The Romanov Family Tree, Explained

The Romanovs ruled Russia for three centuries, and this guide traces the final five generations of that dynasty — from the iron autocrat Nicholas I to his great-great-grandchildren, the five imperial children murdered at Yekaterinburg in 1918. It is a story of reform and reaction, of marriages that bound Russia to the royal houses of Europe, and of a sudden, violent end.

How to read the graph

Each circle is a person. Lines connect parents to children, and spouses to each other. Click a node to focus on it; drag to rearrange the layout.

First generation — Nicholas I, the iron tsar

Nicholas I came to the throne in 1825 by crushing the Decembrist revolt, and ruled as an uncompromising autocrat until the Crimean War broke his reign. In 1817 he married Charlotte of Prussia — who took the Russian name Alexandra Feodorovna — and together they founded the modern Romanov line that would rule until 1917.

Second generation — Alexander II, the Liberator

Alexander II earned the title 'Tsar Liberator' by emancipating Russia's serfs in 1861, the single greatest reform of the imperial era. With his wife Maria Alexandrovna of Hesse he raised the next emperor — but his reign ended in 1881 when a revolutionary's bomb killed him on a St Petersburg street.

Third generation — Alexander III, the Peacemaker

Recoiling from his father's assassination, Alexander III rolled back reforms and ruled with a heavy hand, yet kept Russia out of war for his entire reign. His marriage to Dagmar of Denmark — Maria Feodorovna — tied the Romanovs to the Danish and British crowns. He died of kidney disease at just 49, leaving the throne to an unprepared son.

Fourth generation — Nicholas II and his siblings

Nicholas II became the last emperor of Russia in 1894 and married Alix of Hesse — a granddaughter of Queen Victoria — the same year. His brothers and sisters scattered across the dynasty's fate: George died young of tuberculosis, Michael was offered and declined the throne in 1917, while Xenia and Olga both escaped the revolution and died in exile.

Fifth generation — the imperial children

Nicholas II and Alexandra had four daughters — Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia — and one long-awaited son, the Tsarevich Alexei, whose hemophilia drew the family into the orbit of Rasputin. On 17 July 1918, all five children, their parents, and their attendants were shot in a cellar at Yekaterinburg.

A century in dates

Generation by generation

From Nicholas I to the last Tsarevich

The direct male line of succession runs from Nicholas I through four emperors to the boy who would have been Alexei II — five generations of fathers and sons that ended in a single night.