servitor family inside the Moscow principality, getting back really to the 14th century, even a little bit before. But their real beginning, the real launching pad for the Romanovs was in 1547, when Anastasia, one of the members of this lineage, becomes the first wife of Ivan the Terrible and the mother of his children, including the last Tsar of the old dynasty.
7:31 Speaker 04 Soon after Ivan's death, Russia spirals into what becomes known as the "Time of Troubles." Marked by political chaos, famines, and foreign invasions, it's a period that almost brings the nation to collapse. Until at last, Zemskysobor, the Assembly of the Land, elects Mikhail Romanov as Tsar in 1613.
7:55 Speaker 04 But when the delegation arrives at the Epatiev monastery, Mikhail's protective mother responds with a firm "nyet."
8:03 Speaker 03 The council really say that she was the one who expressed reservations. Mikhail, 16, he doesn't play much visible role in this moment yet.
8:15 Speaker 03 She is the one who has an awareness of the dangers, that every Tsar that has come in God has not ended well. And why would I want my son to do this? Being Tsar may be great, but remaining Tsar is tough. And she thought that she needed to say no. But at the end of the day, she's prevailed upon after several attempts, and Mikhail is received as the new Tsar.
8:49 Speaker 04 Despite his mother's initial reservations, Michael I manages to restore order to Russia. But it is his grandson, Peter the Great, who transforms Russia from a traditional medieval state into a modern European power.
9:07 Speaker 04 Born in 1672, Peter is just 10 years old when his father dies. But as his late father's son from his second marriage, his path to the throne is not straightforward. The boyars have to make a decision about who will succeed: Peter or his older half-brother Ivan.
9:28 Speaker 03 Ivan has disabilities, including learning disabilities. And the boyars sitting around in the court realize this and decide to jump over him and pick Peter instead.
9:42 Speaker 03 The problem is, and this is interesting, Alexei has married twice, and his first wife's family has a faction, and the second wife's family has a faction. And they're really at odds with each other. And so to pick Peter is not just to pick the more healthy son, it's to pick a different faction. And that fact produces a kind of revolt inside the city of Moscow.
10:14 Speaker 04 At the height of the revolt, a mob storms into the Kremlin, led by the Streltsi, or Musketeers, the military corps that provide the Tsar's bodyguard. Peter's mother is forced to come out to meet the rebels, holding the hands of the brothers to prove that both are still alive. This calms things, but only temporarily. In a second wave of violence, the rebels seize the family's closest advisers and throw them over the palace stairs, where they are impaled on raised pikes.
10:52 Speaker 04 It is a scene that leaves Peter with a loathing of Moscow and the Strelsi for a long time.
11:00 Speaker 04 Eventually, it is decided that the boys will become co-rulers. Peter I and Ivan V.
11:08 Speaker 03 Ivan V, the family of the first wife, has a very, very powerful, influential, able sister, whose name is Sophia. And she manipulates things. She becomes the regent and she stands behind Ivan V. And she really doesn't know what to do with Peter. So what she decides at length is to send him off into a town near Moscow, basically in honorable exile. He's dragged back to Moscow whenever he needs to appear and then sent right back. And the idea would be to have Ivan V have children and then remove Peter altogether from the scene.
11:49 Speaker 04 From 1682 to 1689, Peter and his mother live outside Moscow. But rather than proving a punishment, Peter makes use of the freedom to pursue his own interests. An intelligent, vigorous child, he enjoys mathematics, carpentry, metalwork, and printing. A model fortress is built for his amusement, and he creates military games, recruiting his friends, the sons of various Russian nobles, into his make-believe troops.
12:20 Speaker 04 In January 1683, aged 11, Peter orders uniforms, banners, and wooden cannons for his toy army from the government. Later that year, the wooden cannons are replaced with real ones.
12:35 Speaker 03 Begins playing army. Only he's the czar, so he gets real, live ammunition. And it's an amazing spectacle. And he brings in foreigners from the German quarter to teach him how to run and organize a modern, in his day, army.
12:51 Speaker 03 So in a way, what might have been the beginning of his end turns out to be the very thing that makes who he is and therefore leads to the transformation of Russia itself.
13:08 Speaker 04 These armies become the basis of the Semyonovsky and Preyabajinsky Guards, the latter taking its name from Peter's village home. Over time, both regiments will become the nucleus of a new Russian army. But, as Peter will later proclaim, "A ruler with only an army has one hand, but he who has a navy has both."
13:34 Speaker 04 The discovery of an abandoned sailboat in a shed whets the Tsar's lifelong appetite for seafaring.
13:42 Speaker 04 Although Russia is territorially a huge power, it doesn't have a major seaport. Peter determines to change that.
13:51 Speaker 03 Peter has to be looked at as this strapping young man. He grows up to be 6'7" tall, very vital, very healthy, smart, energetic, inexhaustible, everything he does, and ruthless. He has ideas about what he wants to do.
14:19 Speaker 04 In 1689, at just seventeen, Peter uses the troops he has drilled since childhood and the boyars who have had enough of Sophia's rule to overthrow her, banishing her to a convent. When Ivan dies in 1696, Peter takes full control.
14:40 Speaker 04 He now embarks on what becomes known as his "Grand Embassy", a gap year in Western Europe. He studies shipbuilding in the Netherlands, military tactics in Prussia, and government structures in England.
14:54 Speaker 04 In London, he hangs out with shipbuilders in Deptford, where he develops a taste for pepper-flavored brandy and wheelbarrow racing. Though he's the owner of a keen mind and voracious curiosity about the world, Peter never tames his wildest side.
15:13 Speaker 04 But his European adventure comes to an abrupt halt when he is called back by an emergency at home.
15:21 Speaker 04 A group of Streltsi soldiers have plotted against him with the alleged aim of restoring Sophia to power.
15:29 Speaker 04 Peter crushes the rebellion with an iron fist, executing thousands of the Streltsi whom he has never forgiven for the vicious murders he witnessed as a child.
15:43 Speaker 04 The threat quelled for now. Peter puts what he has learned on his travels into action. He reorganizes Russia's military and, hiring European shipbuilders, creates a modern navy, for which he soon finds a purpose.
15:59 Speaker 04 In 1700, he launches the Great Northern War against Sweden, seeking that long-desired access to the Baltic Sea.
16:09 Speaker 04 The military base he establishes will become known as Saint Petersburg, a grand new city.
16:16 Speaker 03 Peter's reforms that create a new administrative structure, provincial structure inside of the Russian Empire. And perhaps in the most glittering way, the city of Saint Petersburg itself, which is a showcase of monarchy, it's a showcase of all the best parts and worst parts of what Russia is. The city of palaces and churches and broad, straight boulevards, of theatres, museums, canals. And at the same time, we know that it was built by the bones of the people that were dragged there to build it.
16:57 Speaker 04 Saint Petersburg becomes Russia's new capital, the official home for the future Romanovs. Peter also now commissions the Grand Peterhof Palace outside the city, modeling it on the French Louis XIV's Palace of Versailles.
17:13 Speaker 04 And his fondness for all things European doesn't stop there. After divorcing his first Russian wife with whom he has a son Alexei, he weds a Prussian woman from modern-day Germany with whom he has several more children.
17:30 Speaker 04 Soon his adoption of western values even make it into the Russian wardrobe. The traditional Russian robes or kaftans are abandoned in favor of shorter coats, wigs, and tricorn hats. He even introduces a beard tax to encourage men to move towards a more European, clean-shaven look.
17:51 Speaker 03 He was actually fascinated by science, technology, and the cultural fashions, the cultural ways of the West. He gets to dress like a Westerner, groom like a Westerner, and he forces those people around him or invites them, they're going to do, talking about, to follow him in these western ways. Peter is unlike any other ruler, I think, that you could find in the history of monarchy.
18:22 Speaker 03 He transforms Russia and the monarchy in fundamental ways.
18:38 Speaker 04 But he also upsets the aristocratic status quo with his introduction of a table of ranks, allowing individuals to rise based on merit rather than noble birth. Though his policies face resistance, he firmly enforces them, determined to pull Russia into a new era. Some say that this clash between the old and the new lies at the heart of Peter's fallout with his eldest son.
19:06 Speaker 04 Alexei opposes his father's reforms and seeks support among conservative nobles and foreign allies.
19:15 Speaker 04 Fearing rebellion, Peter forces his firstborn son to renounce his claim to the throne. In 1716, Alexei flees to Vienna, but Peter has him captured and returned to Russia with assurances he won't be punished. But it's a promise he will soon break.
19:36 Speaker 04 After a brutal interrogation and alleged torture, Alexei is convicted of treason and dies in prison, likely from his injuries. It marks one of the darkest moments of Peter's reign.
19:51 Speaker 04 Despite this nadir in his personal life, Peter's time as Tsar tends to be seen as successful. And when the war against Sweden is finally won in 1721, Russia emerges as a dominant force in Europe.
20:06 Speaker 04 Peter is declared imperator, or emperor, by the Senate, and becomes known by the title by which history will more commonly know him, that of Peter the Great.
20:17 Speaker 04 But with Alexei gone, Peter has to consider the delicate issue of succession before his own death.
20:26 Speaker 03 One of the most important consequences of the whole Alexei episode was that in 1722, Peter promulgates the Russia's very first law of succession. And it really was a non-law. Because what it says is that the Tsar, he himself, or any of his successors, have the right to pick who the next Tsar, or by this point, we really should say emperor, who the successor is going to be. Doesn't have to be Romanov, it could be anyone. It really does explode the entire notion of a dynasty.
21:08 Speaker 04 When he dies in 1725, Russia is no longer an isolated kingdom, but a major European power with a strong military, a thriving economy, and a new capital.
21:20 Speaker 04 But his law of succession also opens the door for newcomers, even foreigners, to take the throne.
21:30 Speaker 04 Russia once again experiences a period of instability, until Peter's daughter Elizabeth becomes empress in 1741. Though she has no children of her own, Elizabeth is keen for her nephew, Peter, next in line to the throne, to marry well. Soon, the perfect candidate is found. Born in what is now Poland, Sophie Frederica Auguste von Anhalt-Szepst is daughter of a minor German prince. After being received into the Russian Orthodox Church for her marriage in 1745, she changes her name to Catherine. Today, she is better known as Catherine the Great.
22:12 Speaker 03 Catherine is one of the most interesting people in world history. She was born a German princess, the daughter of the ruling prince of Anhalt-Szepst, which is in central Germany. And she was the second cousin of her eventual husband, Peter III, who is the grandson of Peter the Great. Catherine was born something of a tomboy, known as a strong personality even in her youngest years. Well-educated and earmarked by her father for a very advantageous marriage. He saw in his daughter a very appealing addition to the European royal marriage market.
22:57 Speaker 03 And so the Russian marriage was more than he really could hope for. But she was brought to Russia in 1744 to marry the man who would be Tsar, not to be the empress herself.
23:17 Speaker 04 Predigiously intelligent and a voracious reader, Catherine throws herself into learning Russian and understanding the people, religion, culture, and history of her adopted country. The young princess also has a keen interest in Enlightenment philosophy, particularly the ideas emerging from France. At a time when Voltaire, Rousseau, and others are promoting the ideals of reason and progress and challenging traditional systems of authority, Catherine finds inspiration in their work, an interesting position for the wife of the future Tsar.
23:53 Speaker 04 At court, she uses her charm to make friends and find lovers. Though throughout her life, her sexual appetite, and particularly certain notorious rumours about a horse, are exaggerated or fabricated entirely.
24:07 Speaker 04 Though her marriage to Peter is far from a happy one, she gives birth to a new Romanov heir, Paul, in 1754, despite the rumours that another of Catherine's lovers is the father.
24:21 Speaker 04 When Empress Elizabeth dies in 1762, Catherine feels vulnerable. With her husband already having taken a mistress, the risk of being sent away is no small consideration, especially as Catherine herself is becoming increasingly popular among certain factions at court.
24:41 Speaker 04 Conversely, Peter's own reforms are met with somewhat mixed approval. His efforts to modernise the army with Prussian-style drills, uniforms, and organisational structures are largely hated by the military itself.
24:57 Speaker 04 And his decision to exempt the nobility from military service does him no favours among those who don't directly benefit.
25:06 Speaker 04 Tensions between him and his clever wife reach boiling point.
25:11 Speaker 04 With the help of her lover, Grigori Orlov, a Russian officer, she begins to make plans to usurp her husband. And with Peter out of town, the arrest of one of her co-conspirators forces her to seize the moment.
25:36 Speaker 04 It is 6 a.m. on June 28, 1762.
25:41 Speaker 04 In the palace of Peterhof, near St Petersburg, the 33-year-old Catherine II is dressing rapidly, all in black.
25:51 Speaker 04 A small woman with striking auburn hair and piercing blue eyes, she hurries down the steps of the palace to her awaiting carriage.
26:01 Speaker 04 Its driver whips the horses to make haste to St Petersburg.
26:08 Speaker 04 It's only partway through the journey that Catherine realizes she's still wearing her nightcap. She tears it off.
26:17 Speaker 04 There is just time to stop briefly to pick up her French hairdresser, who immediately gets to work. It's important to look your best when overthrowing your husband, the czar.
26:36 Speaker 04 Close to the city, the carriage stops again to hand Catherine over to another vehicle, bearing her lover, Grigory Olaf.
26:45 Speaker 04 Together, they reach the barracks of the Ismailovski Guards, and Olaf offers his hand to his mistress as she gets out of the vehicle.
26:53 Speaker 04 It's still quiet. There are just twelve soldiers and a drummer. But they are delighted to see Catherine.
27:02 Speaker 04 One by one, they pledge their loyalty, kissing Catherine's hands and feet, and touching the hem of her dress.
27:12 Speaker 04 Before long, other regiments arrive and pay similar tribute to their new leader, until the place is packed with loyal soldiers.
27:21 Speaker 04 Next, Catherine returns to her carriage to make her way to the Winter Palace nearby. Inside, she finds dozens of senators and generals already assembled to issue a manifesto in support of her.
27:35 Speaker 04 She glances at Olaf. It's happening.
27:40 Speaker 04 Picking her way through the packed corridors, she thanks her supporters for their loyalty. By the time she reaches the balcony, word has spread, and a crowd has gathered outside to prove that she now has the support of the people as well as the troops.
28:00 Speaker 04 From her elevated position, Catherine can see that some of the soldiers on duty have shed the hated new Prussian-style uniforms introduced by her husband, and are instead wearing their old-style Russian tunics. She asks for a uniform of her own and is given one of the dark-green coats of the Preobrazensky Guards, before ordering the men to assemble in the palace square for their march against Peter.
28:29 Speaker 04 Doing up the last of the buttons of her uniform, Catherine strides out into the square and mounts her gray thoroughbred, Brilliant.
28:39 Speaker 04 She surveys the mass of troops whose ranks have swollen from twelve to twelve thousand.
28:46 Speaker 04 It is time to march against her husband.
28:56 Speaker 04 As Catherine's army advances through the night, a couple of horsemen are sent ahead to arrest Peter. Not long afterwards, a messenger returns with his signed abdication. With minimal bloodshed, the coup has been a resounding success.
29:13 Speaker 04 Peter is imprisoned in Rupsha, a village near Saint Petersburg. But not long afterwards, he is strangled under mysterious circumstances. It seems likely that Orlov's brother, a man known as Scarface, is involved. And though not ordered by Catherine, his death conveniences her greatly. Seeking to quell the rumors of assassination, she issues a report announcing death by emeroidal colic. Among the more cynical of her subjects, the term swiftly becomes a euphemism for political murder.
29:52 Speaker 04 Aware that she is a Romanov by marriage rather than birth, Catherine quickly arranges a formal coronation to seal her legitimacy. She has a new crown and orb designed for the ceremony, and her robes sport the double-headed eagle, the emblem of Imperial Russia.
30:12 Speaker 04 An avid supporter of the arts, literature, and education, Catherine oversees the opening of the Hermitage Museum, which houses part of her personal art collection. Female artists flourish under her rule, and the Smolny Institute for Noble Girls opens, the first state-sponsored educational institution for female students in Russia.
30:36 Speaker 04 At some personal risk, in 1768 during a smallpox outbreak, Catherine personally undergoes inoculation, a relatively new and therefore risky precursor to vaccination. By having her son Paul inoculated too, she leads by example, an enlightened monarch embracing science and reason to better the lives of her people.
31:06 Speaker 04 In efforts to modernize Russia, it's around this time that Catherine convenes the Legislative Commission, comprising representatives from various social groups to discuss legal and political reform. Catherine presents the commission with her remarkably liberal vision of the ideal government, which includes the abolition of torture and more protection for serfs. But these ideas prove too radical for Russia's nobility, and the outbreak of war against the Ottoman Empire provides an opportunity to disband the project.
31:40 Speaker 04 One of Catherine's most significant military engagements, the war results in Russian victory over the Ottomans, securing Crimea and strengthening Russia's presence in the Black Sea.
31:52 Speaker 04 In total, during her reign, Catherine the Great extends the borders of the Russian Empire by over 200,000 square miles. In addition to the annexation of Crimea, she also secures large parts of Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine.
32:10 Speaker 03 One can talk about the territorial gains that happened under Catherine, particularly the Crimea, which has relevance today. But in a way, one can also talk about the corrections and fixes that Catherine introduces to the political system she inherited coming out of Peter the Great's reign. And she does improve the way taxation, local administration, army training, the navy. She goes back and rethinks some of the reforms that Peter introduced, sometimes wiping the clean from the chalkboard and introducing something new that worked better.
32:53 Speaker 04 But in 1774, a revolt throws a spanner in the works of Catherine's enlightened plans. Led by a Cossack claiming to be her late husband, Peter III, what becomes known as the Pugachev Rebellion marks a major turning point in her reign, demonstrating a deep social unrest. Though it is extinguished by the Russian army with some brutality, it causes Catherine to realize how heavily she relies on the nobility to control the country. She puts her more radical ideas aside.
33:28 Speaker 03 The Pugachev Rebellion sealed the fate of these ideas because what it showed to her, what it convinced her, is that Russia wasn't ready for these reforms. She gets afraid of what might happen if you give freedom to people that, as she saw in the Pugachev Rebellion, might just turn their pitchforks against her. And that was just too much to contemplate, and as a result, an opportunity is lost.
34:07 Speaker 04 Forged to revise her policies, Catherine becomes increasingly aligned with the interests of the nobility. In 1785, a charter solidifies their position as a separate and privileged estate within Russian society, guaranteeing them significant rights and protections.
34:27 Speaker 04 Those early concerns for the serfs' suffering seem now to be dismissed, and their status and rights continue to deteriorate under her rule.
34:45 Speaker 04 Catherine dies from a stroke in St. Petersburg on November 17, 1796, aged 67. But despite her extraordinary achievements in strengthening the empire, her efforts to fully realize her progressive goals ultimately fell short. When her son, Paul, ascends to the throne, the Tsardom returns to a Romanov by blood, rather than marriage.
35:10 Speaker 04 But he inherits an empire on the brink of major changes.
35:17 Speaker 04 Paul I's unpopular reign is marked by instability and paranoia, and comes to an abrupt end in 1801 with his assassination, orchestrated by a group of Russian nobles and military officers. By now, the system of male primogeniture, the passing of the throne to the firstborn son, has been restored. Paul's son, Alexander, proves more popular: tall and handsome. He has the charm of his grandmother Catherine the Great, and similar interests, too.
35:50 Speaker 03 Alexander is a man of cultural contrasts, too, like his grandmother. He was raised by his grandmother Catherine to know what the West was thinking. He read the philosophies as she had. He had traveled to the West and fought Western armies. And yet, was also convinced, like his grandmother and father, that Russia could be explosive if allowed to be. It needed to be a lid kept on what they assumed was a kind of festering revolutionary impulse.
36:32 Speaker 04 Despite conversations early in his reign about the abolition of serfdom, Alexander is mindful of challenging the nobility, who are unwilling to lose the workers on whom their wealth and comfort depend.
36:44 Speaker 04 It is not a problem that is going to go away. But before too long, affairs abroad become more immediately pressing for the young tsar, whose reign will come to be defined by the challenges of the Napoleonic wars.
36:58 Speaker 04 After the French Revolution destabilized France, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control in 1799 through a coup d'etat. And now, he is setting his sights on the rest of Europe.
37:11 Speaker 04 In 1805, Alexander joins the Third Coalition Against Napoleon, which includes Britain, Austria, and Russia.
37:20 Speaker 04 However, the alliance is defeated at the Battle of Ostolitsz in December of that year, where Russian forces suffer a decisive loss.
37:29 Speaker 04 In 1807, after another defeat, Alexander is forced into an uneasy alliance with Napoleon through the Treaty of Tilsit.
37:43 Speaker 04 But a turning point comes in 1812, when Napoleon breaks the treaty and invades Russia.
37:51 Speaker 04 Alexander leads his forces into a conflict in which the harsh winter and the Russians' scorched-earth tactics contribute to the destruction of Napoleon's army. After their retreats, Alexander becomes a key figure in the Sixth Coalition, which defeats Napoleon and forces his exile to Elba in 1814.
38:13 Speaker 03 Alexander I, in a way, is the defeater of Napoleon. His armies participate in some of the most important battles of the war, most importantly, the last of them. In many ways, the most important battles of those Napoleonic wars are after the Battle of the Nations, and when Napoleon is attempting to keep the Allies out, right before his first abdication. And it's the Russians who reach that wall of defense and capture Paris.
38:43 Speaker 03 But it was during his reign that many of these great noble families, who had experienced Paris, had read the French Enlightenment literature, had fought Napoleon, and come back for Russia that didn't fit their worldview. They had changed, Russia hadn't. And Alexander, because he was the great victor of Napoleon, Alexander was the one who kept the lid on.
39:20 Speaker 04 By the end of his reign, in 1825, the situation has become increasingly volatile. The lid, many fear, won't stay on much longer.
39:33 Speaker 04 After Alexander I's sudden death, his brother Nicholas I rules with an autocratic style, particularly after the suppression of the Decemberist revolt and attempted coup by liberal reformists in 1825. Conversely, his son, Alexander II, who takes the throne in 1855, becomes known as the Tsar Liberator for his emancipation edict, which abolishes serfdom. Yet, to his more revolutionary subjects, his reforms don't go far enough, and he is assassinated in 1881.
40:10 Speaker 04 His immediate successor, Alexander III, reverts to conservative policies and autocracy. But it will be his son, Nicholas II, who will be faced with the Romanov's greatest challenges yet.
40:28 Speaker 04 A deeply religious and family-oriented man, Nicholas II is devoted to his wife, Alexandra, the German-born granddaughter of Queen Victoria. But Nicholas is also an indecisive and politically inexperienced ruler, too easily swayed by advisers and resistant to the reforms that are becoming increasingly urgent in Russia.
40:49 Speaker 04 His reign begins inauspiciously. As part of the celebrations for his coronation, a grand public gathering is planned in which free food, drinks, and commemorative gifts are to be distributed to the people. When rumors spread that there might not be enough gifts for everyone, a massive crowd of around 500,000 arrives early in the morning. In the stampede that follows, around 1,300 people lose their lives, and many more are injured.
41:22 Speaker 04 Though disturbed by the tragedy, Nicholas attends a lavish ball at the French Embassy that evening. It is not a good look. The event is seen as a bad omen for his reign, and things unravel further in the years that follow.
41:46 Speaker 04 Eager to secure Russia's place in the competition for colonial territories, Nicholas pushes for expansion into Manchuria, a region in northeast China. But Japan also has designs on the territory, and in 1904, the two sides go to war.
42:02 Speaker 04 Russia suffers a humiliating, costly defeat, and discontentment at home spreads, leading to strikes and riots.
42:11 Speaker 04 One day in January 1905, soldiers in Saint Petersburg open fire on protesters demanding reforms, a day that becomes known as Bloody Sunday.
42:24 Speaker 04 As opposition to the Tsar intensifies, Nicholas is forced to grant a constitution and establish a parliament, the Duma.
42:33 Speaker 04 This empowers the middle classes and gives more people a say in government. But Nicholas offers only limited reforms, tightening voting laws to exclude radicals while allowing the secret police to crush dissent.
42:50 Speaker 04 When World War I erupts in 1914, the monarchy temporarily regains support, with Russia standing alongside France and Britain against Austria-Hungary and Germany.
43:02 Speaker 04 But in 1915, Nicholas makes a catastrophic decision. He assumes direct command of the Russian armies. He hopes to inspire his troops and boost morale, but his lack of military expertise hinders rather than helps his men. Every defeat becomes his personal failure.
43:23 Speaker 03 Russia has initial success in the first months of the war in 1914, and even later into 1915, some success against the Austrians. But the story of what were won for the Russians is one of serial defeats, with occasional important and heroic victories, but retreat out of Poland, out of western Ukraine, and even through the Baltic States. What World War I really does is it exposes to view the weaknesses of the political system, and in this particular case also of the Tsar himself, Nicholas II. The political system itself relied too much on it not being a system.
44:08 Speaker 03 It was very much concentrated in the hands of the court and of the emperor. No decision really could be made, even after 1905, when there was a duma, a nominally a constitution. All decisions really are being made at the very top, all the crucial ones.
44:30 Speaker 04 With Nicholas away at war, Alexandra takes a more active role in governing Russia. But with the country suffering heavy losses, high inflation and severe food shortages worsen the grinding poverty that most Russians already endure. By this point, Nicholas and Alexandra have five children: four daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, as well as Alexei, their long-awaited son and heir. But Alexei suffers from hemophilia, a serious blood disorder that deeply concerns his parents.
45:06 Speaker 04 Amid the wider social discontent, the German-born Alexandra quickly becomes the focus of public ire, along with her confidante, the mystic Rasputin. Present at court since 1905, Rasputin's influence intensifies with his apparent ability to treat Alexei's homophilia.
45:27 Speaker 03 There's no doubt that Rasputin had enormous influence on Alexandra, and therefore, through her, on the emperor. That's pretty well demonstrated. The question is, how important was it for policy? It does seem that his recommendations on ministerial appointments, and even the appointments of some generals, played a role in those appointments. And sometimes those appointments really rubbed other officials in government, civil government, and in the military in the wrong ways. But it's also possible, I think, to overstate Rasputin's influence. He did not guide the progress of the war.
46:12 Speaker 03 His influence was limited to a very narrow circle inside St. Petersburg.
46:20 Speaker 04 Nevertheless, in December 1916, Rasputin is murdered by discontented nobles who see him as a dangerous influence on the monarchy.
46:33 Speaker 04 Just weeks later, in February 1917, protests explode across St. Petersburg, renamed Petrograd in the war.
46:43 Speaker 04 As the unrest intensifies, Nicholas loses the loyalty of the army and is forced to abdicate. A fragile provisional government emerges, while the former tsar and his family are moved from one location to another before being imprisoned in Yekaterinburg in the Ural Mountains.
47:02 Speaker 04 By October 1917, the provisional government is overthrown by the Bolsheviks, a radical socialist faction of the Russian revolutionary movement led by Vladimir Lenin. After a punishing peace treaty with Germany in March 1918, the country collapses into civil war.
47:24 Speaker 04 "By July, with the anti-Bolshevik White Army closing in on Yekaterinburg, a decision is needed. What should be done about the Tsar and his family?
47:36 Speaker 04 To the Bolsheviks, they are still a dangerous symbol of monarchy, and as long as the Romanovs remain alive, they will be regarded as figureheads for those wishing to reinstate the old order."
47:53 Speaker 04 The end of the Romanovs arrives in a similar manner to its beginning, when a sickly teenage boy is woken in the middle of the night on July 17, 1918.
48:07 Speaker 04 In Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg, 800 miles east of Moscow, 13-year-old Alexei, son of the former Tsar Nicholas, is roused suddenly from his bed in the room he shares with his parents.
48:22 Speaker 04 Alexei struggles to sit up in bed, still recovering from a recent hemorrhage.
48:29 Speaker 04 But when their Bolshevik guards tell his parents to get dressed, he does what he can to move quickly. Even this early in the day, Alexei can hear a blast of artillery. The White Army must be getting closer.
48:45 Speaker 04 His mother puts a cool hand on his forehead, and then, with her usual gentleness, she helps him to get dressed in a military shirt, breeches, and peaked cap. A similar outfit to his father. She herself dresses in a white blouse and long black skirt. In all their clothes, the jewels of the Romanov dynasty have been hidden, sewn into them for safekeeping.
49:11 Speaker 04 For their journey downstairs, his father lifts Alexei in his arms.
49:17 Speaker 04 They meet on the landing with his four sisters and three servants, and the family make their way together to what they are told is a safer location.
49:26 Speaker 04 Alexei notices how pale his parents look, but that has become normal in this frightening new time.
49:34 Speaker 04 At least they will be on the move soon.
49:43 Speaker 04 They are led outside by the Bolshevik commandant. But instead of exiting the compound, they only cross a courtyard and are guided downstairs to a bare basement, lit by a single electric light bulb.
49:59 Speaker 04 Alexei, still carried by his father, asks what's going on, but he is not given an answer. His mother, the more dominant of his parents, asks for a chair. Two are brought for her and her son, and his stony-faced father places him gently down.
50:19 Speaker 04 Now, there is some activity in the corridor outside: the slurred voices of drunken soldiers. But after that, for a while, nothing happens. The family waits in sleepy silence. Alexei's eyelids begin to droop until the door slams open once again.
50:41 Speaker 04 The Bolshevik commandant enters, along with ten armed men. Across the crowded room, Alexei stares at the men's guns, his heart beginning to pound.
50:55 Speaker 04 Haltingly, the commandant begins to read from a document. The words seem jumbled to Alexei, but one of his sisters shrieks, and his panicked father asks the man to read the statement again.
51:09 Speaker 04 He repeats the words, and this time their meaning is painfully clear:
51:15 Speaker 04 it is a death sentence. Alexei crosses himself and closes his eyes. The last thing he sees is soldiers raising their rifles.
51:33 Speaker 03 Nicholas II, his wife and children and their three servants, are brutally executed in Nyukitadinburg in a cellar of a former governor's house mansion.
51:46 Speaker 03 In an episode that was so poorly thought out and executed, that it looks as ridiculous as it does horribly tragic. There was very little planning on what was going to happen. They didn't know how to dispose of the bodies once they did it. They throw them onto a lorry and go to a remote area in the woods. They attempt to burn the two smallest of the bodies, just to see if that would work. It doesn't. They move forward to another location, a mineshaft. They're going to throw the bodies down the mineshaft, but they get stuck in the mud. And they just decide to bury them there. Many of the more distant relatives of the Romanovs would be executed. In short, anybody who was a Romanov or Romanov relative who stayed in Russia
52:32 Speaker 03 after November 1917 were apprehended and executed. The Romanovs that are alive today escaped before the bloodletting began.
52:49 Speaker 04 The order for the former royal family's execution is believed to have come from Bolshevik leader Lenin, though the exact details and motivations behind the decision remain subject of debate. After the death of the Romanovs, the dynasty that has ruled Russia for 300 years is no more. The country continues its radical political transformation with the Bolsheviks consolidating power. The establishment of their so-called Socialist Republic in 1917, later to become the Soviet Union, marks the beginning of over seven decades of communist rule.
53:28 Speaker 04 Over the years, rumors of Anastasia's survival, the youngest daughter of Czar Nicholas II, captivate the world.
53:36 Speaker 03 One of the enduring features of Russian political culture that pretenders play a role. This is about going back even to the time of troubles and certainly after 1918 and the execution of the Romanovs. Anastasia is the most famous of these pretenders. There were many others. And she was able to convince many people, including those who knew the original Anastasia, that she was Nicholas II's youngest daughter. Well, DNA proved that that wasn't the case. And it becomes just one more of an interesting set of incidences in Russian history where
54:17 Speaker 03 a pretender gets a large following and sort of makes a career out of it.
54:29 Speaker 04 The legacy of the Romanovs remains complex. For some, they symbolize the oppressive autocracy of imperial Russia, while for others, their tragic deaths embody the heartbreaking consequences of political upheaval. And though today's Russia is almost unrecognizable from the one they left behind, their character and traditions can still be found more than a century after their demise.
54:57 Speaker 03 Russia is in constant motion, like all societies, really. It's making itself. Right now, part of the Romanov tradition isn't just autocracy. Part of that tradition is also liberalism, the Enlightenment, reason, westernization. These two trends, in our minds today, might seem contradictory, come together in Russia as it does in other places to produce a very dynamic, complicated culture and country. All of these themes are there. All of these threads are there that can be pulled on.
55:42 Speaker 03 Right now, Russia is pulling on some of the threads that it has received from the past, but it could just as easily pull on some of the others. When it comes to Russia, nothing is etched in stone.
56:01 Speaker 04 Next time on Short History, we'll bring you a short history of Alfred Hitchcock.
56:09 Speaker 05 I think the legacy of Alfred Hitchcock is he was a great storyteller and teacher. He's inspired many filmmakers, directors today, from Christopher Nolan to David Fincher to Park Chang Wook to Bon Jang Ho. And because people always want a good story, they want a good yarn, and Hitchcock was great about story because he was thinking about the audience and how they would respond to the storytelling. He would use things from his life, store them up, and then put them back on screen in the most unexpected ways.
56:44 Speaker 04 That's next time.
56:50 Speaker 04 If you can't wait a week until the next episode, you can listen to it right away by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Head to www.noiser.com/subscriptions for more information.
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