NICHOLAS II. (1868-1918), tsar of Russia, eldest son of Alexander III., was born at St. Petersburg (Leningrad), on May 18,1868. An English tutor, Mr. Charles Heath, taught him excel lent English, and inspired a love of sports and healthy exercise, while a Russian general, Danilovich, supervised his military train ing, but there was to provide him with the comprehen sive knowledge required from one whom fate had destined to rule an immense empire. The only occasion which was offered to the young tsarevich to acquaint himself with the problems of the world wgs his journey to the Far East, so abruptly cut short in Kyoto by the sabre cut of a Japanese fanatic.
He wedded Princess Alix of Hesse at the deathbed of his father; at the festival of his coronation more than 3,00o people were crushed to death through the negligence of the officials who had to arrange a distribution of bounties; and during the coronation itself the imperial chain on his breast fell to the ground. Such impressions contributed strongly to inspire him with a mystic resignation, especially unsuitable for a monarch who had to lead the nation through times of great crisis at home and in foreign affairs. Nicholas II. followed in the footsteps of his father, seek ing to preserve peace in foreign relations, and continuing in home affairs, though in a much milder form, the policy of centraliza tion and Russification which had characterized the previous reign. His pacific tendencies were shown by his systematic opposition to all bellicose excitement, by his maintaining M. de Giers in the post of minister of foreign affairs, by his offering the post, on the death of that statesman, to M. de Staal, by his restraining France from dangerous adventures, and by initiating the Peace Confer ence at The Hague. To these ought perhaps to be added the trans formation of the Franco-Russian entente cordiale into a formal alliance, since the alliance in question might be regarded as favour able to the preservation of the status quo in Europe. In the inter nal administration during the first years of his reign he introduced by his personal influence, and without any great change in the laws, a more humane spirit towards those of his subjects who did not belong by language and tradition to the dominant nationality, and who were not members of the Eastern Orthodox Church ; but he disappointed the men of liberal views by giving it to be clearly understood soon after his accession that he had no intention of circumscribing and weakening the autocratic power by constitu tional guarantees or parliamentary institutions. In spite, however,
of his desire for peace he let his country drift into the disastrous war with Japan; and notwithstanding his sincere attachment to the principles of bureaucratic autocracy, it was he who granted the constitutional reforms which altered the whole political out look in Russia. (See RussIA.) Nicholas II.'s political outlook was dominated by a kind of theocratic or hieratic spirit ; he was looking back for inspirations to the ideas and customs of the Muscovite period ; he was induced to impersonate the figure of Alexis Mikhailovich, the father of the western reformer Peter the Great; in 1913 the tercentenary of Michail Feodorovich's accession to the throne after the "Great Troubles" was celebrated with much splendour and emphasis. Pilgrimages were performed with great devotion and circumstance.
The courtiers and bureaucrats in the immediate surroundings of the tsar, men like Sipiaguin, Nicolas Maklakov and Sabler, took advantage of these prepossessions in order to keep up a constant hostility against progressive reformers and western adap tations. But the most dangerous representative of mystic reaction was the tsar's consort, the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Of German descent on her father's side and of English descent on the side of her mother (Princess Alice, the daughter of Queen Victoria), she had received her education in England, but, on coming to Russia, she surrendered completely to the most extreme form of theocratic exaltation.