Alexander II of Russia

 Alexander II (29 April 1818 – 13 March 1881) was Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 2 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881. Alexander's most significant reform as emperor was the emancipation of Russia's serfs in 1861, for which he is known as Alexander the Liberator.

  

The tsar was responsible for other liberal reforms, including reorganizing 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 conservative stance until his death.

The US$7.2 million check used to pay for Russian Alaska in 1867

Alexander was also notable for his foreign policy, which was mainly pacifist, supportive of the United States, and opposed to Great Britain. Alexander backed the Union during the American Civil War and sent warships to New York Harbor and San Francisco Bay to deter attacks by the Confederate Navy. He sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, fearing the remote colony would fall into British hands in a future 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.

 

The Monument to the Tsar Liberator in the centre of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria

Despite his otherwise pacifist foreign policy, he fought a brief war with the Ottoman Empire in 1877–78, leading to the independence of Bulgaria, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia. He pursued further expansion into the Far East, leading to the founding of Khabarovsk and Vladivostok; into the Caucasus, approving plans leading to the Circassian genocide; and into 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.

     

Born in Moscow, Alexander Nikolayevich was the eldest son of Nicholas I of Russia and Charlotte of Prussia (eldest daughter of Frederick William III of Prussia and of Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz). His early life gave little indication of his ultimate potential; until the time of his accession in 1855, aged 37, few imagined that posterity would know him for implementing the most challenging reforms undertaken in Russia since the reign of Peter the Great.

His uncle Emperor Alexander I died childless. Grand Duke Konstantin, the next-younger brother of Alexander I, had previously renounced his rights to the throne of Russia. Thus, Alexander's father, who was the third son of Paul I, became the new Emperor; he took the name Nicholas I. At that time, Alexander became Tsesarevich as his father's heir to the throne.

In the period of his life as heir apparent (1825 to 1855), the intellectual atmosphere of Saint Petersburg did not favour any kind of change: freedom of thought and all forms of private initiative were suppressed vigorously by the order of his father. Personal and official censorship was rife; criticism of the authorities was regarded as a serious offence.

Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky

The education of the tsesarevich as future emperor took place under the supervision of the liberal romantic poet and gifted translator Vasily Zhukovsky, grasping a smattering of a great many subjects and becoming familiar with the chief modern European languages. Unusually for the time, the young Alexander was taken on a six-month tour of Russia (1837), visiting 20 provinces in the country. He also visited many prominent Western European countries in 1838 and 1839. As Tsesarevich, Alexander became the first Romanov heir to visit Siberia (1837). While touring Russia, he also befriended the then-exiled poet Alexander Herzen and pardoned him. It was through Herzen's influence that he later abolished serfdom in Russia.

In 1839, when his parents sent him on a tour of Europe, he met twenty-year-old Queen Victoria and they became acquainted. Simon Sebag Montefiore speculates that a small romance emerged. Such a marriage, however, would not work, as Alexander was not a minor prince of Europe and was in line to inherit a throne himself. In 1847, Alexander donated money to Ireland during the Great Famine. He has been described as looking like a German, somewhat of a pacifist, a heavy smoker and card player.

The death of his father gave Alexander a diplomatic headache, for his father was engaged in open warfare in the southwest of his empire. On 15 January 1856, the new tsar took Russia out of the Crimean War on the very unfavourable terms of the Treaty of Paris (1856), which included the loss of the Black Sea Fleet, and the provision that the Black Sea was to be a demilitarized zone similar to a contemporaneous region of the Baltic Sea. This gave him room to breathe and pursue an ambitious plan of domestic reforms.

The coronation of Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna on 26 August/7 September 1856 at the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, painting by Mihály Zichy. The painting depicts the moment when the Emperor crowned the Empress.

Encouraged by public opinion, Alexander began a period of radical reforms, including an attempt not to depend on landed aristocracy controlling the poor, an effort to develop Russia's natural resources, and to reform all branches of the administration.

Boris Chicherin, russian philosopher

Boris Chicherin (1828–1904) was a political philosopher who believed that Russia needed a strong, authoritative government by Alexander to make the reforms possible. He praised Alexander for the range of his fundamental reforms, arguing that the tsar was:

called upon to execute one of the hardest tasks which can confront an autocratic ruler: to completely remodel the enormous state which had been entrusted to his care, to abolish an age-old order founded on slavery, to replace it with civic decency and freedom, to establish justice in a country which had never known the meaning of legality, to redesign the entire administration, to introduce freedom of the press in the context of untrammeled authority, to call new forces to life at every turn and set them on firm legal foundations, to put a repressed and humiliated society on its feet, and to give it the chance to flex its muscles.

A 1907 painting by Boris Kustodiev depicting Russian serfs listening to the proclamation of the Emancipation Manifesto in 1861

 The Emancipation Reform of 1861 abolished serfdom on private estates throughout the Russian Empire. Serfs gained the full rights of free citizens, including rights to marry without having to gain consent, to own property, and to own a business. The measure was the first and most important of the liberal reforms made by Alexander II.

 Polish landed proprietors of the Lithuanian provinces presented a petition hoping that their relations with the serfs might be regulated in a way more satisfactory for the proprietors. Alexander II authorized the formation of committees "for ameliorating the condition of the peasants", and laid down the principles on which the amelioration was to be effected. Without consulting his ordinary advisers, Alexander ordered the Minister of the Interior to send a circular to the provincial governors of European Russia (serfdom was rare in other parts) containing a copy of the instructions forwarded to the Governor-General of Lithuania, praising the supposed generous, patriotic intentions of the Lithuanian landed proprietors, and suggesting that perhaps the landed proprietors of other provinces might express a similar desire. The hint was taken: in all provinces where serfdom existed, emancipation committees were formed.

Alexander II succeeded to the throne upon the death of his father in 1855. As Tsesarevich, he had been an enthusiastic supporter of his father's reactionary policies. That is, he always obeyed the autocratic ruler. But now he was the autocratic ruler himself, and fully intended to rule according to what he thought best. He rejected any moves to set up a parliamentary system that would curb his powers. He inherited a large mess that had been wrought by his father's fear of progress during his reign. Many of the other royal families of Europe had also disliked Nicholas I, which extended to distrust of the Romanov dynasty itself. Even so, there was no one more prepared to bring the country around than Alexander II. The first year of his reign was devoted to the prosecution of the Crimean War and, after the fall of Sevastopol, to negotiations for peace led by his trusted counsellor, Prince Alexander Gorchakov. The country had been exhausted and humiliated by the war. Bribe-taking, theft and corruption were rampant.

Monument to Alexander II "The Liberator" at the Senate Square in Helsinki, by sculptor Walter Runeberg. It was erected in 1894, when Finland was still a Russian grand duchy.

In 1863, Alexander II re-convened the Diet of Finland and initiated several reforms increasing Finland's autonomy within the Russian Empire, including establishment of its own currency, the Finnish markka. Liberation of business led to increased foreign investment and industrial development. Finland also got its first railways, separately established under Finnish administration. Finally, the elevation of Finnish from a language of the common people to a national language equal to Swedish opened opportunities for a larger proportion of Finnish society. Alexander II is still regarded as "The Good Tsar" in Finland.

These reforms could be seen as results of a genuine belief that reforms were easier to test in an underpopulated, homogeneous country than in the whole of Russia. They may also be seen as a reward for the loyalty of its relatively western-oriented population during the Crimean War and during the Polish uprising. Encouraging Finnish nationalism and language can also be seen as an attempt to dilute ties with Sweden.

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Russia supported the Union, largely due to the view that the U.S. served as a counterbalance to their geopolitical rival, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1863, the Russian Navy's Baltic and Pacific fleets wintered in the American ports of New York and San Francisco, respectively.

The Treaty of Paris of 1856 stood until 1871, when Prussia defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War. During his reign, Napoleon III, eager for the support of the United Kingdom, had opposed Russia over the Eastern Question. France abandoned its opposition to Russia after the establishment of the French Third Republic. Encouraged by the new attitude of French diplomacy and supported by the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Russia renounced the Black Sea clauses of the Paris treaty agreed to in 1856. As the United Kingdom with Austria could not enforce the clauses, Russia once again established a fleet in the Black Sea. France, after the Franco-Prussian War and the loss of Alsace–Lorraine, was fervently hostile to Germany and maintained friendly relations with Russia

The Russo-Circassian War concluded as a Russian victory during Alexander II's rule. Just before the conclusion of the war the Russian Army, under the emperor's order, implemented the mass-killings and extermination of Circassian "mountaineers" in the Circassian genocide, which would be often referred to as "cleansing" and "genocide" in several historic dialogues. In 1857, Dmitry Milyutin first published the idea of mass expulsions of Circassian natives. Milyutin argued that

 

"The goal was not to simply move them so that their land could be settled by productive farmers, but rather that "eliminating the Circassians was to be an end in itself – to cleanse the land of hostile elements".

 

  

 

Tsar Alexander II endorsed the plans. A large portion of indigenous peoples of the region were ethnically cleansed from their homeland at the end of the Russo-Circassian War by Russia. A large deportation operation was launched against the remaining population before the end of the war in 1864 and it was mostly completed by 1867.Only a small percentage accepted surrender and resettlement within the Russian Empire. The remaining Circassian populations who refused to surrender were thus variously dispersed, resettled, tortured, and most of the time, killed en masse.

 In April 1876, the Bulgarian population in the Balkans rebelled against Ottoman rule. The Ottoman authorities suppressed the April Uprising, causing a general outcry throughout Europe. Some of the most prominent intellectuals and politicians on the Continent, most notably Victor Hugo and William Gladstone, sought to raise awareness about the atrocities that the Turks imposed on the Bulgarian population. To solve this new crisis in the "Eastern question" a Constantinople Conference was convened by the Great Powers in Constantinople at the end of the year. The participants in the Conference failed to reach a final agreement.

In April 1876, the Bulgarian population in the Balkans rebelled against Ottoman rule. The Ottoman authorities suppressed the April Uprising, causing a general outcry throughout Europe. Some of the most prominent intellectuals and politicians on the Continent, most notably Victor Hugo and William Gladstone, sought to raise awareness about the atrocities that the Turks imposed on the Bulgarian population. To solve this new crisis in the "Eastern question" a Constantinople Conference was convened by the Great Powers in Constantinople at the end of the year. The participants in the Conference failed to reach a final agreement.

After the failure of the Constantinople Conference, at the beginning of 1877, Emperor Alexander II started diplomatic preparations with the other Great Powers to secure their neutrality in case of a war between Russia and the Ottomans. Alexander II considered such agreements paramount in avoiding the possibility of causing his country a disaster similar to the Crimean War.

The Russian Emperor succeeded in his diplomatic endeavors. Having secured agreement as to non-involvement by the other Great Powers, on 17 April 1877 Russia declared war upon the Ottoman Empire. The Russians, helped by the Romanian Army under its supreme commander King Carol I (then Prince of Romania), who sought to obtain Romanian independence from the Ottomans as well, were successful against the Turks and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 ended with the signing of the preliminary peace Treaty of San Stefano on 19 February [O.S. 3 March] 1878. The treaty and the subsequent Congress of Berlin (June–July 1878) secured the emergence of an independent Bulgarian state for the first time since 1396, and Bulgarian parliamentarians elected the tsar's nephew, Prince Alexander of Battenberg, as the Bulgarians' first ruler.

For his social reforms in Russia and his role in the liberation of Bulgaria, Alexander II became known in Bulgaria as the "Tsar-Liberator of Russians and Bulgarians". A monument to Alexander II was erected in 1907 in Sofia in the "National Assembly" square, opposite to the Parliament building. The monument underwent a complete reconstruction in 2012, funded by the Sofia Municipality and some Russian foundations. The inscription on the monument reads in Old-Bulgarian style: "To the Tsar-Liberator from grateful Bulgaria". There is a museum dedicated to Alexander in the Bulgarian city of Pleven.

On 13 March [O.S. 1 March] 1881, Alexander was assassinated in Saint Petersburg.

Nikolai Ivanovich Rysakov (Russian: Николай Иванов Рысаков; c. 1861 – 15 April 1881) was a Russian revolutionary and a member of Narodnaya Volya. He personally took part in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II of Russia. He threw a bomb that disabled the Tsar's carriage.

As he was known to do every Sunday for many years, the emperor went to the Mikhailovsky Manège for the military roll call. He travelled both to and from the Manège in a closed carriage accompanied by five Cossacks and Frank (Franciszek) Joseph Jackowski, a Polish noble, with a sixth Cossack sitting on the coachman's left. The emperor's carriage was followed by two sleighs carrying, among others, the chief of police and the chief of the emperor's guards. The route, as always, was via the Catherine Canal and over the Pevchesky Bridge

he street was flanked by narrow pavements for the public. A young member of the Narodnaya Volya ("People's Will") movement, Nikolai Rysakov, was carrying a small white package wrapped in a handkerchief. He later said of his attempt to kill the Tsar:

"After a moment's hesitation I threw the bomb. I sent it under the horses' hooves in the supposition that it would blow up under the carriage... The explosion knocked me into the fence."

 The explosion, while killing one of the Cossacks and seriously wounding the driver and people on the sidewalk, had only damaged the bulletproof carriage, a gift from Napoleon III of France. The emperor emerged shaken but unhurt. Rysakov was captured almost immediately. Police Chief Dvorzhitzky heard Rysakov shout out to someone else in the gathering crowd. Dvorzhitzky offered to drive the Tsar back to the Palace in his sleigh. The Tsar agreed, but he decided to first see the culprit, and to survey the damage. He expressed solicitude for the victims. To the anxious inquires of his entourage, Alexander replied, "Thank God, I'm untouched".

Ignacy Hryniewiecki or Ignaty Ioakhimovich Grinevitsky (c. 1856 — March 13, 1881) was a Polish member of the Russian revolutionary society Narodnaya Volya. He gained notoriety for participating in the bombing attack to which Tsar Alexander II of Russia succumbed. Hryniewiecki threw the bomb that fatally wounded the Tsar and himself. Having outlived his victim by a few hours, he died the same day.

Nevertheless, a second young member of the Narodnaya Volya, Ignacy Hryniewiecki, standing by the canal fence, raised both arms and threw something at the emperor's feet. He was alleged to have shouted, "It is too early to thank God". Dvorzhitzky was later to write:

"I was deafened by the new explosion, burned, wounded and thrown to the ground. Suddenly, amid the smoke and snowy fog, I heard His Majesty's weak voice cry, 'Help!' Gathering what strength I had, I jumped up and rushed to the emperor. His Majesty was half-lying, half-sitting, leaning on his right arm. Thinking he was merely wounded heavily, I tried to lift him but the czar's legs were shattered, and the blood poured out of them. Twenty people, with wounds of varying degree, lay on the sidewalk and on the street. Some managed to stand, others to crawl, still others tried to get out from beneath bodies that had fallen on them. Through the snow, debris, and blood you could see fragments of clothing, epaulets, sabres, and bloody chunks of human flesh."

 Later, it was learnt there was a third bomber in the crowd. Ivan Emelyanov stood ready, clutching a briefcase containing a bomb that was to be used if the other two bombers failed.

Alexander was carried by sleigh to the Winter Palace to his study where almost the same day twenty years earlier, he had signed the Emancipation Edict freeing the serfs. Alexander was bleeding to death, with his legs torn away, his stomach ripped open, and his face mutilated. Members of the Romanov family came rushing to the scene.

The Daily Telegraph

London, Greater London, England · Monday, March 14, 1881

Later, it was learnt there was a third bomber in the crowd. Ivan Emelyanov stood ready, clutching a briefcase containing a bomb that was to be used if the other two bombers failed.

Alexander was carried by sleigh to the Winter Palace to his study where almost the same day twenty years earlier, he had signed the Emancipation Edict freeing the serfs. Alexander was bleeding to death, with his legs torn away, his stomach ripped open, and his face mutilated. Members of the Romanov family came rushing to the scene.

 

The dying emperor was given Communion and Last Rites. When the attending physician, Sergey Botkin, was asked how long it would be, he replied, "Up to fifteen minutes." At 3:30 that day, the standard of Alexander II (his personal flag) was lowered for the last time.

Personal Life

First marriage

Empress Maria Alexandrovna with her husband and children. Seated in the first row, left to right are: Emperor Alexander II, Tsarevna Maria Feodorovna with her son Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich on her lap, and Empress Maria Alexandrovna. In the second row, same order: Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich, Tsarevich Alexander Alexandrovich, and Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich. c 1870.

In Germany, Alexander made an unplanned stop in Darmstadt. He was reluctant to spend "a possibly dull evening" with their host Louis II, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, but he agreed to do so because Vasily Zhukovsky insisted that his entourage was exhausted and needed a rest. During dinner, he met and was charmed by Princess Marie, the 14-year-old daughter of Louis II. He was so smitten that he declared that he would rather abandon the succession than not marry her. He wrote to his father: "I liked her terribly at first sight. If you permit it, dear father, I will come back to Darmstadt after England." When he left Darmstadt, she gave him a locket that contained a piece of her hair.

 Alexander's parents initially did not support his decision to marry Princess Marie of Hesse. There were troubling rumors about her paternity. Although she was the legal daughter of Louis II, there were rumors that Marie was the biological daughter of her mother's lover, Baron August von Senarclens de Grancy. Alexander's parents worried that Marie could have inherited her mother's consumption. Alexander's mother considered the Hesse family grossly inferior to the Hohenzollerns and Romanovs.

In April 1840, Alexander's engagement to Princess Marie was officially announced. In August, the 16-year-old Marie left Darmstadt for Russia. In December, she was received into the Orthodox Church and received the names Maria Alexandrovna.

On 16 April 1841, aged 23, Tsesarevitch Alexander married Marie in St. Petersburg.

The marriage produced six sons and two daughters:

Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna of Russia (30 August 1842 – 10 July 1849) was the eldest child and first daughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia and his first wife Marie of Hesse and by Rhine. She died from infant meningitis at the age of six and a half.

Nicholas Alexandrovich (Russian: Николай Александрович; 20 September [O.S. 8 September] 1843 – 24 April [O.S. 12 April] 1865) was tsesarevich—the heir apparent—of Imperial Russia from 2 March 1855 until his death in 1865.

Alexander III (10 March 1845 – 1 November 1894) was Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 13 March 1881 until his death in 1894. He was highly reactionary in domestic affairs and reversed some of the liberal reforms of his father, Alexander II, a policy of "counter-reforms" (Russian: контрреформы). Under the influence of Konstantin Pobedonostsev (1827–1907), he acted to maximize his autocratic powers.

Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia (22, April 1847 – 17 February 1909) was a son of Emperor Alexander II of Russia, a brother of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and the senior Grand Duke of the House of Romanov during the reign of his nephew, Emperor Nicholas II.

Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia (14 January [O.S. 2 January] 1850 in St. Petersburg – 14 November 1908 in Paris) was the fifth child and the fourth son of Alexander II of Russia and his first wife Marie of Hesse and by Rhine. Chosen for a naval career, Alexei Alexandrovich started his military training at the age of seven. By the age of 20 he had been appointed lieutenant of the Imperial Russian Navy and had visited all Russia's European military ports. In 1871, he was sent as a goodwill ambassador to the United States and Japan.

Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia (17 October [O.S. 5 October] 1853 – 24 October 1920) was the fifth child and only surviving daughter of Alexander II of Russia and Marie of Hesse and by Rhine; she was Duchess of Edinburgh and later Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as the wife of Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She was the younger sister of Alexander III of Russia and the paternal aunt of Russia's last emperor, Nicholas II.

In 1874, Maria married Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; she was the only Romanov to marry into the British royal family. The couple had five children: Alfred, Marie, Victoria Melita, Alexandra, and Beatrice. For the first years of her marriage, Maria lived in England. She neither adapted to the British court nor overcame her dislike for her adopted country. She accompanied her husband on his postings as an admiral of the Royal Navy at Malta (1886–1889) and Devonport (1890–1893). The Duchess of Edinburgh travelled extensively through Europe. She visited her family in Russia frequently and stayed for long periods in England and Germany attending social and family events.

In August 1893, Maria became Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha when her husband inherited the duchy on the death of his childless uncle, Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She enjoyed life in Germany, where she became active in cultural endeavours and charitable work. To her daughters, she gave every support, but she was critical of her wayward son, Alfred, who died in 1899. Her husband died in 1900 and was succeeded as Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha by his nephew Charles Edward.

In her widowhood, Maria continued to live in Coburg. The outbreak of World War I divided her sympathies. She sided with Germany against her native Russia. Many of her relatives, including her brother Paul and her nephew Nicholas II, were killed during the Russian Revolution, and Maria lost her considerable fortune. After World War I, the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha ceased to exist in November 1918. Maria died in 1920 while living under reduced circumstances in exile in Switzerland.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia (11 May 1857 – 17 February 1905) was the fifth son and seventh child of Emperor Alexander II of Russia. He was an influential figure during the reigns of his brother Emperor Alexander III of Russia and his nephew Emperor Nicholas II, who was also his brother-in-law through Sergei's marriage to Elisabeth, the sister of Empress Alexandra.

Grand Duke Sergei's education gave him lifelong interests in culture and the arts. Like all male members of the Romanov dynasty, he followed a military career, and he fought in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, receiving the Order of St George for courage and bravery in action. In 1882, his brother, Tsar Alexander III, appointed him commander of the 1st Battalion Preobrazhensky Life Guard Regiment, a position he held until 1891. In 1889, Grand Duke Sergei was promoted to the rank of major general. In 1884, Sergei married Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Their marriage remained childless, but they became the guardians of the two children of his brother, Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia: Grand Duchess Maria, and Grand Duke Dmitri. Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and his wife promoted the marriage of Sergei's nephew, Tsar Nicholas II, with Princess Alix of Hesse, Elisabeth's youngest surviving sister.

Between 1891 and 1905, Grand Duke Sergei served as Governor-General of Moscow. His reputation was initially tarnished as he was partially blamed for the Khodynka Tragedy during the festivities following the coronation of Emperor Nicholas II. As Governor of Moscow, he pursued very conservative policies that made him a polarizing figure. At the start of his tenure, he expelled Moscow's 20,000 Jews and repressed a student movement to prevent the spread of revolutionary ideas. Because of this, he was often regarded as a reactionary. In 1894 Grand Duke Sergei was made a member of the State Council. In 1896 he was promoted to lieutenant general and appointed as commander of Moscow Military District. After thirteen years of service, Grand Duke Sergei resigned from the Governorship on 1 January 1905, though he remained head of the Moscow Military District. Targeted by the SR Combat Organization, he was assassinated later that year by a terrorist bomb at the Kremlin during the 1905 Russian Revolution.

Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia (3 October 1860 – 28 January 1919) was the sixth son and youngest child of Emperor Alexander II of Russia by his first wife, Empress Maria Alexandrovna. He was a brother of Emperor Alexander III and uncle of Nicholas II, Russia's last monarch.

He entered the Imperial Russian Army, was a general in the cavalry and adjutant general to his brother Emperor Alexander III, and a Knight of the Order of St. Andrew. In 1889, he married Princess Alexandra of Greece, his paternal first cousin once removed. The couple had a daughter and a son, but Alexandra died after the birth of their second child. In his widowhood, Grand Duke Paul began a relationship with Olga Valerianovna Karnovich, a married woman with three children. After obtaining a divorce for Olga and in defiance of strong family opposition, Grand Duke Paul married her in October 1902. As he contracted a morganatic marriage with a divorcée in defiance of the Tsar's prohibition, Grand Duke Paul was banished from living in Russia and deprived of his titles and privileges. Between 1902 and 1914, he lived in exile in Paris with his second wife, who gave him three children. In the spring of 1914, he settled back in Russia with his second family.

With the outbreak of World War I, Grand Duke Paul was appointed in command of the first corps of the Imperial Guard. Afflicted with ill health, he served only intermittently. During the last days of the Tsarist period, he was one of the few members of the Romanov family who remained close to Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna. It fell upon Grand Duke Paul to inform Alexandra of Nicholas II's abdication.

After the fall of the Russian monarchy, Grand Duke Paul initially remained at his palace in Tsarskoe Selo during the period of the provisional government. With the Bolsheviks ascending to power, his palace was expropriated, and eventually he was arrested and sent to prison. In declining health, he was shot by the Bolsheviks with other Romanov relatives in the courtyard of the Peter and Paul Fortress in January 1919, and his remains were thrown into a common grave.

Princess Catherine Dolgorukova (14 November [O.S. 2 November] 1847 – 15 February 1922) was a Russian aristocrat and the daughter of Prince Michael Dolgorukov and Vera Vishnevskaya.

Catherine was a long-time mistress of Tsar Alexander II and later, as his morganatic wife, was given the title of Princess Yurievskaya.

Alexander and Catherine already had three children when they formed a morganatic marriage on 18 July [O.S. 6 July] 1880, after the death of the Emperor's wife, Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, on 3 June [O.S. 22 May] 1880. A fourth child had died in infancy. Catherine became a widow with the assassination of Alexander II on 13 March [O.S. 1 March] 1881 by members of Narodnaya Volya

When she heard the news, Catherine ran half-dressed into the room where he lay dying and fell across his body, crying "Sasha! Sasha!" In his memoirs, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich recalled that the pink and white négligée she was wearing was soaked in Alexander's blood. At his funeral, Catherine and her three children were forced to stand in an entryway of the church and received no place in the procession of the Imperial Family. They were also forced to attend a separate Funeral Mass from the rest of the family.

After the Emperor's death, Catherine received a pension of approximately 3.4 million rubles and agreed to give up the right to live in the Winter Palace or any of the Imperial residences in Russia in return for a separate residence for herself and the three children.

She settled in Paris and on the French Riviera, where she became known as a fashionable hostess and was used to having twenty servants and a private railway car, though the Romanov family continued to look upon her and her children with disdain. Alexander III had his secret police spy on her and received reports on her activities in France. Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia used illness as an excuse to avoid socializing with her in 1895. Nicholas II recalled that Catherine was offended when he refused to be the sponsor when her daughter Olga married the Count of Merenberg in the spring of 1895. His mother, the dowager empress, had been appalled by the idea, so Nicholas declined. Catherine's son George was an abysmal failure in the Imperial Russian Navy, as Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia informed her by letter, but he was granted a place in the Cavalry School. Catherine survived her husband by forty-one years and died just as her money was running out.

Prince George Alexandrovich Yuryevsky (12 May 1872 [30 April 1872 O. S.] – 13 September 1913) was the natural son of Alexander II of Russia by his mistress (and later wife), Princess Catherine Dolgorukova. The morganatic marriage of George's parents on 6 July 1880, eight years after his birth, resulted in the legitimation of their three surviving children, and George gained the style of Serene Highness.

Princess Olga Alexandrovna Yurievskaya (7 November 1873 – 10 August 1925) was the natural daughter of Alexander II of Russia by his mistress (later his wife), Princess Catherine Dolgorukova. In 1880, she was legitimated by her parents' morganatic marriage.

After her father's assassination in 1881, her mother brought her up in France. In 1895, she married a German nobleman, becoming Countess Merenberg, and spent most of the rest of her life in Germany.

Prince Boris Alexandrovich Yurievsky was the third child of Princess Olga Alexandrovna Yurievskaya and a grandson of Tsar Alexander II of Russia. He was born on February 23, 1876 and died on April 11, 1876. 

Princess Catherine Alexandrovna Yurievskaya (Russian: Екатерина Александровна Юрьевская, Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Yurievskaya; 9 September 1878 (O.S.) – 22 December 1959) was the natural daughter of Alexander II of Russia by his mistress (later his wife), Princess Catherine Dolgorukova. In 1880, she was legitimated by her parents' morganatic marriage. In her own family, she was known as Katia.

After her father's assassination in 1881, her mother brought her up in France. She was married there in 1901, having two sons, but was widowed in 1910. Her second marriage came during the First World War in Russia, and she suffered hardships during the ensuing Russian Civil War. In the 1920s, she became a professional singer. In 1932, she moved to the UK where she settled on Hayling Island in Hampshire, where she died in 1959.