Talk: The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs

UCSB Professor Emeritus of History Tsuyoshi Hasegawa engages in a colloquy with Michigan State Professor Emeritus of History Lewis Siegelbaum on Professor Hasegawa’s new book, The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs. When Tsar Nicholas II fell from power in 1917, Imperial Russia faced a series of overlapping crises, from war to social unrest. Although Nicholas’s life is often described as tragic, it was not fate that doomed the Romanovs; it was poor leadership and a blinkered faith in autocracy. Based on a trove of new archival discoveries, The Last Tsar narrates how Nicholas’s resistance to reform doomed the monarchy. Encompassing the captivating personalities of the era, it untangles the struggles between the increasingly isolated Nicholas and Alexandra and the factions of scheming nobles, ruthless legislators, and pragmatic generals who sought to stabilize the restive Russian empire either with the Tsar or without him. By rejecting compromise, Nicholas undermined his supporters at crucial moments. His blunders cleared the way for all-out civil war and the eventual rise of the Soviet Union. Definitive and engrossing, The Last Tsar uncovers how Nicholas II stumbled into revolution, taking his family, the Romanov dynasty, and the whole Russian Empire down with him.

Tsuyoshi Hasegawa is professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of numerous books, including The February Revolution, Petrograd 1917: The End of the Tsarist Regime and the Birth of Dual Power (2017), Crime and Punishment in the Russian Revolution: Mob Justice and the Police in Petrograd (2017); Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan (2006), The Northern Territories Dispute and Russo‑Japanese Relations (1998), and The February Revolution: Petrograd, 1917 (1981). He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

Cosponsored by the Center for Cold War Studies and International History, Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, Department of Political Science, Department of History, and History Associates