The Romanovs

To understand Russia’s Romanov dynasty, you must see that government was never just an institution—it was a performance of personal power. In The Romanovs, Simon Sebag Montefiore argues that autocracy in Russia was fundamentally personal: every decision, reform, war, or scandal ultimately traced back to the character of a single ruler and their intimate entourage. The book follows three centuries of Romanovs from the chaos of the Time of Troubles to the cataclysm of 1917, showing how private lives and public policy were inseparable.

Montefiore’s central thesis is that tsarist autocracy was a system of personal rule masquerading as divine order. The tsar was not a detached bureaucrat but a mortal king on a sacred stage. Ritual, bloodline, and charisma functioned as political machinery. The tsar’s household—wives, favourites, priests, guards—was the real cabinet. Every policy gesture was filtered through this theatre of intimacy and fear.

The Personal State

From Michael I’s hesitant beginnings to Nicholas II’s tragic finale, power in Russia flowed through personal connections, not institutions. The system depended on loyalty, fear, and ritual obedience. Where Western Europe developed bureaucracies and constitutions, Russia relied on personal charisma and sacred legitimacy. The ruler’s moods carried the force of law, and their circle—secretaries, lovers, prophets—became the state apparatus.

Montefiore emphasises the Leninist question kto kogo? (“who controls whom?”). Each court relationship embodied a duel between dependence and betrayal: tsar versus favourite, clergy versus crown, army versus ruler. This tension defines Russia’s political pattern—every relationship a contest for control beneath a façade of divine unity.

Dynasty Born from Chaos

The dynasty emerged from the trauma of the Time of Troubles, when impostors, Poles, and famine nearly destroyed the Russian state. The Assembly’s election of the pliant teenager Michael Romanov in 1613 was a desperate act of repair. This founding compromise—between a weak monarch and powerful boyars—set the pattern for the next 300 years: balance survival against control. The Romanovs learned that to rule Russia you must appear sacred but stay ruthless, depend on nobles yet intimidate them, and delegate power carefully to family and favourites.

Power, Faith, and Fear

Each subsequent tsar improvised within this pattern. The Church acted as both ally and rival. Reforms—from Patriarch Nikon’s liturgical changes to Peter the Great’s bureaucratic overhaul—triggered fierce schisms because they touched sacred identity. The autocracy’s genius lay in instrumentalizing faith, using ritual to justify coercion while suppressing dissent. When Peter westernized Russia, he retained the medieval logic of rule-by-fear: modernization enforced by the knout, reform by decree, and spectacle as discipline.

This formula explains the cycle of fragments—reform, repression, rebellion—that repeats through the centuries. Catherine the Great’s coup, Paul’s assassination, Alexander II’s reforms, and Nicholas II’s downfall all follow the same axis: a single ruler attempting to manage modernization through personal networks until those networks implode.

Themes that Bind the Narrative

• Power is personal and precarious—six of twelve eighteenth-century sovereigns die by violence.
• Reform springs from crisis, not conviction: emancipation follows defeat, enlightenment follows humiliation.
• Favoritism is structural, not incidental: courtiers from Menshikov to Potemkin to Rasputin act as extensions of the monarch’s will.
• Public ritual conceals private weakness: coronations, brideshows, and triumphal parades are stages for legitimacy.

Why It Matters

By the book’s end, you grasp that the Romanov system was self-consuming. Its strengths—sacral monarchy, command over life and death, unity of ruler and God—became its weakness in a modern age of parties, nationalism, and war. Montefiore’s narrative traces this from the frozen ceremonies of Muscovy to the gunfire of Ekaterinburg. Each generation reenacted the same tragic rhythm: charisma transforms into cruelty, reform into repression, loyalty into assassination. What began as sacred personal rule ends as a cautionary epic on the costs of political absolutism.

You witness across centuries how Russian power functions like a courtly exchange rather than a bureaucracy. Influence depends on closeness to the throne—physical, emotional, or spiritual. Every favorite, lover, and bodyguard redirects the machinery of the state. From Patriarch Filaret ruling for Michael I to Rasputin whispering into Alexandra’s ear, proximity replaces procedure.

Favorites as Engines of Government

Montefiore details the careers of men like Menshikov under Peter the Great or Potemkin under Catherine II to show how intimacy becomes policy. Menshikov rises from pie-seller to prince; Potemkin becomes governor of New Russia and architect of Crimea’s colonization. These men don’t merely flatter—they administrate, command, and construct empire. Yet favoritism always breeds envy and collapse; when the monarch dies, the favorite’s fortunes vanish.

(Note: This mirrors patterns in early modern Europe—Louis XIV’s mistresses and Ottoman viziers—but the Russian version is more absolute because there are no institutional curbs.)

Marriage, Family, and Ritualized Selection

Royal marriages serve political engineering. The brideshow—a uniquely Muscovite ceremony where hundreds of noble daughters compete to be tsarina—reveals how court politics intrudes into intimacy. Michael I’s youthful love for Maria Khlopova destroyed by maternal intrigue, or the way Ivan the Terrible’s choice of Anastasia Romanovna links the dynasty to the Romanov line, shows that even affection was a political act. Through these rituals, families bound themselves to the crown—and the crown secured loyalty through kinship.

Faith and Mysticism as Power Routes

Spiritual charisma could be as valuable as bloodline or battlefield skill. Patriarch Nikon’s dispute with Tsar Alexei, or later Rasputin’s role as healer for the haemophiliac heir, shows the weight of mysticism in political legitimacy. The tsar’s sacred role meant prophets, ascetics, and fools could shape policy. When reform or crisis struck, such figures offered divine sanction for state decisions.

Understand that this network politics—family, faith, favourites—formed the living structure of autocracy. Each tsar was a spider at the web’s centre, feeding on loyalty and fear. When that web tore, as under Paul I or Nicholas II, the throne itself disintegrated.

In the Romanov world, reform is never a peaceful process. Change is imposed through struggle: religious purity becomes political revolution; modernization resembles coercion. From Patriarch Nikon to Peter the Great to Alexander II, reformers appear as both saviours and tyrants, reshaping Russia while strengthening autocracy.

Religious Schism and Control

Tsar Alexei’s partnership with Patriarch Nikon in the 17th century epitomizes the collision between ritual and authority. Nikon’s effort to align Russian Orthodoxy with Greek practice splits the faithful: the Old Believers burn, mutilate, or flee. The state responds with brutality, enforcing orthodoxy through terror while justifying conquest as divine mission (the Pereyaslav treaty with Cossack Ukraine as an extension of Orthodoxy into empire). This pattern—holy intent breeding repression—anticipates later political schisms.

Peter the Great’s Ferocious Modernity

Peter embodies the fusion of enlightenment and savagery. He reforms army, navy, and civil rank through Western methods but enforces them with medieval violence. You see him dissect corpses, draft clerks into shipyards, torture conspirators, and build St Petersburg on forced labour. He imports science and bureaucracy, yet his state is no less despotic. His Table of Ranks ties status to service—a meritocracy that still feeds hierarchy. Montefiore shows reform as authoritarian modernization: Western form, Russian substance.

The Modernizers’ Paradox

Alexander II’s 1861 emancipation of the serfs continues this cycle. It frees twenty-two million peasants but binds them in debt to old landlords. His reforms (zemstvo, judiciary, limited local elections) rejuvenate governance yet preserve autocracy. The tsar broadens participation only to reinforce control. Reform is survival strategy—'abolish from above before it explodes from below.' Each improvement destabilizes the court’s traditional allies and invites new opposition.

Montefiore’s message is clear: reform in Russia succeeds only when it strengthens authoritarian order. The Romanovs’ tragedy is that modernization, meant to save them, ultimately erodes their ideological foundation.

Few monarchs dramatize the double-edged nature of power like Catherine II. Her reign fuses Enlightenment rhetoric with realpolitik, personal passion with imperial grandeur. You follow her transformation from usurper to ruler, from coup conspirator to empress of the Black Sea empire.

The Making of an Autocrat

Catherine seizes the throne in 1762 through a daring coup led by the Orlov brothers and loyal Guards. Montefiore paints the scene as theatre: a handful of soldiers expanding into an army of acclaim. Once crowned, she stabilizes power through rewards and reorganized legitimacy—offering estates, titles, and calculated mercy. Her enlightened image abroad (the “Great Instruction” and her philosophical correspondence) masks a shrewd calculus of consolidating autocracy at home.

Intimacy as Governance

Catherine’s favourites function as her political cabinet. Grigory Orlov wins her throne; Grigory Potemkin wins her empire. Their relationship fuses romance and administration—Potemkin founds Kherson, Ekaterinoslav, and Sebastopol, mastermining the annexation of Crimea. This 'family state' transforms affection into executive capacity. The court itself becomes a web of marriages, nieces, and protégés distributing patronage across the empire.

Wars and Vision

Catherine turns military victories into ideology. The Black Sea campaigns—Orlov’s fireships at Chesme, Rumiantsev’s land victories—culminate in the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardzhi (1774), securing Russia’s access to the sea and its claim as protector of Orthodox Christians. Potemkin’s “Greek Project” envisions a revived Byzantine sphere under Russian leadership. The myth of Westernizing empire merges with Orthodox imperial destiny.

The Limits of Enlightened Despotism

Yet her enlightened facade hides enduring contradictions: serfdom intensifies; Pugachev’s rebellion exposes peasant despair; court favouritism substitutes for institutional reform. Catherine perfects the mixture of glamour, intelligence, and coercion that defines the Romanov brand. Her empire expands magnificently—but remains politically medieval beneath its marble palaces.

(Parenthetical note: Montefiore positions Catherine alongside Frederick the Great and Joseph II as enlightened despots, but her reign’s sensual and imperial power makes her uniquely Russian.)

From the late 18th century through the 19th, the dynasty oscillates between reform and reaction. Behind every assassination and coup—Paul I throttled in his bedroom, Alexander II torn apart by bombs, Nicholas II shot in a cellar—lies the same fear: modernization threatens the sovereign’s sacred monopoly of authority. This fear defines the empire’s evolution.

After Catherine: Murder and Reaction

Paul I’s eccentric militarism alienates his court and provokes regicide. His death hands rule to Alexander I, who swings between liberal intention and divine autocracy. The Napoleonic wars transform him from hesitant reformer to messianic conqueror—Russia marches to Paris yet returns spiritually wounded. His Holy Alliance ideal morphs into Nicholas I’s police state, pledging 'Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality' as creed.

Revolutionary Seeds

The Decembrists’ 1825 revolt proves that victory abroad breeds dissent at home. Nicholas I answers with surveillance—the Third Section—and freezes society into a moral-political orthodoxy. Montefiore depicts Nicholas not as monster but as tragic perfectionist: disciplined, humourless, and trapped by the logic of control. His overcentralized empire cracks under its own rigidity in the Crimean War, revealing a system unable to adapt to industrial modernity.

Reforms with Fatal Consequences

Alexander II’s Great Reforms attempt resurrection: emancipation, judiciary reform, local self-government. But modernity agitates the radicals it hopes to pacify. Terrorists like Karakozov and the People’s Will use bombs as argument, assassinating the 'Tsar Liberator' in 1881. Alexander III responds with iron-fisted Russification; his son Nicholas II inherits a militarized autocracy and a restless nation. From now on, fear replaces legitimacy as the regime’s sustaining principle.

For Montefiore, this cycle—the tsar reforms to survive, grows frightened, and retreats into repression—is Russia’s tragic loop. The more the monarchy modernizes, the more it undermines its own divine rationale.

The late Romanovs confront industrialization as both necessity and threat. Sergei Witte’s techno-bureaucratic revolution—railways, banking, foreign credit—turns the empire into a modern power, but also breeds the social forces that will destroy it. You see the paradox of progress: modernization without democratization.

Witte and the Trans‑Siberian Moment

Witte harnesses state credit to build industry and the Trans‑Siberian Railway, linking Baltic to Pacific. The empire becomes a continental machine of steel, oil, and coal. Yet this achievement depends on peasant taxes and foreign loans, creating new dependencies. Industrial workers, newly urban and literate, evolve into a political class beyond the autocracy’s comprehension.

Diplomacy and the Balkan Trap

Internationally, Russia’s ambitions reorient south and east: wars with the Ottomans (1877–78), rivalry with Britain, and alliance shifts toward France and later Britain. The Balkan nationalisms that drew Russia into Bedlam under Alexander II resurface through 1908’s Bosnian annexation and Serbia’s unrest. By 1914, the alliance web and imperial honour make disengagement impossible. The empire stands industrially sophisticated but politically primitive.

1905: Shock and Half-Reform

The 1905 revolution—sparked by war defeat and 'Bloody Sunday'—forces Nicholas II to sign the October Manifesto and create the Duma, a parliament meant to divide opposition. The tsar immediately undermines it, reasserting prerogative. Stolypin later revives state order through a mix of agrarian reform and hanging nooses, coining the phrase 'Stolypin’s necktie.' Economic progress persists, but legitimacy dissolves. Russia gains railways and factories but loses faith in its rulers.

This is the hinge between empire and revolution: a modern economy caged within a medieval political culture. Montefiore calls it a time-bomb of prosperity without participation.

The First World War transforms strain into catastrophe. Nicholas II’s well‑meant decision to take personal command in 1915 converts a political crisis into a dynastic suicide. With the tsar at the front and the empress governed by mysticism, Russia’s core collapses from within.

Military Failure and the Loss of Authority

At Stavka, the imperial headquarters, command disintegrates: incompetent generals, shell shortages, and mass retreats destroy confidence. The Grand Duke Nikolasha becomes a symbol of courage but not competence; Nicholas’s own presence at Mogilev turns every defeat personal. The home front, ruled by Alexandra and Rasputin’s coterie, teems with corruption and scandal. Ministers rise and fall under the starets’s blessing; treason rumors spread faster than orders.

Rasputin’s Murder and Political Vacuum

The aristocracy finally revolts from within. In December 1916, Prince Yusupov, Grand Duke Dmitri, and Purishkevich murder Rasputin, imagining they have saved the monarchy. They have instead removed its scapegoat. Nicholas refuses meaningful reform; Alexandra defends her 'Friend.' Within months revolution erupts. The February uprising of 1917—sparked by food riots and mutinous soldiers—pushes generals to demand abdication. Nicholas signs away the throne at Pskov on 2 March, transferring power to a Provisional Government that cannot inherit his authority.

From Abdication to Execution

The Romanovs become prisoners of revolution. Transferred from Tsarskoe Selo to Tobolsk and finally to Ekaterinburg, they are executed by Bolshevik guards in July 1918—a massacre concealed for decades. Montefiore treats this not as inevitable fate but as culmination of a pattern: when rule is purely personal, the fall is purely annihilating. The murder of the last tsar extinguishes not only a family but a political theology stretching back to 1613.

You finish this story confronted by continuity within collapse. The Romanovs ruled by personality, mystique, and spectacle. They fell the same way: alone, theatrical, and undone by their own traditions of secrecy and violence.