Nicholas Romanov, fifty years of age ... the executioners were tired and probably hurried. They sat down at last beneath the pine trees to eat their lunch, letting fall the telltale eggshells.

The story itself, broadly familiar from popular treatments over the years, is well told by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa in “The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs.” ...

The Romanov family ruled Russia from 1613 to 1917 ... known as the Time of Troubles (1589 Ü 1613). The last tsar of the previous dynasty, a weak son of Ivan the Terrible, died in 1589.

The Romanov sisters were the most photographed princesses of their day, yet the world knew very little of the four girls in the official portraits. The daughters of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of ...