House of Romanov

The House of Romanov (also transliterated Romanoff; Romanovy) was the reigning imperial house of Russia from 1613 to 1917. They achieved prominence after the Tsarina, Anastasia Romanovna, was married to the First Tsar of Russia, Ivan the Terrible. Tsar Nicholas II and his immediate family were executed in 1918, but there are still living descendants. The house became boyars (the highest rank in Russian nobility) of the Grand Duchy of Moscow and later of the Tsardom of Russia under the reigning Rurik dynasty, which became extinct upon the death of Tsar Feodor I in 1598. The Time of Troubles, caused by the resulting succession crisis, saw several pretenders and impostors (False Dmitris) fight for the crown during the Polish–Muscovite War of 1605–1618. On 21 February 1613, a Zemsky Sobor elected Michael Romanov as Tsar of Russia, establishing the Romanovs as Russia's second reigning dynasty. Michael's grandson Peter I, who established the Russian Empire in 1721, transformed the country into a great power through a series of wars and reforms. The direct male line of the Romanovs ended when Empress Elizabeth of Russia died childless in 1762. As a result, her nephew Peter III, an agnatic member of the House of Holstein-Gottorp (a cadet branch of the German House of Oldenburg that reigned in Denmark), ascended to the throne and adopted his Romanov mother’s house name. Officially known as members of the House of Romanov, descendants after Elizabeth are sometimes referred to as "Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov". The abdication of Emperor Nicholas II on as a result of the February Revolution ended 304 years of Romanov rule and led to the establishing of the Russian Republic under the Russian Provisional Government in the lead-up to the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. In 1918, Bolshevik officials executed the ex-Emperor and his family. Of the House of Romanov's 65 members, 47 survivors went into exile abroad. In 1924, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, the senior surviving male-line descendant of Alexander II of Russia by primogeniture, claimed the headship of the defunct Imperial House of Russia.

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Related concepts (93)

House of Romanov

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire, also known as Imperial Russia, was the final period of the Russian monarchy from its proclamation in November 1721, until its dissolution in late 1917. It consisted of most of northern Eurasia. The Empire succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighbouring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Qajar Iran, the Ottoman Empire, and Qing China.

Nicholas II of Russia

Nicholas II (Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; 1868 - 17 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. During his reign, Nicholas gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin. He advocated modernization based on foreign loans and close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles.