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Nicholas II. "The Emperor's Last Will"

Exactly a century ago, on the night of March 2 to 3, according to the old style, in a train car on railway station Pskov Emperor Nicholas II, in the presence of the Minister of the Court and two deputies of the State Duma, signed a document in which he abdicated. Thus, in an instant, the monarchy fell in Russia and the three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty ended. However, in this story, as it turns out, even a hundred years later there are a lot of “blank spots”. Scientists argue: did the emperor really abdicate himself, at his own request, or was he forced to? For a long time the main reason for doubt was the act of renunciation - a simple piece of paper, carelessly designed and signed in pencil. In addition, in 1917 this paper disappeared, and was found only in 1929.

The film presents the result of numerous examinations, during which the authenticity of the act was proved, as well as unique testimonies of the person who accepted the abdication of Nicholas II - State Duma deputy Vasily Shulgin. In 1964, his story was filmed by documentary filmmakers, the film has survived to this day. According to Shulgin, the emperor himself announces to them upon arrival that he thought to abdicate in favor of Alexei, but after that he decided to abdicate for his son in favor of his brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich.

It is hard to imagine what Nikolai was thinking when signing the document. Did you dream about it? That now for him the time will come for the long-awaited calm and family happiness in his beloved Livadia? Did he think he was doing it for the good of the country? Did he believe that this gesture would stop the collapse of the empire and allow it to survive, albeit in a modified form, but still a strong state?

We will never know. Events last days The Russian Empire in the film is recreated on the basis of authentic documents of that era. And from the diaries of the emperor, in particular, it follows that he dreamed of peace, and even the thoughts that he was signing a death sentence for himself and his family could not be with the autocrat ...

However, less than a year and a half after the February events, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, the Romanov family and four of their entourage were shot in the basement of the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg. Thus ended this story, to which we obsessively return a century later ...

Taking part in the film: Sergey Mironenko - scientific director of the State Archives of Russia, Sergey Firsov - historian, biographer of Nicholas II, Fyodor Gaida - historian, Mikhail Shaposhnikov - director of the Museum Silver Age, Kirill Solovyov - historian, Olga Barkovets - curator of the exhibition "Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo and the Romanovs", Larisa Bardovskaya - chief curator State Museum-Reserve"Tsarskoye Selo", Georgy Mitrofanov - archpriest, Mikhail Degtyarev - deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Zygar - writer, author of the project "Project1917".

Rally in Petrograd, 1917

17 years have passed since the canonization last emperor and his family, but you are still faced with an amazing paradox - many, even completely Orthodox, people dispute the justice of reckoning Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich to the canon of saints.

No one raises any protests or doubts about the legitimacy of the canonization of the son and daughters of the last Russian emperor. Nor did I hear any objections to the canonization of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Even at the Council of Bishops in 2000, when it came to the canonization of the Royal Martyrs, a special opinion was expressed only with regard to the sovereign himself. One of the bishops said that the emperor did not deserve to be glorified, because "he is a traitor ... he, one might say, sanctioned the collapse of the country."

And it is clear that in such a situation, spears are broken not at all about the martyrdom or the Christian life of Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich. Neither one nor the other raises doubts even among the most rabid denier of the monarchy. His feat as a martyr is beyond doubt.

The thing is different - in the latent, subconscious resentment: “Why did the sovereign admit that a revolution had taken place? Why didn't you save Russia? Or, as A. I. Solzhenitsyn pointed out in his article “Reflections on February Revolution": "Weak king, he betrayed us. All of us - for everything that follows."

The myth of a weak king who allegedly surrendered his kingdom voluntarily obscures his martyrdom and obscures the demonic cruelty of his tormentors. But what could the sovereign do in the circumstances, when Russian society, like a herd of Gadarene pigs, rushed into the abyss for decades?

Studying the history of Nicholas reign, one is amazed not by the weakness of the sovereign, not by his mistakes, but by how much he managed to do in an atmosphere of fanned hatred, malice and slander.

We must not forget that the sovereign received autocratic power over Russia quite unexpectedly, after a sudden, unforeseen and unimagined death. Alexander III. Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich recalled the state of the heir to the throne immediately after the death of his father: “He could not collect his thoughts. He realized that he had become the Emperor, and this terrible burden of power crushed him. “Sandro, what am I going to do! he exclaimed pathetically. What will happen to Russia now? I'm not ready to be King yet! I can't run the Empire. I don’t even know how to talk to ministers.”

However, after short period in confusion, the new emperor firmly took up the helm of state administration and held it for twenty-two years, until he fell victim to an apex conspiracy. Until “treason, and cowardice, and deception” swirled around him in a dense cloud, as he himself noted in his diary on March 2, 1917.

The black mythology directed against the last sovereign was actively dispelled both by emigrant historians and modern Russian ones. And yet, in the minds of many, including those who are completely churched, our fellow citizens stubbornly settled down vicious stories, gossip and anecdotes that were presented in Soviet history textbooks as the truth.

The myth about the wine of Nicholas II in the Khodynka tragedy

It is tacitly customary to start any list of accusations with Khodynka, a terrible stampede that occurred during the coronation celebrations in Moscow on May 18, 1896. You might think that the sovereign ordered to organize this stampede! And if anyone is to be blamed for what happened, then the uncle of the emperor, the Moscow governor-general Sergei Alexandrovich, who did not foresee the very possibility of such an influx of the public. At the same time, it should be noted that they did not hide what happened, all the newspapers wrote about Khodynka, all of Russia knew about her. The Russian emperor and empress the next day visited all the wounded in hospitals and defended a memorial service for the dead. Nicholas II ordered to pay pensions to the victims. And they received it until 1917, until the politicians, who had been speculating on the Khodynka tragedy for years, made it so that any pensions in Russia ceased to be paid at all.

And the slander, repeated over the years, that the tsar, despite the Khodynka tragedy, went to the ball and had fun there, sounds absolutely vile. The sovereign was really forced to go to an official reception at the French embassy, which he could not help attending for diplomatic reasons (an insult to the allies!), He paid his respects to the ambassador and left, having been there only 15 (!) minutes.

And from this they created the myth of a heartless despot having fun while his subjects die. From here the absurd nickname “Bloody” created by the radicals and picked up by the educated public crawled.

The myth of the monarch's guilt in unleashing the Russo-Japanese war

The emperor admonishes the soldiers of the Russo-Japanese War. 1904

They say that the sovereign dragged Russia into the Russo-Japanese war, because the autocracy needed a "small victorious war."

Unlike the "educated" Russian society, confident in the inevitable victory and contemptuously calling the Japanese "macaques", the emperor knew perfectly well all the difficulties of the situation on Far East and tried with all his might to prevent war. And do not forget - it was Japan that attacked Russia in 1904. Treacherously, without declaring war, the Japanese attacked our ships in Port Arthur.

Kuropatkin, Rozhestvensky, Stessel, Linevich, Nebogatov, and any of the generals and admirals, but not the sovereign, who was thousands of miles from the theater of operations and nevertheless did everything for victory.

For example, the fact that by the end of the war, 20, and not 4 military echelons per day (as at the beginning) went along the unfinished Trans-Siberian Railway - the merit of Nicholas II himself.

And on the Japanese side, our revolutionary society “fought”, which needed not victory, but defeat, which its representatives themselves honestly admitted. For example, representatives of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party clearly wrote in an appeal to Russian officers: “Every victory of yours threatens Russia with a disaster for strengthening order, every defeat brings the hour of deliverance closer. Is it any wonder if the Russians rejoice at the success of your adversary? Revolutionaries and liberals diligently fanned the turmoil in the rear of the warring country, doing this, including with Japanese money. This is now well known.

The myth of Bloody Sunday

For decades, the tsar’s current accusation was “Bloody Sunday” – the execution of an allegedly peaceful demonstration on January 9, 1905. Why, they say, did not come out of Winter Palace and did not fraternize with the people devoted to him?

Let's start from the very simple fact- the sovereign was not in Zimny, he was in his country residence, in Tsarskoye Selo. He did not intend to come to the city, since both the mayor I. A. Fullon and the police authorities assured the emperor that they had "everything under control." By the way, they did not deceive Nicholas II too much. In a normal situation, the troops brought out into the street would have been enough to prevent riots.

No one foresaw the scale of the demonstration on January 9, as well as the activities of provocateurs. When Socialist-Revolutionary fighters began to shoot at the soldiers from the crowd of allegedly “peaceful demonstrators”, it was not difficult to foresee response actions. From the very beginning, the organizers of the demonstration planned a clash with the authorities, and not a peaceful procession. They did not need political reforms, they needed "great upheavals".

But what about the Emperor himself? During the entire revolution of 1905-1907, he sought to find contact with Russian society, went on specific and sometimes even overly bold reforms (like the provision by which the first State Dumas were elected). And what did he get in return? Spitting and hatred, calls "Down with the autocracy!" and encouraging bloody riots.

However, the revolution was not "crushed". The rebellious society was pacified by the sovereign, who skillfully combined the use of force and new, more thoughtful reforms (the electoral law of June 3, 1907, according to which Russia finally received a normally functioning parliament).

The myth of how the tsar "surrendered" Stolypin

They reproach the sovereign for allegedly insufficient support " Stolypin's reforms". But who made Pyotr Arkadyevich prime minister, if not Nicholas II himself? Contrary, by the way, to the opinion of the court and the immediate environment. And, if there were moments of misunderstanding between the sovereign and the head of the cabinet, then they are inevitable in any hard and difficult work. The supposedly planned resignation of Stolypin did not mean a rejection of his reforms.

The myth of Rasputin's omnipotence

Tales about the last sovereign cannot do without constant stories about the “dirty peasant” Rasputin, who enslaved the “weak-willed king”. Now, after many objective investigations of the “Rasputin legend”, among which A. N. Bokhanov’s “The Truth about Grigory Rasputin” stands out as fundamental, it is clear that the influence of the Siberian elder on the emperor was negligible. And the fact that the sovereign "did not remove Rasputin from the throne"? How could he remove it? From the bed of a sick son, whom Rasputin saved, when all the doctors had already abandoned Tsarevich Alexei Nikolayevich? Let everyone think for himself: is he ready to sacrifice the life of a child for the sake of stopping public gossip and hysterical newspaper chatter?

The myth of the fault of the sovereign in the "wrong conduct" of the First World War

Sovereign Emperor Nicholas II. Photo by R. Golike and A. Vilborg. 1913

Emperor Nicholas II is also reproached for not preparing Russia for the First World War. He most vividly wrote about the efforts of the sovereign to prepare the Russian army for a possible war and about the sabotage of his efforts by the "educated society" public figure I. L. Solonevich: “The 'Thought of People's Wrath', as well as its subsequent reincarnation, rejects military credits: we are democrats and we don't want the military. Nicholas II arming the army by violating the spirit of the Fundamental Laws: in accordance with Article 86. This article provides for the government's right, in exceptional cases and during parliamentary recesses, to pass provisional laws even without parliament, so that they would be introduced retroactively at the very first parliamentary session. The Duma was dissolved (holidays), loans for machine guns went through even without the Duma. And when the session began, nothing could be done.”

And again, unlike ministers or military leaders (like Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich), the sovereign did not want war, he tried to delay it with all his might, knowing about the insufficient preparedness of the Russian army. For example, he directly spoke about this to the Russian ambassador to Bulgaria, Neklyudov: “Now, Neklyudov, listen to me carefully. Never for a moment forget the fact that we cannot fight. I don't want war. I have made it my absolute rule to do everything to preserve for my people all the advantages of a peaceful life. At this moment in history, anything that could lead to war must be avoided. There is no doubt that we cannot go to war - at least not for the next five or six years - until 1917. Although, if the vital interests and honor of Russia are at stake, we can, if it is absolutely necessary, accept the challenge, but not before 1915. But remember - not one minute earlier, no matter what the circumstances or reasons, and no matter what position we are in.

Of course, much in the First World War did not go as planned by its participants. But why should the sovereign be blamed for these troubles and surprises, who at the beginning of it was not even the commander-in-chief? Could he personally prevent the "Samsonian catastrophe"? Or the breakthrough of the German cruisers "Goeben" and "Breslau" into the Black Sea, after which the plans for coordinating the actions of the allies in the Entente went to waste?

When the will of the emperor could improve the situation, the sovereign did not hesitate, despite the objections of ministers and advisers. In 1915, the threat of such a complete defeat hung over the Russian army that its Commander-in-Chief - Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich - in the truest sense of the word, sobbed from despair. It was then that Nicholas II took the most decisive step - not only stood at the head of the Russian army, but also stopped the retreat, which threatened to turn into a stampede.

The sovereign did not consider himself a great commander, he knew how to listen to the opinion of military advisers and choose the best solutions for the Russian troops. According to his instructions, the work of the rear was established, according to his instructions, a new and even latest technology(like Sikorsky bombers or Fedorov assault rifles). And if in 1914 the Russian military industry produced 104,900 shells, then in 1916 - 30,974,678! So much military equipment was prepared that it was enough for five years civil war, and into service with the Red Army in the first half of the twenties.

In 1917, Russia, under the military leadership of its emperor, was ready for victory. Many wrote about this, even W. Churchill, who was always skeptical and cautious about Russia: “Fate has not been so cruel to any country as to Russia. Her ship sank when the harbor was in sight. She had already weathered the storm when everything collapsed. All the sacrifices have already been made, all the work is done. Despair and treason seized power when the task was already completed. The long retreats are over; shell hunger is defeated; weapons flowed in a wide stream; a stronger, more numerous, better equipped army guarded a vast front; rear assembly points were crowded with people... In the government of states, when great events are taking place, the leader of the nation, whoever he may be, is condemned for failures and glorified for successes. It's not about who did the work, who drew up the plan of struggle; censure or praise for the outcome prevails on him on whom the authority of supreme responsibility. Why deny Nicholas II this ordeal?.. His efforts are downplayed; His actions are condemned; His memory is being denigrated... Stop and say: who else turned out to be suitable? There was no shortage of talented and courageous people, ambitious and proud in spirit, brave and powerful people. But no one has been able to answer those few simple questions on which the life and glory of Russia depended. Holding the victory already in her hands, she fell to the ground alive, like Herod of old, devoured by worms.

At the beginning of 1917, the sovereign really failed to cope with the combined conspiracy of the top of the military and the leaders of the opposition political forces.

And who could? It was beyond human strength.

The myth of voluntary renunciation

And yet, the main thing that even many monarchists accuse Nicholas II of is precisely renunciation, “moral desertion”, “flight from office”. In the fact that, according to the poet A. A. Blok, he "renounced, as if he had surrendered the squadron."

Now, again, after the meticulous work of modern researchers, it becomes clear that there was no voluntary renunciation of the throne. Instead, a real coup d'état took place. Or, as the historian and publicist M. V. Nazarov aptly noted, it was not a “renunciation”, but a “rejection” that took place.

Even in the darkest Soviet time they did not deny that the events of February 23 - March 2, 1917 at the Tsarist Headquarters and at the headquarters of the commander of the Northern Front were an apex coup, "fortunately", coinciding with the beginning of the "February bourgeois revolution", started (of course!) by the forces of the St. Petersburg proletariat .

With the riots fanned by the Bolshevik underground in St. Petersburg, everything is now clear. The conspirators only took advantage of this circumstance, unreasonably exaggerating its significance, in order to lure the sovereign out of Headquarters, depriving him of contact with any faithful parts and the government. And when the tsar’s train with great difficulty reached Pskov, where the headquarters of General N.V. Ruzsky, the commander of the Northern Front and one of the active conspirators, was located, the emperor was completely blocked and deprived of communication with the outside world.

In fact, General Ruzsky arrested the royal train and the emperor himself. And severe psychological pressure on the sovereign began. Nicholas II was begged to give up power, which he never aspired to. Moreover, not only the Duma deputies Guchkov and Shulgin did this, but also the commanders of all (!) Fronts and almost all fleets (with the exception of Admiral A. V. Kolchak). The emperor was told that his decisive step would be able to prevent confusion, bloodshed, that this would immediately stop the Petersburg unrest ...

Now we know very well that the sovereign was basely deceived. What could he think then? At the forgotten Dno station or on the sidings in Pskov, cut off from the rest of Russia? Did you think it better for a Christian to humbly yield to royal power rather than shed the blood of his subjects?

But even under pressure from the conspirators, the emperor did not dare to go against the law and conscience. The manifesto he compiled clearly did not suit the envoys of the State Duma. The document, which was eventually made public as the text of the renunciation, raises doubts among a number of historians. Its original has not been preserved, in the Russian state archive there is only a copy of it. There are reasonable assumptions that the sovereign's signature was copied from the order that Nicholas II assumed the supreme command in 1915. The signature of the Minister of the Court, Count V. B. Fredericks, was also forged, allegedly confirming the abdication. Which, by the way, the count himself clearly spoke about later, on June 2, 1917, during interrogation: “But in order for me to write such a thing, I can swear that I would not have done it.”

And already in St. Petersburg, the deceived and confused Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich did what, in principle, he had no right to do - he transferred power to the Provisional Government. As AI Solzhenitsyn noted: “The end of the monarchy was the abdication of Mikhail. He is worse than abdicating: he blocked the way for all other possible heirs to the throne, he transferred power to an amorphous oligarchy. It was his abdication that turned the change of monarch into a revolution."

Usually, after statements about the illegal overthrow of the sovereign from the throne, both in scientific discussions and on the Web, shouts immediately begin: “Why didn’t Tsar Nicholas protest later? Why didn't he denounce the conspirators? Why didn’t he raise loyal troops and lead them against the rebels?

That is - why did not start a civil war?

Yes, because the sovereign did not want her. Because he hoped that by his departure he would calm down a new turmoil, believing that the whole point was the possible hostility of society towards him personally. After all, he, too, could not help but succumb to the hypnosis of anti-state, anti-monarchist hatred that Russia had been subjected to for years. As A. I. Solzhenitsyn rightly wrote about the “liberal-radical Field” that engulfed the empire: “For many years (decades) this Field flowed unhindered, its lines of force thickened - and penetrated and subjugated all the brains in the country, at least somewhat touched enlightenment, even the beginnings of it. It almost completely owned the intelligentsia. More rare, but his lines of force were pierced by state and official circles, and the military, and even the priesthood, the episcopate (the whole Church as a whole is already ... powerless against this Field), and even those who most fought against the Field: the most right-wing circles and the throne itself.

And did these troops loyal to the emperor really exist? After all, even the Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich on March 1, 1917 (that is, before the formal abdication of the sovereign) transferred the Guards crew subordinate to him to the jurisdiction of the Duma conspirators and appealed to other military units "to join the new government"!

The attempt of Sovereign Nikolai Alexandrovich to prevent bloodshed with the help of renunciation of power, with the help of voluntary self-sacrifice, stumbled upon the evil will of tens of thousands of those who did not want the pacification and victory of Russia, but blood, madness and the creation of a "paradise on earth" for the "new man", free from faith and conscience.

And for such “guardians of humanity”, even a defeated Christian sovereign was like a sharp knife in the throat. It was unbearable, impossible.

They couldn't help but kill him.

The myth that the execution of the royal family was the arbitrariness of the Ural Regional Council

Emperor Nicholas II and Tsarevich Alexei in exile. Tobolsk, 1917-1918

The more or less vegetarian, toothless early Provisional Government limited itself to the arrest of the emperor and his family; the socialist clique of Kerensky succeeded in exiling the sovereign, his wife and children to Tobolsk. And for whole months, until the very Bolshevik coup, one can see how the worthy, purely Christian behavior of the emperor in exile and the malicious fuss of politicians contrast with each other. new Russia”, who sought “to begin with” to bring the sovereign into “political non-existence”.

And then an openly God-fighting Bolshevik gang came to power, which decided to turn this non-existence from “political” into “physical”. Indeed, back in April 1917, Lenin declared: “We consider Wilhelm II to be the same crowned robber, worthy of execution, like Nicholas II.”

Only one thing is not clear - why did they hesitate? Why didn't they try to destroy Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich immediately after the October Revolution?

Probably because they were afraid of popular indignation, they were afraid of a public reaction under their still fragile power. Apparently, the unpredictable behavior of the “abroad” was also frightening. In any case, the British Ambassador D. Buchanan warned the Provisional Government: "Any insult inflicted on the Emperor and His Family will destroy the sympathy caused by March and the course of the revolution, and will humiliate the new government in the eyes of the world." True, in the end it turned out that these were only “words, words, nothing but words.”

And yet there is a feeling that, in addition to rational motives, there was some inexplicable, almost mystical fear of what the fanatics planned to commit.

Indeed, for some reason, years after the Yekaterinburg murder, rumors spread that only one sovereign was shot. Then they announced (even at a completely official level) that the killers of the king were severely condemned for abuse of power. And later, almost all Soviet period, the version about the “arbitrariness of the Yekaterinburg Soviet”, allegedly frightened by the white units approaching the city, was officially adopted. They say that the sovereign was not released and did not become the "banner of the counter-revolution", and he had to be destroyed. The fog of fornication hid the secret, and the essence of the secret was a planned and clearly conceived savage murder.

Its exact details and background have not been clarified so far, the testimony of eyewitnesses miraculously are confused, and even the discovered remains of the Royal Martyrs still raise doubts about their authenticity.

Now only a few unambiguous facts are clear.

On April 30, 1918, Sovereign Nikolai Alexandrovich, his wife Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and their daughter Maria were taken under escort from Tobolsk, where they had been in exile since August 1917, to Yekaterinburg. They were taken into custody in former home engineer N. N. Ipatiev, located on the corner of Voznesensky Prospekt. The remaining children of the emperor and empress - daughters Olga, Tatyana, Anastasia and son Alexei were reunited with their parents only on May 23.

Was this an initiative of the Yekaterinburg Soviet, not coordinated with the Central Committee? Hardly. Judging by indirect data, in early July 1918, the top leadership of the Bolshevik Party (primarily Lenin and Sverdlov) decided to "liquidate the royal family."

For example, Trotsky wrote about this in his memoirs:

“My next visit to Moscow fell after the fall of Yekaterinburg. In a conversation with Sverdlov, I asked in passing:

Yes, but where is the king?

It's over, - he answered, - shot.

- Where is the family?

And his family is with him.

- All? I asked, apparently with a hint of surprise.

“That's it,” Sverdlov answered, “but what?

He was waiting for my reaction. I didn't answer.

And who decided? I asked.

- We decided here. Ilyich believed that it was impossible to leave us a living banner for them, especially in the current difficult conditions.

(L.D. Trotsky. Diaries and letters. M .: Hermitage, 1994. P. 120. (Entry dated April 9, 1935); Lev Trotsky. Diaries and letters. Edited by Yuri Felshtinsky. USA, 1986 , p.101.)

At midnight on July 17, 1918, the emperor, his wife, children and servants were awakened, taken to the basement and brutally murdered. Here in the fact that they were killed brutally and cruelly, in an amazing way, all the testimonies of eyewitnesses, which differ so much in the rest, coincide.

The bodies were secretly taken outside Yekaterinburg and somehow tried to destroy them. Everything that remained after the desecration of the bodies was buried just as discreetly.

Yekaterinburg victims had a presentiment of their fate, and not without reason Grand Duchess Tatyana Nikolaevna, while imprisoned in Yekaterinburg, crossed out the lines in one of the books: “Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ went to their death, as if on a holiday, facing inevitable death, retaining the same wondrous peace of mind that did not leave them for a minute. They walked calmly towards death because they hoped to enter into a different, spiritual life, opening up for a person beyond the grave.

P.S. Sometimes they notice that "here, de Tsar Nicholas II atoned for all his sins before Russia with his death." In my opinion, this statement manifests some kind of blasphemous, immoral trick. public consciousness. All the victims of the Yekaterinburg Golgotha were "guilty" only of stubborn confession of the faith of Christ until their very death and fell a martyr's death.

And the first of them was the sovereign-passion-bearer Nikolai Alexandrovich.

Gleb Eliseev

Exactly 100 years ago, on the night of March 2 to 3, according to the old style, in a train carriage at the Pskov railway station, Emperor Nicholas II, in the presence of the Minister of the Court and two deputies of the State Duma, signs a document in which he abdicates the throne. Thus, in an instant, the monarchy fell in Russia and the three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty ended.

In the case of the abdication of Nicholas II, even now, 100 years later, there are many white spots. Scientists are still arguing: did the emperor really abdicate of his own free will, or was he forced? For a long time, the main reason for doubt was the act of renunciation - a simple sheet of A4 format, carelessly designed and signed in pencil. In addition, in 1917 this paper disappeared, and was found only in 1929.

What did the emperor think and feel when he signed the abdication for himself and for his son? Events of the last days Russian Empire recreated in the film on the basis of authentic documents of that era - letters, telegrams, as well as diaries of Emperor Nicholas II. It follows from the diaries that Nicholas II was sure that after the abdication, their family would be left alone. He could not foresee that he was signing the death warrant for himself, his wife, daughters and beloved son. Less than a year and a half after the February events, on the night of July 16-17, 1918, royal family and four of their close associates were shot in the basement of the Ipatiev house in Yekaterinburg.

The film features:

Sergey Mironenko - scientific director of GARF

Sergei Firsov - historian, biographer of Nicholas II

Fyodor Gayda - historian

Mikhail Shaposhnikov - Director of the Museum of the Silver Age

Kirill Solovyov - historian

Olga Barkovets - curator of the exhibition "Alexander Palace in Tsarskoye Selo and the Romanovs"

Larisa Bardovskaya - Chief Curator of the Tsarskoe Selo State Museum-Reserve

Georgy Mitrofanov - archpriest

Mikhail Degtyarev - Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation

Leading: Valdis Pelsh

Directed by: Ludmila Snigireva, Tatyana Dmitrakova