Nicholas

Nicholas, tsars of Russia. Nicholas I (1796–1855), tsar of the Russian empire (1825–55), notorious for his despotic rule. His first action as ruler was to crush the Decembrist Revolt. A determined absolutist, he opposed all liberal political reforms, while expanding Russian territory at the expense of Turkey. He also suppressed an uprising in Poland (1830–31) and aided the Austrian state in crushing the 1849 revolution in Hungary. He died during the Crimean War. Nicholas II (1868–1918), who ruled 1894–1917, helped bring about the Russian Revolution through his inflexibility and misgovernment. His wife, the empress Alexandra, filled the court with irresponsible favorites, of whom the monk Rasputin was the most influential. The repression of political oppositionists and of non-Russian nationalists was intensified. Russian defeats in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) led to a popular uprising, and Nicholas granted limited civil rights and called the first representative parliament, or Duma (1905). The military defeats of World War I led to the Feb. 1917 revolution and his abdication, in March. He was executed by the Bolsheviks during the civil war that followed the Oct. 1917 revolution. He and most members of his family were re-buried in the family grave in St. Petersburg in 1998.