OSHER 711 - The Last of the Romanovs: Russia on the Eve of the Revolution

This year marks the 130th anniversary of the enthronement of Nikolai II of Russia, the last Tsar in the Romanov dynasty, and the 120th anniversary of the birth of his only son Alexei, the would-be-tsar who was ill with hemophilia and later brutally murdered by the Bolsheviks. In this lecture, we will take a sweeping look at Russia at the time of the last of the Romanovs and on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution, from the royal family down to peasants, who still constituted the majority of the Russian population despite rapid industrialization and urbanization. The lecture is richly illustrated not only by photographic images but by rare documentary footage of the Romanov family and historical events of that period.