Contrary to what most think, 304 years of Romanov rule did not end with Tsar Nicholas II’s abdication on March 2, 1917. The last Emperor of All the Russias was in fact Nicholas’ younger brother, Mikhail Alexandrovich — Mikhail II. He was tsar for just one day.
Mikhail’s story is less told than Nicholas’, though his murder, a month before that of his brother, was equally tragic. His remains, never found, lie somewhere beneath a forest outside of Perm. A small chapel nearby commemorates his life and death, an unimposing memorial to a man who deplored autocracy and loved his country heart and soul. Thrust into a role he avoided all his life, Mikhail faced a decisive moment in Russia’s survival amidst the tumult of world war and revolution. His one day as emperor and the manifesto it created proved what history would not allow, namely the possibility of a constitutional monarchy chosen by the Russian people. That was a dangerous prospect for the Bolsheviks and likely one reason Mikhail became the first Romanov victim of the Red Terror.
Born November 22, 1878, Mikhail Alexandrovich Romanov was the youngest son of the future Tsar Alexander III and Maria Fyodorovna. At twenty, he was one of Europe’s most eligible bachelors. Blue-eyed, slim and standing well over six feet, he was an avid sportsman who followed a strict regimen of diet and exercise, drank little alcohol and seldom smoked. He preferred country living and disliked the pomp and ceremony of court. His brother-in-law, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, wrote of him, “he fascinated everybody by the wholehearted simplicity of his manner.” He was adept at piano, flute, balalaika and guitar and, as a scholar of military history, published numerous academic papers on the Napoleonic Wars.
Mikhail became next in line to the throne in 1899, following the death of his brother, the Tsarevich George Alexandrovich, during the reign of his eldest brother Nicholas II. As the dutiful heir, Mikhail seldom offered independent views or opinions. Observed his cousin, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, “Misha... hides behind the perception of him as a good-natured unremarkable boy.” However, Russian statesman Sergei Witte, who taught Mikhail political science and economics, thought he possessed “an unshakable conviction in his opinions…”
Mikhail hated his years as heir presumptive and celebrated the birth of Nicholas’ son Alexis in 1904. Again, his cousin Konstantin recorded in his diary, “Misha… is radiant with happiness at no longer being Heir.”
But Mikhail was closer to the throne than he knew. The tsarevich suffered from potentially fatal hemophilia, a closely guarded secret that profoundly affected Russia’s future.
In 1909 Mikhail began a scandalous affair with Nathalie Sheremetevskaya Wulfert, when he was a regimental officer in the elite Blue Cuirassiers and she the wife of one of his lieutenants. Such behavior was common for Romanovs, but Mikhail sought to marry the woman and a morganatic marriage to a divorcee was impossible for a man in line to the throne. An infuriated Nicholas forbid the union and “exiled” Mikhail to Oryol. Nathalie followed and gave birth to Mikhail’s son George in 1910, but the family shunned Mikhail’s lover and child. Hurt, he wrote, “I would like to live at peace with everyone but… I’ll give everything up… I have always to live contrary to my views, feelings, aspirations.”
In the fall of 1912, Mikhail defied his brother and eloped with the twice-divorced commoner. Nicholas banished Mikhail from Russia, froze his financial assets and placed him under personal guardianship, a move usually reserved for minors and maniacs.
Mikhail and his family went abroad, living in England on large sums of cash he had transferred to a Paris bank account prior to the elopement. When Germany declared war on Russia in August 1914, Mikhail petitioned his brother to return home. Patriotic fervor replaced family discord and Nicholas allowed Mikhail to return with his wife and son. He appointed Mikhail commander of a division of unruly Muslim horsemen from the Caucasus called the Caucasian Native Cavalry, nicknamed the Savage Division. Mikhail shared the depravations of war alongside his men and earned their admiration. Awarded Russia’s highest decoration for heroism, the Order of St. George, Mikhail “exposed his life to great danger,” and showed “personal bravery and courage.”
Wrote war correspondent Nikolai Breshko-Breshkovsky, “seeing the Grand Duke at their forward positions, the ranks were ready to follow him to a loyal death...” Concerned for Mikhail’s safety after the February 1917 revolution, some of these horsemen would later say, “Allah preserve him… why didn’t he come to us when it all happened; we would never have given him up.”
Saddened by the carnage he witnessed at the front, Mikhail wrote, “I feel greatly embittered towards… those… who hold power and allow all that horror to happen. If the question of war were decided by the people at large, I would not be so passionately averse to that great calamity… I … sometimes feel ashamed to face the people… for they might think that one is responsible, for one is placed so high and yet has failed to prevent all that from happening…”
in early 1917, plagued by chronic gastric ulcers and a bout with diphtheria, a physically depleted Mikhail requested a post near his home in Gatchina, just outside Petrograd (see cover photo). The tsar relented although the Empress Alexandra didn’t want her popular brother-in-law anywhere near the capital. She encouraged Nicholas to keep Mikhail at headquarters with him, far from the cabal of Romanov plotters, though Mikhail was steadfast.
General Alexander Brusilov praised Mikhail as “an absolutely honorable and upright man, taking no sides and lending himself to no intrigues…” But Petrograd was a hotbed of intrigues. When Nicholas appointed himself Supreme Commander of the Russian army he de facto left the government in the inept hands of the empress, who appointed incompetent ministers under the sinister influence of the depraved monk Rasputin. Members of the royal family, some of whom murdered Rasputin in December 1916, openly supported a palace coup if only for their own survival. Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich confronted Alexandra, “…you are willing to perish and your husband feels the same way, but what about us? ...You have no right to drag your relatives with you down a precipice.”
In private, Mikhail pleaded with his brother to send Alexandra to the Crimea and make constitutional reforms, but Nicholas ignored him. In late February 1917, dissension and protests increased with the shortages of food and fuel. Strikes and demonstrations grew violent as soldiers fraternized with angry crowds joined by sympathetic police and Cossacks.*
The President of the State Duma, Mikhail Rodzianko, encouraged Mikhail to declare himself regent and form a responsible cabinet. Mikhail declined and sent an urgent message to his brother at the front, suggesting he appoint ministers acceptable to the Duma and offering to do so on his behalf. Instead, Nicholas ordered regiments to Petrograd to quell the rebellion by force. Of this, Mikhail wrote in his diary, “Alas.”
On the evening of February 28, unable to get home to Gatchina due to roving revolutionary patrols, Mikhail went to the Winter Palace. There he found a thousand loyal troops ready to fire on approaching crowds and ordered them to stand down. He would not allow soldiers to fire on Russians from “the house of the Romanovs.”
On March 1, Mikhail met with Rodzianko and agreed that Nicholas should be forced to accept reforms. It was too late. The Duma Committee, intent on constitutional initiatives and a responsible ministry, formed a fragile coalition with the Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies, which demanded the abdication of the tsar and the creation of a republic. Together they declared a Provisional Government. Left with no choice, Nicholas abdicated for himself and his sickly son in favor of Mikhail.
The Soviet gained the advantage from this move. By abdicating on his son’s behalf, Nicholas weakened the Duma Committee’s position, for the legality of Nicholas’ action was questionable. The ascension of Alexis II, even with Mikhail as Regent, would have been lawful and might have held the Soviet in check, because they would have had to wage war against a boy. Nothing in the Fundamental Laws said that Nicholas could not abdicate for himself and his son simultaneously; no precedent existed to refute it. The laws did state, however, that the throne of Russia could not be vacant. Gray area though it was, that made Mikhail emperor.
Twelve representatives of the Provisional Government met with Mikhail early on the morning of March 3, 1917, his first and only day as tsar. The majority, sympathetic to Alexis and fearful of the burgeoning Soviet power, did not support a monarchy under Mikhail. They pointedly addressed him as “Your Highness,” but brought an abdication document for Mikhail II, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias to sign. If they were to convince him not to take the throne, they first had to acknowledge that it was his to refuse, because they also needed him to legitimize the Provisional Government by passing to them the power and authority that had vested in him by succession.
Despite the image he carefully nurtured, Mikhail wasn’t as “unremarkable” as some thought. He listened attentively to opposing arguments and said little, as was his custom. Alexander Kerensky, who was at the meeting and later would head the Provisional Government, wrote that Mikhail seemed “weary and impatient,” though others noted his quiet composure. Both Kerensky and Rodzianko told Mikhail they could not guarantee his life if he accepted the throne. It’s unlikely this concerned a man noted for exemplary courage. Still, Mikhail had the safety of his family to consider.
If Mikhail abdicated, the next in line could claim the throne, resolving nothing. Fighting to support his claim to the throne might incite the Soviet and lead to civil war. But brute force was not an option. Though many considered the loyal Savage Division as Mikhail’s “private army,” he refused to seize power by “bayonets and swords.” Mikhail ignored the abdication document and with the aid of two lawyers drafted a manifesto that in effect held the monarchy in suspension and bought time for the country to decide its own direction. He did not call himself emperor but acknowledged that his brother had “...given over to me the Imperial Throne of Russia…” He did not accept, but would “assume the Supreme Power only if such be the will of our great people, whose right it is to establish the form of government…” He asked citizens to obey the Provisional Government until the people could freely elect a Constituent Assembly to “express the people’s will.” Politically remarkable and legally ridiculous, the document was open to wide interpretation.
The Provisional Government, trying to appease the Soviet, published Nicholas’ abdication and Mikhail’s manifesto simultaneously. Given the ambiguous wording of the latter printed on the same page beneath blaring abdication headlines, the two documents were taken as meaning the same: the end of the Romanov dynasty. Nicholas, on learning of Mikhail’s manifesto, recorded in his diary, “It appears Misha has abdicated. His manifesto finishes with something about elections for a Constituent Assembly. God knows who advised him to sign something so vile!” With customary blindness, Nicholas failed to see that his actions had put Mikhail in an impossible position. But the semblance of order that followed convinced Mikhail he had made the right decision. The manifesto, he explained in private, would “calm the passions of the populace….” To a friend he confided, “I made a righteous decision… to avoid spilling blood.”
In the ensuing months, citizen Mikhail Romanov enjoyed limited freedom at Gatchina. Kerensky’s Provisional Government floundered as the Soviet, incited by Bolshevik agitators, grew stronger. Kerensky ordered Mikhail arrested, fearing a monarchist counter-revolution, but released him when the threat subsided. The Soviet wanted Mikhail’s head, but Kerensky “quite unexpectedly” issued him a travel permit for him to go to the Crimea.* Mikhail opted to leave after the elections, in mid-November 1917. In October, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government and he missed his chance.
The Bolsheviks held Mikhail under house arrest supervised by a young commissar, Vladimir Gushchik, who came to admire Mikhail’s “rare qualities” of “kindness, simplicity and honesty.” That friendship ended when the Bolsheviks exiled Mikhail to Perm in March 1918. Imprisoned until April, the local soviet released him and he took rooms in a hotel. He was free to walk about the town, but the situation grew sinister when the Cheka took over his supervision.
In June, a failed attempt by former monarchist officers to rescue Nicholas and his family in nearby Yekaterinburg convinced Cheka agents in Perm to rid themselves of their troublesome resident Romanov. Fear gripped them as anti-Bolshevik “Whites” threatened the city. The agents believed Mikhail “was the only figure around whom all the counter-revolutionary forces could unite.”
During the early morning hours of June 13, 1918, the Cheka abducted Mikhail and his secretary, Brian Johnson, under the guise of moving them to a more secure location. They were taken by carriage to the woods outside Perm, near Motovilikha, and told to get out. Believing they were meeting a train at an isolated crossing, they calmly emerged. An agent shot Johnson in the head and another wounded Mikhail. In the executioner’s own words, Mikhail’s last act on earth was to run forward with outstretched arms “asking to say goodbye to his secretary.” The second agent shot Mikhail again, point blank in the head. The agents stripped the bodies, buried them and burned the clothes. The Cheka spread the story that Mikhail had escaped. Whether the Bolshevik leadership in Moscow ordered the execution or not, they were pleased, though it was in their best interest politically to let the world think Mikhail was alive. Emboldened, a month later the Ural Regional Soviet dealt likewise with other Romanovs.
Today, the Romanov chapel stands near the spot Mikhail was believed murdered and each June celebrations in Perm honor his memory. In 2009, Russia officially “rehabilitated” Mikhail stating, “The analysis of the archive material shows that these individuals were subject to repression through arrest, exile and scrutiny by the Cheka without being charged of committing concrete class and social related crimes.”
Winston Churchill wrote of Nicholas II, “He was neither a great captain nor a great prince. He was only a true, simple man of average ability.” Perhaps the same could be said of Mikhail, though he had the good sense to know his limitations. His manifesto, its intent lost in the maelstrom of revolution, gave promise of great things that were not to be. Several people in the room with Mikhail the day he ceded to the people’s will considered his action honorable and unselfish, observing that he “acted with irreproachable tact and nobility.” Maybe he was simply avoiding the job he never wanted, but, given the chance to leave, he chose to stay and share in Russia’s hope for the future. Today he emerges from history as a man worthy of renewed admiration. RL
SOURCES AND ADDITIONAL READING
The quotations and historical information in this article were taken primarily from the following sources.
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