Members of the House Of Romanov
Reference
List of the members of the House of Romanov, listed alphabetically with photos when available. This list includes the names of each famous person in the House ...
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Ranker
Nicholas II or Nikolai II (Russian: Никола́й II Алекса́ндрович, tr. Nikolai II Aleksandrovich; 18 May [O.S. 6 May] 1868 – 17 July 1918), known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer in the Russian Orthodox Church, was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication in 15 March 1917. His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse. He gave limited support to the economic and political reforms promoted by top aides Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin, but they faced too much aristocratic opposition to be fully effective. He supported modernization based on foreign loans and close ties with France. He resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles. He insisted he ruled by God's grace and was loathe to negotiate or compromise. He was ridiculed as Nicholas the Bloody by his enemies due to the Khodynka Tragedy, anti-Semitic pogroms, Bloody Sunday, the violent suppression of the 1905 Russian Revolution, the repression of political opponents, and his responsibility for defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). His memory was reviled by Soviet historians as a weak and incompetent leader whose decisions led to military defeats and the deaths of millions of his subjects. By contrast Anglo-Russian historian Nikolai Tolstoy, leader of the International Monarchist League, says, "There were many bad things about the tsar's regime, but he inherited an autocracy and his acts are now being seen in perspective and in comparison to the terrible crimes committed by the Soviets." Russia was defeated in the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War, which saw the annihilation of the Russian Baltic Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima, the loss of Russian influence over Manchuria and Korea, and the Japanese annexation to the north of South Sakhalin Island. The Anglo-Russian Entente was designed to counter the German Empire's attempts to gain influence in the Middle East; it ended the Great Game of confrontation between Russia and Britain. In 1914 he supported Serbia and approved the mobilization of the Russian Army on 30 July 1914. In response Germany declared war on Russia and its ally France on 1 August 1914, starting the First World War. The tsar took personal command of the army, leading it to defeat after defeat. The aristocracy was alarmed at the powerful influence of the despised peasant priest Grigori Rasputin over the tsar. The severe military losses led to a collapse of morale at the front and at home, leading to the fall of the House of Romanov in the February Revolution of 1917. Nicholas abdicated and refused exile. With his family he was imprisoned by the Bolsheviks and executed in July 1918. In 1981, Nicholas, his wife, and their children were recognized as martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in New York City. After the fall of Communism, the remains of the imperial family were exhumed, identified and re-interred with an elaborate state and church ceremony in St. Petersburg on 17 July 1998. They were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church as passion bearers.

Alexandra Feodorovna (6 June 1872 – 17 July 1918) was Empress of Russia as the spouse of Nicholas II—the last ruler of the Russian Empire—from their marriage on 26 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March 1917. Originally Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine at birth, she was given the name and patronymic Alexandra Feodorovna upon being received into the Russian Orthodox Church and—having been killed along with her immediate family while in Bolshevik captivity in 1918—was canonized in 2000 as Saint Alexandra the Passion Bearer. A granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Alexandra was, like her grandmother, one of the most famous royal carriers of the haemophilia disease. Her reputation for encouraging her husband's resistance to the surrender of autocratic authority and her known faith in the Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin severely damaged her popularity and that of the Romanov monarchy in its final years.

Alexander II (Russian: Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, tr. Aleksandr II Nikolayevich, IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksandr ftɐˈroj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ]; 29 April 1818 – 13 March 1881) was the Emperor of Russia from 2 March 1855 until his assassination on 13 March 1881. He was also the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Finland.Alexander's most significant reform as Emperor was emancipation of Russia's serfs in 1861, for which he is known as Alexander the Liberator (Russian: Алекса́ндр Освободи́тель, tr. Aleksandr Osvoboditel, IPA: [ɐlʲɪˈksandr ɐsvəbɐˈdʲitʲɪlʲ]). The tsar was responsible for other reforms, including reorganising the judicial system, setting up elected local judges, abolishing corporal punishment, promoting local self-government through the zemstvo system, imposing universal military service, ending some privileges of the nobility, and promoting university education. After an assassination attempt in 1866, Alexander adopted a somewhat more reactionary stance until his death.Alexander pivoted towards foreign policy and sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, fearing the remote colony would fall into British hands if there were another war. He sought peace, moved away from bellicose France when Napoleon III fell in 1871, and in 1872 joined with Germany and Austria in the League of the Three Emperors that stabilized the European situation. Despite his otherwise pacifist foreign policy, he fought a brief war with the Ottoman Empire in 1877–78, pursued further expansion into Siberia and the Caucasus, and conquered Turkestan. Although disappointed by the results of the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Alexander abided by that agreement. Among his greatest domestic challenges was an uprising in Poland in 1863, to which he responded by stripping that land of its separate constitution and incorporating it directly into Russia. Alexander was proposing additional parliamentary reforms to counter the rise of nascent revolutionary and anarchistic movements when he was assassinated in 1881.

Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia (Tatiana Nikolaevna Romanova; Russian: Великая Княжна Татьяна Николаевна; 10 June 1897 – 17 July 1918) was the second daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last monarch of Russia, and of Tsarina Alexandra. She was born at the Peterhof, Saint Petersburg. She was better known than her three sisters during her lifetime and headed Red Cross committees during World War I. Like her older sister Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia, she nursed wounded soldiers in a military hospital from 1914 to 1917, until the family was arrested following the first Russian Revolution of 1917. Her murder by communist revolutionaries on 17 July 1918 resulted in her being named as a passion bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church. She was a younger sister of Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia and an elder sister of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia and Tsarevich Alexei of Russia. All sisters were falsely rumored to have survived the assassination and dozens of impostors claimed to be surviving Romanovs. Author Michael Occleshaw speculated that a woman named Larissa Tudor might have been Tatiana; however, all of the Romanovs, including Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, were killed by the Bolsheviks.

Peter III (21 February [O.S. 10 February] 1728 – 17 July [O.S. 6 July] 1762) (Russian: Пётр III Фëдорович, Pyotr III Fyodorovich) was Emperor of Russia for six months in 1762. He was born in Kiel as Charles Peter Ulrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp (German: Karl Peter Ulrich von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf), the only child of Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (the son of Hedvig Sophia of Sweden, sister of Charles XII), and Anna Petrovna (the elder surviving daughter of Peter the Great). The German Peter could hardly speak Russian and pursued a strongly pro-Prussian policy, which made him an unpopular leader. He was deposed and possibly assassinated as a result of a conspiracy led by his German wife, Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst, who succeeded him to the throne as Catherine II; however, another theory suggests, his death could also have been the result of a drunken brawl with his bodyguard, whilst he was being held captive after Catherine's coup.Despite his generally poor reputation, Peter made some progressive reforms. During his short reign, he proclaimed religious freedom (a very progressive move for the time), encouraged education, sought to modernize the Russian army, abolished the secret police which had been infamous for its extreme violence, and made it illegal for landowners to kill their serfs without going to court; however, some of his reforms were soon reverted by Catherine. It has been debated whether Peter was a great tsar who was overthrown by the military and aristocrats to keep their control over the monarchy or an idiotic, weak tyrant. What is certain, though, is that his ambitious wife, Catherine the Great, overshadowed and tarnished his reign.