Alexander began his tenure as tsar during one of the most critical times in Russian history: never before had a Romanov been killed by someone other than during a palace coup.

The eldest son of Alexander II, he was present when his father died and insisted that his children (including Nicholas, age 12) come to see their grandfather before his death. Nicholas later recounted that he and his sister had been ice skating, and actually had their skates with them in the room when their grandfather died; both children were traumatized by the event. Alexander III's anger and disgust at the actions of the terrorists led him crack down immediately on what he viewed as the coddling of these people by his father, and he set out to remove many of the protections and rights which had been granted during Alexander II's reign. One of the first steps towards this was the creation of the "Temporary Regulations", which were issued in the summer of 1881. These gave the state broad powers in dealing with things like the press, assemblies, and anyone who might "threaten the public order." Clearly, these were very broad powers, and who was a threat was not specifically defined. As a result, Russia lived under a state of partial martial law for the rest of the Romanov reign.

Other measures soon followed which limited students' rights to attend university (and to gather in groups at said university), changed many of the laws which had governed the zemstvos, and altered the requirements for voting, which cut the electorate by more than half. Non-Orthodox religions were increasingly harassed, including non-Christian faiths (Islam and Buddhism being the most prominent) which had previously been largely ignored. In addition, Jews, who had been granted greater freedoms during the reign of Alexander III, were severely repressed, and beginning in 1881, pogroms (violent attacks against Jews) began. One of Alexander's primary advisors for these policies was Konstantine Pobedonostov, who served as the ober-procurator of the Holy Synod. According to Riasanovsky, Pobedonostov allegedly remarked that the Jewish problem in Russia would be solved by thirds: one third would convert, one third would emigrate, and one third would be killed. Pobedonostov's reactionary policies permeated all areas of Russian political life; he even served as one of the main tutors for the young tsarevich.

Nicholas II

Alexander's reign was a disaster for those who hoped that Russia was moving forward in terms of rights for its citizenry, and his death, in 1894, did little to change that. Nicholas II, Alexander's oldest son, had not been brought up to rule; in fact, his father deliberately kept the young tsarevich from attending political meetings or anything on the governing of the country. Nicholas spent his time going to the ballet, meeting young women, and generally living a life of leisure. That all changed in 1894, when his father took ill and died in a matter of weeks. Suddenly Nicholas, 26 years of age, was the emperor of all the Russias.

Nicholas has been condemned in some circles and glorified in others; he has been accused of causing the Russian Revolution and has been canonized as a saint for his martyrdom at the hands of the revolutionaries. Handsome (and the virtual twin of his cousin, George of England), spirited, and faithful, his romance with his cousin Alexandra has become the stuff of legends, in part because of Robert Massie's book on their lives together. Alix and Nicholas had met as children, with Nicholas falling madly in love with her. He pursued her for years, and she returned his feelings, but their marriage was not a strategically practical one, as her parents were neither wealthy nor particularly powerful. When Alexander III fell ill, however, and it was clear that Nicholas was going to become emperor, he insisted that he have Alix as his empress. (As a side note, he preferred to use the Russian "tsar", while Alexandra was always "Empress" rather than tsaritsa). They married shortly after Alexander's death, although the dying emperor gave his blessing to the union; superstitious Russians announced that she had come to them behind a coffin, and surely nothing good could come of that.

Nicholas and Alexandra

Alexandra very quickly became pregnant, and over the course of 10 years of marriage bore Nicholas five children: four girls (Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia) and one son, Aleksei. Tragically, Alexandra was a carrier of the disease hemophiliia, as were most of Queen Victoria's grandchildren. Hemophiliia is a disease which usually attacks only males: blood does not clot, so any kind of injury is potentially life threatening. The gene is carried through the female and transmitted to the male through birth. Alexandra's joy at giving birth to a son was quickly tempered by the onset of the disease's symptoms. Perhaps the biggest mistake the royal family made was not disclosing the disease to the public; Russians are known for their love of children (and their tendency to spoil them) and had the Russian public known what Alexandra was going through with her son, they probably would have embraced her. Instead, fearful of the issue of succession, Nicholas and his ministers chose to keep Aleksei's disease a secret, and Alexandra's standoffishness, due in large part to her worry about her son, became her public image. In addition, her inability to speak Russian fluently, and her eventual reliance on those who could help Aleksei (most famously Rasputin) made her a villain in the eyes of the Russian public. There was perhaps no more distrusted or hated figure in Russian history than the last Empress.

Nicholas's Rule

In the first years of Nicholas's reign, the policies of the government remained virtually identical to those of his father; even the advisors remained the same. Russian foreign policy, which had for years forged an alliance with Prussia and Austria through the Three Emperors League, underwent substantial changes due to the rise of Prussia as the center of a unified Germany. In addition, Russia's relations with Britain (embroiled in the so-called "Great Game" for control of China) and Japan (fighting for control of the Siberian naval ports) were also tenuous. The natural alliance for the Russians was with the French, and in fact they did form several economic alliances (with the French investing heavily in some Russian industries), but Nicholas's foreign policy tended to be erratic and unfocused, even in comparison with his father. One of the biggest blunders of his reign was his involvement in the Russo-Japanese War, fought between 1904-1905, during which Russia lost her Pacific fleet and her military weaknesses were exposed to the world. The war, over territorial claims and the desire of the Russians to build the Trans-Siberian railway over land that the Japanese had taken from China, was a disaster. The Japanese attacked the unsuspecting Russians at Port Arthur and destroyed their Pacific fleet, and spent the next year defeating everything the Russians threw at them, including their Baltic fleet. Russia was forced to negotiate (the negotiations for peace were held in the US, and under the advisement of Teddy Roosevelt, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts), and admit that it had been beaten by a power that most Russians considered substantially inferior to Russia. Nicholas II's handling of the affair (or mishandling) was one of the primary causes of the Revolution of 1905.