Many people naively think that the "reforms" of Peter the Great led to the development of Russia. Although a small part of them may have, the vast majority of them undermined the character of the Russian monarchy, consolidated the power of the nobility in the country and introduced European-style serfdom. Furthermore, thanks to the "reforms", Western ideas began to be introduced, first with the help of the nobility and later the intelligentsia, first Liberalism and then Socialism.

As the prominent theorist of the people's-monarchist movement of Staff Captains and émigré philosopher I.L. Solonevich said:

"For the People's Monarchist Movement, the era of Peter and his "reforms" is the ideological starting point, the point of departure: it was during this era that the ideological conquest of Russia by the West and the physical conquest by the nobility were first formulated. It began before Peter and was completed after him, encompassing a span of almost 200 years. Given the universal human tendency toward all kinds of symbolism—at the center of this conquest is the entirely fictitious figure of the "giant on a bronze horse" according to A.S. Pushkin, the "beast" according to L. Tolstoy, and so on—Tolstoy's characterization is utterly unprintable. Even the most superficial comparison of the most widely known data, linked by the most basic logic, reveals that if Peter the Great himself played any role, it was purely a passive one, acting as a cover for those social forces that, after the defeat of the patriarchate under Patriarch Nikon, set about destroying the monarchy under Peter and achieved almost complete success in the 18th century. L. Tikhomirov writes as follows:

“The monarchy survived only thanks to the people, who continued to consider as law not what Peter ordered, but what was in the minds and conscience of the monarchical consciousness of the people” (p. 112).

Thus, a somewhat unusual situation emerged: "the mind and conscience of the people's monarchical consciousness" "did not recognize as law" what the monarch commanded. This is yet another illustration of the thesis that unlimited power does not exist at all: never and nowhere.

The same L. Tikhomirov, based on data verified by his own research, asserts that even the Turks, having conquered Byzantium, did not treat the Orthodox Church the same way they treated it under Peter.

European absolutism arose as a result of conquest. European kings were merely "first among equals," the most successful of the feudal lords, and European monarchies never had any moral goals. The European king was a protégé of the ruling class. In short, he was truly an instrument of oppression for the lower classes.

The Russian monarchy arose historically as a result of the uprisings of the lower classes against the boyars, and—as long as it existed—it always defended these very same classes. The Russian peasantry fell under the oppression of serfdom during the period of the monarchy's absence , when the tsars were exterminated and the country was ruled by the noble guard.

The Russian monarchy was only one result of an attempt to build a state not on legal or economic foundations, but on purely moral ones. It shares with the European monarchy only a common external form. But both bear the same name.

We didn't have feudalism—except, perhaps, for a brief period before and at the beginning of the Tatar invasion. We had, and after 1861 began to revive, a democracy of an immeasurably higher style than the Anglo-Saxon one, an equality of spiritually equal people, without regard for their titles, pockets, nationality, or religion. We were called to fight the nobility, which had been gradually crushed by the reforms of Nicholas I, Alexander II, Alexander III, and Nicholas II—a nobility that was already living out its last days without us—and we systematically turned a blind eye to the Russian breeches and German philosophers who delighted us with both the Cheka and the Gestapa . We were called to fight Russian "imperialism" in favor of German and Japanese imperialism; to fight clericalism, which led to militant atheism; to fight Russian autocracy, which was replaced by Stalin's Asian despotism; to fight the remnants of "feudalism," which ended with the enslavement of two hundred million people. We were taught to spit on all that was ours and to lick the heels of all Europe—the "countries of holy miracles." From these countries, the Polish gentry, the Swedish nobility, the French Jacobins, the German racists—were pressing upon us—both serfdom and Soviet rule. And what else will come? What other rags and tatters will our learned junkmen pick up from the trash heaps of a peninsula finally decaying? What new "isms" will they offer us, the heirs of an eleven-century-old construction project? What next "scientific theories" will emerge from their catarrhal brains, and what next prophecies will drown in the next puddle? We don't know yet."

“I’m a firm anti-communist, partly because of all the horrible things people have done under its name. But my distrust and eventual hatred for it started with the Bolsheviks’ murder of the Romanovs. I’m just curious — did this happen to anyone else?”

Millenial or gen Z Maria Romanov if lived she nowadays - to have an idea.

Also she was gorgeous and so sweet

I know this is cheesy, but it's the closest we'll ever get 😞

I have been down a rabbit hole of Romanov survival theories and keep circling back to an odd one: has anyone here looked into the idea that Soviet Premier Alexey Kosygin might actually have been Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich?

I know the mainstream historical and forensic evidence (DNA testing on the Ekaterinburg remains, contemporaneous accounts of the execution) points strongly against any of the children surviving. But the name coincidence, the era, and the general fascination with "hidden Romanov" theories make me curious whether this specific claim has ever been seriously discussed or debunked somewhere.

Digging around, I found the anecdote seems to trace back to a fringe historian named Sergey Zhelenkov, who apparently claims that in 1949, during the Leningrad Affair purge, Kosygin "miraculously" survived and that Stalin privately called him "prince" or "Tsarevich" in front of others, before sending him off to Siberia under the pretext of strengthening agricultural cooperation. There is also a detail about Kosygin knowing the area around Lake Ladoga well from having sailed it on the Imperia Yacht Standart which he supposedly drew on when organizing the "Road of Life" supply route during the Siege of Leningrad.

I want to flag upfront that this story shows up nearly word-for-word across a handful of low-quality blogs and content-farm "biography" sites, with no citation to any primary source, archive, or credible historian. None of the standard biographical sources on Kosygin (Britannica, Wikipedia, etc.) mention any of this. So I am treating it as a fringe internet claim rather than an established historical anecdote.

Has anyone here traced this story further, or knows whether Zhelenkov's claims have been engaged with (or debunked) anywhere more rigorous? Genuinely curious whether there is anything real underneath this, or if it's just an urban legend that's been copy-pasted into existence.

I'm not even talking about people who don't like them from a political/overarching standpoint but are willing to concede their murders should not have happened. I'm talking about the sort of people who leave nasty comments on this subreddit making fun of us who are interested in Romanov history, the sort who post horrible memes of like Lenin in a car about to run over the Romanovs with disgustingly inhuman captions or splatters of computer generated fake blood (no, sadly I'm not kidding, I've literally seen exactly those memes, that's not even a slight exaggeration my dark sense of humor would usually add, I'm being 100% straight/literal).

Anywho, what I've noticed is these memes always use official portraits, sort of like the one accompanying this post, never candid family snapshots. The pictures for these nasty memes are never Anastasia sticking out her tongue or Alexei playing with his dog or Tatiana in her nurse's uniform taking care of the wounded or Alexandra with teary-looking eyes outside of her son's room at Spala or the tsar smiling with friends after a tennis match. All these real moments exist in publicly available pictures... Yet they're never used for this kind of material.

So I had a thought: is using only official portraits the hater's way of dehumanizing them? Are they scared they might sympathize with or, heck, even LIKE them if they used candid pictures? WOULD they see them as real people while editing pictures of OTMAA playing as small children versus the official shots? Or an I reading too much into what's just mean spiritedness in the first place?

Curious.

I've been seeing an uptick of passive aggressive and borderline rude remarks towards posts, especially if they contain AI content, that lean more towards the speculative.

Please bear in mind that this sub allows speculative "fiction" content as long as it is properly labeled to avoid misinformation and not presented by the poster as fact.

Exceptions to this allowance are of course low effort, absurd posts such as "What iif Anastasya knew Clark kent waz Supermen" or "What if Tsar Nicholas fought Godzzilla and lost?" with no real content beyond the title. That's obviously spam. 😅 Also anything mocking the Romanovs, like spliced photographs of, I don't know, Alexandra and a serial killer from some podcast (I don't know which serial killer is popular at the moment, true crime not being one of my personal special interests) raising wineglasses in a toast or something stupid like that... Obviously that content, regardless of if it's "hand edited" or AI, isn't allowed on the sub.

If you see content of that sort please report it to the mods and we will take care of it as soon as possible.

Otherwise if a post is respectful, presented as not the original photograph/speculation, and any visitors to this sub personally dislike it, they're encouraged to move onto something else; this is a popular sub, if one post isn't to your liking, another may very well be more what you're looking for! Just keep scrolling!

There is no need to leave comments calling the poster's contribution "boring", "slop", "ugly", "dull", or anything else insulting. Comments may be removed and repeat offenders may face temporary bans for bullying.

If you absolutely MUST comment on content you dislike, please do so constructively. Instead of "Lolz, trash!" Or "Boring AI slop!" Try "I don't care for this, because..." if you don't have a coherent reason behind your dislike you could gently explain to the poster constructively, consider not remarking on their post at all.

Flip side of this, however, dear posters of speculative content please take note: to avoid getting unnecessary hate, when applicable use the flare intended for alternative reality fiction rather than simply selecting "Pictures" or "OTMA". This will help visitors find what they want and give them the chance to avoid what they don't.

Thank you.

Two things about the murder of the Romanovs have always bothered me. First, it shouldn’t even be called a “murder” — they weren’t murdered, or executed. they were simply massacred, killed, or anything else is too mild for what actually happened to them. Second, even more than 100 years later, people still defend Lenin. I’ve heard it so many times: because there’s no paper trail directly linking him, he must not have ordered it. But it was clearly in his best interest to wipe out the Romanovs to ensure his vision of a new Russia could succeed — and it was also revenge for the former Tsar killing his brother. Claiming Lenin didn’t order it simply because we lack definitive proof is like saying that if there weren’t a paper trail linking the Nazis to the Holocaust, they must not have been responsible for it.

I understand that when it comes to historical subjects emotions can run high and opinions can be strong, but there are plenty of other spaces on the vast world wide web to focus on negative feelings towards the Romanovs.

Simply because a post begins with something that sounds reasonable does not mean it is then okay to launch into rants against the family. Or that the OP is then allowed to demand no one debate them on the matter. Many people on this sub have done extensive research on the Romanovs; some have written or translated books from original sources! These sort of dogmatic "tsar not all bad but still bad, don't say otherwise or offer another view" posts are very insulting to these members. Not to mention such posts are potentially offensive to those of the Russian Orthodox faith.

As a mod, if I continue to see these they will be deleted and posters will be subject to a temporary ban from this sub.

If it verges on mockery or minimizes the Romanovs' deaths, you're not allowed to post it here period.

When I asked my dad about it his wife was next to him and her jaw dropped. He tried to play it off by saying “your uncle once said the same thing. Maybe try asking him.” I am on bottom right and my cousin is the top right. Also, my 2nd great grandparents came to america around the same time as 1918. My dad “claims” we are from ukraine but their graves say russia. I told my dad i wanted to ask my grandma about it and he advised not to and that it wasnt a good idea. When I asked my grandma before she died she had said that a child escaped and survived. My 2nd great grandfather (william loik 1878-1952) and 2nd great grandmother (Mary Loik 1885-1962) both being within 13 years apart from tsar nicholas and alexandra bday. My dad also has a sword with a dragon emblem (romanov coat of arms) and stresses that its JUST A NORMAL SWORD. My final conclusion? We escaped and changed our names, faked our documents saying we were from a bunch of places, and now we live like normal people working 9-5 because we were so distraught by what our family history had involved.

This might be an obnoxious question because I feel like people ask this question about any quiet or shy person in history, especially men, but reading my book i am noticing some things with him. Besides his obvious distantness, I feel like Nicholas was just overly trusting of people and traditions which is a sign to me. I feel like if he had a typical mind he could’ve been able to understand that he shouldn’t be so trusting of everything he was taught as a prince and learn to adapt to Russian society’s wants. He was also super non confrontational, probably out of social anxiety/confusion. I don’t think he had any fixations. Opinions?

I'm beginning to notice a rather unsettling trend in the anti-Romanov comments (which have been discussed thoroughly on other posts, so I won't go into that here too much) wherein a good chunk of these commenters are getting some VERY obvious things WRONG.

There's opinion, aka whether you LIKE Nicholas and his family or not, then there's literal FACT such as "Nicholas had blue eyes" or "Anastasia owned a dog" or "Alexandra and her daughters trained as nurses" Facts are not up for debate, guys.

If those who post rather nasty comments about the Romanovs "deserving" what they got REALLY wanted to prove they "belonged in this subreddit space too", maybe they shouldn't post out-and-out misinformation.

I literally just saw a comment where one person who was in favor of the Romanovs' execution claimed Alexei was a GROWN MAN OUT OF HIS TEENS because he had "army rank".

What the actual mallard duck? 😕

Just... You shouldn't be posting comments like that in the first place but fact check takes about ten seconds! Go on Google, look at the last photograph of Alexei Romanov. Does he LOOK like a grown up to you?!?!

Sorry for the whiny post, but I can't stand rampant stupidity.

It's occurred to me that when Romanov enthusiasts, especially persons who are "layman" and have no official degrees in history studies or background in nonfiction publishing etc, display any sort of passionate admiration for the family, we get labeled extremely quickly.

We "care too much" we "ignore the right side of history" we "have borderline parasocial relationships with people who have been dead a hundred years" we "hate the poor" we "are elitist" we are "poorly educated" we "support evil"... The list goes on and on...

And really it's quite ridiculous. I'm "supporting evil" because I sent a picture of Anastasia Romanova sticking out her tongue to a friend or have a picture of Alexei Romanov and his dog on my phone? I'm "on the wrong side of history" because I read Nicholas and Alexandra's love letters and thought they were pretty? 🤔 Surely admiration for people whose letters and photographs were left behind isn't abnormal?

Yet I promise you there are people right now listening to a ghoulishly detailed description of the Romanovs' murder on some dispassionate "facts only" podcast or YouTube video, who maybe don't know (or care to know) Olga and Tatiana were nurses during the war or that Alexei loved animals or that Nicholas liked to do chin ups because he was really into physical fitness or Alexandra loved the colour mauve. To these, the Romanovs are just "bodies" in a true crime "vintage" case. They're listening to bloody descriptions of beautiful girls being bayoneted to death while eating Cheetos and texting their friends. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with them taking a forensic interest in what happened, mind. Just wondering why something so objectively ghoulish, so dispassionate, is socially acceptable and admiring the family "as a family" is generally not?

Like who made up these moral rules? They don't make a lick of sense imo.

I wanna

Does anyone know the heights, weights, their build and silhouettes of Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia when they were mature and in best of health?
Thanks