Russia's last tsar

Nicholas II had absolute power over his vast realm, yet he was helpless in the face of his son's hemophilia. Enter Rasputin, a wild-living Siberian "holy man" whose apparent ability to heal the heir won him the loyalty of Empress Alexandra-to the dismay of almost everyone else. The backdrop for this family melodrama was a nation under stress: military disasters, poverty, political unrest, and the spread of Bolshevism. Russia erupted in 1917, and the fierce revolution cost the lives of many-including Nicholas and his family.