Topic: Czar Nicholas II

Georgy Lvov (chairman of the provisional government)

Nicholas II (Russian: Николай II, Николай Александрович Романов, tr. Nikolay II, Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov ) (18 May 1868 – 17 July 1918) was the last Emperor of Russia, Grand Prince of Finland, and titular King of Poland. His official title was Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias and he is currently regarded as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church.

Nicholas II ruled from 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. His reign saw Imperial Russia go from being one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse. Critics nicknamed him Bloody Nicholas because of the Khodynka Tragedy, Bloody Sunday, and the anti-Semitic pogroms that occurred during his reign. Under his rule, Russia was defeated in the Russo-Japanese War. As head of state, he approved the Russian mobilization of August 1914, which marked the first fatal step into World War I and thus into the demise of the Romanov dynasty less than four years later.