The Forgotten Tsar

Michael II and the five days that could have changed the world.

A thrilling and faithful retelling of one the key moments in the history of Russia and the world.

Michael Romanov, brother of Tsar Nicholas II, had in his hands the chance to save the dynasty after his brother abdicated.

One night in February 1917, when a popular uprising flooded the streets of Petrograd, Michael took refuge in a friend's house, where he remained until Russia's autocratic regime imploded. The State Duma formed a Provisional Government, the Soviet assembled and the tsar attempted to travel by train from his wartime headquarters to the palace where his family lived, as the First World War continued around them.

As the new Provisional Government waited on tenterhooks, that 40-hour long train journey would turn out to be the dynasty's downfall. The ensuing power vacuum led to the capture of the capital, and subsequently all of Russia, by a new totalitarian regime. Michael temporarily renounced his power on the condition of free elections in which the Russian people would, for the first time in history, be able to decide between monarchy or republic in a Constituent Assembly. But the Soviet would never allow that to happen.

Michael Romanov might have changed the course of Russian history, averting the meaningless bloodshed of the First World War, civil war and the terrible regimes of Lenin and Stalin – all portents of the tragic state of Russia today.